Proper nutrition is extremely important for strengthening the strength and health of a tourist. Food should provide energy to cover waste during the hike. Products should be designed for long-term storage, light weight and small volume, alike. as in most cases they are in the backpack of the tourist.

Food must have a certain calorie content, nutrients to restore the body cells that are worn out in the process of vital activity - proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, mineral salts and water. A lot of energy is spent on hikes, so the calorie content of the daily diet should be more than the norm for professions that are not associated with physical labor.

The main source of energy is foods containing mainly carbohydrates (cereals and flour products, vegetables, potatoes, sugar) and fats. However, for many other important aspects of life, for the restoration of worn out cells, the formation of hormones and enzymes, proteins are needed (meat, fish, eggs, cheese). If carbohydrates and fats are to a certain extent interchangeable and can be partially formed in the body from proteins, then the latter, being carriers of nitrogen, cannot be formed from either carbohydrates or fats. A tourist's daily diet should contain at least 1-1.5 g of protein per kilogram of body weight, the same amount of fat and 5 times more carbohydrates, i.e., with a weight of 70 kg, a tourist should consume 70-100 g of protein per day, 70-100 g of fat and 500-800 g of carbohydrates. From protein products, a tourist's diet should include milk proteins valuable for the body (powdered or condensed milk and cheese), from fats - sunflower, soybean and butter. During strenuous hikes and in winter, the diet should contain 150 g of protein, 150 g of fat, 600 g of carbohydrates, which gives about 4500 calories.

Food should also provide the tourist's body with vitamins and mineral salts.

With a varied diet, some vitamins are stored in the body in reserve, some of them are formed during the vital activity of intestinal bacteria. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is not stored and synthesized. The need for it must be satisfied on a daily basis. With significant physical exertion, the need for vitamin C increases. It can be coated with fresh vegetables, fruits, juices; there are a lot of vitamins C in lemon, sauerkraut, rose hips with pink and red color (they are also preserved in dried rose hips), needles of conifers (if necessary, infusions are prepared from them). On a hike, especially in winter, vitamin C can be taken in the form of glucose tablets with ascorbic acid to improve performance. You can also use multivitamin tablets containing several vitamins (necessarily with vitamins C and B). The daily amount of ascorbic acid on days of high physical activity is recommended to be increased to 300 mg. Vitamin B1 for each intake is not higher than 0.05 mg: it is no longer absorbed.

A varied range of foods provides the body with the necessary mineral salts. Some of them are found in drinking water.

There is a separate issue about table salt. The diet mainly satisfies the need for it (there is a lot of it in bread: in 100 g of rye bread - 1.5 g of salt, and in 100 g of white bread - 0.8 g), but due to ingrained habits, additional 12-15 grams per day. During a hike in the hot season and with increased sweating under conditions of great physical activity, a person loses a lot of salt with sweat. If you have to travel under these conditions, then the daily salt intake per person should be 30-35 g.

Drinking water is of paramount importance during the hike. All vital processes of the body proceed with the participation of water. A lack of it depletes the body faster and more strongly than a lack of food. One hiker on a hike requires approximately 3 liters of water per day (including the expense of cooking, in which some of the water evaporates).

Water may contain pathogens, so it must be boiled and drunk raw only from springs. For a halt by the river, you should be located upstream of the settlement, if possible on the opposite bank. Before boiling, polluted, especially marsh, water can be treated with several crystals of potassium permanganate: in this case, red flakes settle to the bottom, and the water brightens. You can also filter the water by pulling out a shallow hole on a low bank (preferably in the sand) so that water gets soaked into it. The first few portions of water must be bled out, after which it will be more or less pure. You should have a significant supply of boiled water in the camp. On a water trip, it is worth preparing a drink for the whole day in the morning, since it is not always possible to boil water during the day.

