I have been reading multiple books about long hikes and find the info interesting. So I’m wondering what the highest calorie food you can eat straight is that has the most calories per gram.
Things like almond butter, peanut butter, chocolate, peanuts and sunflower seeds are at about 6 calories/gram. Those can be eaten straight.
Obviously pure fats should be at 9 calories per gram, but can you eat those straight? I thought if you drank pure oil or ate pure lard it could make you sick.
I guess what I’m asking is, is there a form of fat (either solid or liquid at room temp) that can be eaten straight that