A novice tourist, especially in hot weather, feeling thirsty, often consumes an excess amount of water, but the more he drinks, the more he loses moisture and salt with sweat and the more he wants to drink. Therefore, it is advisable to drink your fill during your morning breakfast; about 0.5 liters of liquid for lunch; in the evening, after the end of the day's transition, you can drink plenty. It is better not to drink on the way, but if you are very thirsty, rinse your mouth and drink 1-2 sips of water. Acidified water quenches thirst.

The diet is essential during the hike. The daily routine should include two to three hot meals a day. You cannot eat dry food: this can lead to indigestion and stomach disease; food on the hike is easily contaminated, and eating it without boiling will lead to intestinal infections. In addition, with prolonged dry food, appetite is lost.

On a winter trip, when the daytime is short, as well as on a water trip, when packing and stowing things in the kayak takes a lot of time, it is advisable to have a hearty breakfast and dinner and a relatively light lunch, preferably with hot tea.

On a water journey, in the morning you can cook porridge or flour products, and in the afternoon, sometimes even on the go, eat them, seasoning with canned fish, tomato sauces. For such a trip, it is recommended to take a stock of canned vegetables.

On a ski trip during the day's rest they usually eat sugar and sandwiches with sausage, butter, lard.

On hiking trips, especially from the southern regions, it is useful in the daytime, in the hottest time, to have a big break and cook a normal lunch. In this case, lunch is up to 40% of the daily diet, breakfast - 35% and dinner - 25%. With two hot meals a day, breakfast and dinner differ little from a normal lunch, and 10-20% of the daily ration is allocated for the day's rest.

At long intervals in food intake and great physical activity, it is useful to eat 3 pieces of sugar or slices of chocolate or glucose tablets with vitamin C on the go. Sugar is quickly absorbed and, entering the bloodstream, replenishes energy reserves.

Does not increase performance, does not improve well-being and does not warm alcohol. It causes only temporary excitement, which is replaced by a breakdown. Impaired coordination of movements, even if it is outwardly and not noticeable, requires an increase in efforts, a greater expenditure of energy. In winter conditions, the apparent warming is explained by the increased blood flow to the surface of the body, which entails increased heat transfer and ultimately cools the body even more. Alcohol can be given with strong cooling, which must be quickly eliminated before putting the victim in a sleeping bag.

When preparing your trekking food, you can count on those that are easily obtainable locally. But to do this, you must first find out what exactly can be purchased. Often, ordinary products are scarce for the travel area (for example, potatoes in the lower Volga, in Altai). You cannot reduce the stock of food that the group takes with them or purchases locally, counting on berries and mushrooms, hunting and fishing trophies. In different years, seasons, the number of berries and mushrooms in the forests changes, and the amount of game also changes. And if berries and mushrooms do not significantly affect the choice of basic products, then the calculation for hunting and fishing will already affect the meat diet. In case of unsuccessful hunting and fishing, the group will find itself in a difficult situation.

When going on weekend hikes, it is best to calculate products based on a pre-compiled menu and the number of participants.

When preparing for a long hike, the calculation must be based on the average rate of food per day per person and then multiply this figure by the number of tourists and days. Naturally, when hiking in places where it is difficult to count on replenishment of food, the set should be somewhat different than when traveling in crowded areas. Based on the experience of long hikes in sparsely populated places, we can recommend approximately the following set of products per person per day:

In addition, it is useful to take 100 g of potato flour, 100-250 g of tomato sauce, 10-20 g of black pepper and 5-10 g of bay leaves per person for the entire trip. If they take flour on a hike, then for every day a group needs 5-10 g of dry yeast.

Of course, each group will adjust this set in its own way, but it should not be changed too much. It goes without saying that on a trip to the highlands, most cereals will be replaced with concentrates, on a ski trip the amount of cereals will be reduced and the amount of fats and meat will be increased, and in the water one canned fish and vegetables will be added to the list - half a can per day per person.

The list of groceries for a summer hike in the middle lane will change, as some of them can be purchased locally.

Our industry allows us to provide a wide and varied range of food on any trip, which, among other things, makes it possible to a certain extent to reduce the cost of food per day (for example, canned food such as meat pate, kidneys in tomato, etc., are cheaper, than meat stew).

Bread should be stocked for 3-5 days, a larger supply of fresh bread is heavy to carry and poorly preserved (especially in high humidity conditions). Only in winter, frozen bread is stored for a long time and, when thawed, restores its properties. Therefore, on winter hikes it is necessary to take it in small rolls, loaves, which are easier to cut with ice cream and then thaw.

On winter hikes and where you can count on buying fresh bread, you can alternate it with breadcrumbs. In other cases, a supply of crackers is taken for about 5 days, and then the group itself bakes bread from flour.

Crackers available for sale must be additionally dried before the hike. It is better to dry rusks by yourself from home-baked bread, since additives in baked bread, which improve its taste, make the rusks from it too hard. Crunchy breads, rye and dessert (made from white flour) have a much smaller volume than crackers of the same weight, and they hardly break during transportation. Crackers or crispbreads are useful in cases when, due to weather or time conditions, it is impossible to make full-fledged bread from flour. Crackers have to be packed especially carefully, since even if they get slightly wet, they quickly deteriorate and, as a rule, it is not possible to dry them on a hike.

From rusk crumbs, and, if necessary, from whole rusks, you can prepare rusk porridge, pouring it with hot sweet tea and butter. For short exits to a treeless area, when there is no point in taking a primus or a supply of firewood with you, crumb crumb mixed with condensed milk with the addition of cocoa serves to a certain extent as a substitute for ordinary food.

Flour does not require mandatory waterproof packaging: when it gets into water, the bag is covered from the inside with a thin layer of dough, the rest of the flour remains dry. For baking bread, it is helpful to have one or two large pans or a miracle oven. The metal support is attached to the aluminum mold with a wire, the mold is half filled with dough, and the whole structure is suspended above the fire at the level of the bucket lids.

Bake tortillas, pancakes or pancakes only with yeast. The soda stock should be used only in cases where the dough has not risen. On a hike, of course, dry yeast is more convenient, and if it is not available for sale, you can take ordinary pressed, finely chopped and sun-dried. Protected from water by tight packing, such yeast persists for a long time. A tablespoon of dry yeast is poured into a quarter of a cup of warm water, a tablespoon of granulated sugar is added, and all this is placed in a warm place by the fire. After 1-2 hours, a characteristic foam appears in the mug, and the yeast is ready to use.

After dinner, the dough is kneaded in warm water (about one part of water for four parts of flour) and, wrapped in oilcloth or plastic, is left until morning. In the morning, bread is baked simultaneously with the preparation of breakfast. If the group is large, then one shift on duty bakes bread, and the other prepares breakfast. Bread baking should be stopped when breakfast is finished. On a water trip, a new portion of dough is usually kneaded into the same dish, and the remaining dough (sourdough) is used instead of yeast. Dry yeast is used only when the dough does not fit.

If necessary, coolly kneaded cakes can be put on clean, well-heated pans and oven without oil, after sprinkling the pan with flour, the flour should darken, but not burn. The thickness of the flat cake in its raw form is 1-2 cm. Before putting the flat cake in the pan, put it for a short time near the fire so that the dough rises. The tortilla will be ready if the dough does not stick to the latter when it is punctured with a thin twig.

The flour can be used for primitive soups by frying it in butter with onions until browning for about 5 minutes. This "concentrate" is very popular among Siberian hunters. It lasts a long time, and 15 minutes is enough to fill the soup with it.

During the hike, meat is mainly consumed in the form of canned food, although in populated areas you can sometimes count on buying fresh meat, in taiga regions - for hunting. In addition to canned meat, which is most often used on hikes, there are other canned meat products that are cheaper. Meat pâté is comparatively cheap and is successfully prepared with pasta ("navy-style macaroni"), beef stroganoff - with dried potatoes slightly boiled and toasted in a pan. Kidneys and liver are used for cereals and soups. Minced sausage and liver pate are good for short lunch breaks in the middle and at the end of the hike.

If you cook canned meat for a long time, they creep into small fibers, lose their taste and aroma. Therefore, it is better to lay them immediately before meals, and to the second courses - directly in bowls, preheating.

Canned fish are mainly used for lunch on a short break during a water trip, when they are added to pre-cooked porridge or pasta, so preference should be given to canned food in tomato sauce rather than oil. You should not take cans of fish on a hike that bear the inscription: "The product is not subject to long-term storage" (common sprat, etc.).

Canned food should be in tin cans: glass cans are much heavier and less durable - they break when dropped, and burst in the cold. If for a winter hike it is possible to purchase only canned food in glass jars, then the Siberian method of storage can be recommended: freeze the contents of the jar in bowls and carry such circles with you, without bringing it into the heat. Tin cans should not be swollen (a sign of canned food spoilage). True, the jar can be swollen both from the fact that it is dented on the sides, and as a result of low atmospheric pressure (in the highlands). Tin cans lubricated with grease can be stored for up to six months; cans with labels, not oiled abundantly, can be stored even for several years. Usually, on a camping trip, the labels from the cans fly off, and the idea of ​​their contents is lost. Therefore, tourists should be aware that there are two multi-digit numbers on the bottoms of the cans: the number with the letter in front is assigned to a certain type of canned food. So, for canned fish, the letter "P" is in front of the numbers, for vegetables - "K", for meat and dairy products - "M". If you make a list of canned food and write down the numbers indicated on the cans, then in the future you will not have to guess about their contents.

Fresh meat can be kept for a while by cutting out the bones, sprinkling with salt and overlapping with nettle or bird cherry leaves. Meat can be preserved by deeply roasting small pieces, placing them in a bowl and pouring hot melted beef or lamb lard (Central Asian kourma). In this case, only the top layer deteriorates, if it is not additionally salted.

Fresh meat can also be smoked by hanging finely chopped salted lean cuts over a smoky fire. The closer the meat is suspended to the fire, the faster it smokes, the tastier it is, but also the faster it spoils (hot smoking). The colder the smoke hits the meat, the slower the smoking process takes place, the harder the product will be and the longer it will last (cold smoking). In the hot sun, you can prepare dried fish, jerky, if only it is cut into small strips and rubbed with salt or soaked in saline solution.

The meat is fried with salted, small pieces. For greater softness, before the end of frying, you can pour the meat with a small portion of water or broth and, covering the pan with a lid, simmer a little.

When roasting meat directly on the fire, the pieces strung on a stick are first brought to the fire so that the surface of the meat is baked. The duration of browning is 10-15 minutes or more, depending on the heat and the thickness of the piece. The meat is salted at the end, but the Nenets prefer to pre-soak the whole piece in a saline solution, sometimes with cranberries, wild garlic and wild rosemary.

After frying meat, a frying pan is often used for quick preparation of gravy, by frying a tablespoon of flour with onions and butter on it, and then adding broth, milk and just salt water. Mustard and pepper also do not hurt.

Fresh fish spoils quickly. The first sign of spoilage is a change in the color of the gills. Hot smoked fish is tasty, but does not withstand storage at all. Cold smoked fish is denser and has a longer shelf life. The fish is first cleaned of scales, holding by the tail and scraping with a knife from oneself, then gutted. Before frying, the fish is rubbed with salt (thicker pieces are cut lengthwise) and rolled in flour or bread crumbs. Small fish can be fried by sticking a stick through the mouth to the tail. Scales from such fish are removed after frying together with the skin on one side, otherwise the fish will fall apart.

It has become a practice to cook baked-smoked fish, when it is hung inside a metal box above a fire. The lid of the box is sealed with clay. You can put small pieces of non-resinous wood in the scent box.

Semi-smoked sausage at normal air temperature lasts for a long time. To prevent the surface of the sausage from becoming moldy, it must be greased. It is not recommended to take unstable cooked sausages (tea, amateur, etc.) on a hike. In urgent need, cooked sausages that have lasted 1 -3 hours in a hot Russian stove or in the oven, can be stored up to a week, of course, in not too hot weather.

Hunting in the conditions of a tourist campaign is mainly aimed at upland and waterfowl. The bird must first be plucked, then scorched and only after that gutted.

Ghee (butter should not be taken: it quickly deteriorates, and you still have to reheat it) must be packed in metal cans and soldered. Unstable flat aluminum pots are not suitable for storage.

Vegetable oil is commonly used for toasting fish and baking bread. It must be poured into flasks or cans, which must be hermetically sealed.

Condensed milk can be replaced with dry milk (packaged 250-300 g) or cream. The packaging must be completely metal (some of the cans are produced with metal lids, but with cardboard walls covered with staniol).

Cheese spoils in the cold, and it is hardly advisable to take it on a ski trip. In winter, you can take processed cheese with you.

Egg powder is mainly used for the preparation of flour products (noodles, dumplings) when some of the flour or semolina gets wet.

The set of them, of course, can be widely varied depending on the tastes of the group. However, it should be borne in mind that rice and buckwheat are cooked for too long, that it is quite easy to cook the horns (it is the horns that should be taken with you, since the pasta is inconvenient during transportation, and the noodles and noodles crumble). A small supply of semolina is intended for cases when, due to weather conditions, cooking time is limited. Good peas (concentrate). Concentrates of cereals are advisable only when traveling in high-mountainous areas, in treeless areas, where the preparation of cereals is associated with great difficulties. In such cases, you need to focus on concentrates, where sugar and milk serve as a binding element, and not fats. Before purchasing concentrates from the store, it is good to try them. Millet groats should be washed and dried before the trip, buckwheat - fried and sifted.

Unlike conventional methods of cooking food, in field conditions it is more profitable to put cereals in boiling water - it is difficult to regulate the fire on a fire, and if the water boils in advance, this will allow less to keep the porridge over the fire, more chances that it will not burn. All cereals are salted (about a tablespoon for two half-liter mugs, and for sweet cereals - half the norm).

The rate of filling may vary depending on whether a thick porridge is going to be boiled or a liquid one. Our industry produces flour products (noodles, noodles, horns) with the addition of tomato. They taste good and keep well.

It is recommended to bring dry vegetables with you, unless the group hopes to get fresh ones along the way. They do not take up much space, weigh relatively little and do not require cleaning and processing time. Dry vegetables must first be soaked in water for 1-2 hours (it is even better to soak overnight for cooking in the morning). Dry potato soups are especially good for seasoning fish soup or for boiling game. In the latter case, dry potatoes should be placed about an hour after the start of boiling the game. It is also recommended to take dry borscht and dry cabbage soup in the form of ready-made mixtures, and fresh onions and garlic from vegetables.

Sugar is recommended to be taken in the form of sand. It is more convenient for transportation, does not tear the package. Sugar must be in a waterproof container. Damp sugar sometimes has to be cooked with milk (lean sugar). Of the candies, the best lollipops are in metal cans. Sawed sugar is recommended on skiing trips, where it is taken for rejuvenation on the way. Ascorbic acid glucose tablets are also good for this purpose.

Tea, coffee, cocoa should be in cans. It is useful to first remove the pack enclosed in it from the box, wash and dry the box and then put the contents in it without paper packaging.In this case, much more will fit there and every third pack can be purchased without a metal box. Cardboard boxes of coffee or cocoa with metal bottoms are not suitable for long hikes. It is best to glue the metal boxes along the seam of the lid with adhesive plaster, after removing the paper sticker first, otherwise all the waterproofing will be useless.

The salt should be packed in waterproof bags, preferably from oilcloth. The seam on the bag should be folded so that moisture does not penetrate inside. Even in waterproof bags, salt quickly damp, and its weight increases dramatically when the bag is opened in the morning or in the evening during dew. If 80% starch is added to the salt, wetting can be avoided to a certain extent.

Tomato sauce, tomato is sometimes sold in tin packaging; it is convenient to fill them with them in plastic flasks - when you press on the flask, the tomato is simply squeezed out of it. When pouring sauce into a jar, you should try to fill it to the very top, otherwise mold will appear.

At the very beginning of the hike, all the products must be sorted out and put into bags. It is not worth doing this earlier, since during the approach to the beginning of the route, backpacks are often moved, the packaging deteriorates, and everything has to be repacked. With a few exceptions, food must be packaged to protect it from water. For the hiker-walker, it is usually sufficient to have one large but durable waterproof liner in the backpack. Then the food can be put into the backpack simply in cloth bags. When hiking in kayaks, it is recommended to pack food in separate waterproof bags, since it is still not possible to put the entire backpack in the bow or stern of the kayak. Apparently, the group will decide on the packaging issue based on its own capabilities, but if commercially available polyethylene bags are used, each of them should be put into a smaller cloth bag so that the polyethylene does not experience a large load.

Products must be put in bags of 1-2 kg; so it is easier to put them in a backpack, kayak and take into account the consumption. In order not to waste * time on finding the right products, you need to make inscriptions or numbers on the bags. Convenient for packing are bags made of perforated paper (PC-4 film) - durable, lightweight, transparent plastic (it is used to make packaging for individual bags). True, such a film ages quickly, but it will last one trip. The film has an unpleasant odor, therefore, the bags must be thoroughly washed with soap before use. All disadvantages are compensated for by lightness and cheapness. Bags for sugar, salt, which are used every day, are best made from oilcloth.

It is necessary to distribute products so that each tourist or kayak, the crew of a boat, a raft has a supply of products that he can use separately; so, bread should be distributed to all tourists. It is impossible for one tourist to have all the cereal or all the sugar: in the event of an accident or the loss of a backpack, a group may lose these products.

When traveling on a kayak, a number of products can be packaged in a more primitive way: for example, individual packs of cookies, crackers are wrapped in tracing paper or clean paper, dipped in paraffin, and then placed deep into the bow or stern of the kayak, where the packaging will not be subject to constant friction.

Tinned copper dishes and galvanized pails are not suitable for cooking and storing food. Enamel buckets and pots are not suitable either: they are heavy, and even with uneven heating on the fire, small pieces of enamel bounce off. Convenient for this purpose are aluminum buckets with lids or aluminum pans. Just keep in mind that with a hot fire flame, the part of the wall that is above the liquid level loses its strength. Many tourists make homemade oval-shaped buckets that fit into one another. Large cans are also often used. Such a can withstands a long hike very well. Just do not take almost the same cans used for packing egg powder, dry vegetables: they are not soldered and will flow.

In high-altitude hikes, pots with hermetically sealed lids (autoclaves) are used, which reduce the cooking time under reduced pressure. However, they are much heavier, and the duration of cooking can be reduced by rational selection of food products and concentrates. Under the same conditions, special primus designed for gasoline are used. On winter hikes, food is sometimes cooked on a portable wood-burning stove. Finally, for short-term exits to treeless areas, various crystalline compounds with alcohols are good; the most famous tablets are "Hexa", which help to make a fire, warm water relatively quickly and cook food.

It must be borne in mind that when cooking on a stove, stove or dry alcohol, water is required 2 -3 times less.

Bogdanov Ya.M. and Krakovyak G.M. Hygiene. FiS, 1961. Lukyanov VS On the preservation of health and working capacity.

Medgiz, 1955.

Verzilin N. In the footsteps of Robinson. Detgiz, 1956. Vasiliev B. P. Mushrooms. Selkhozgiz, 1959.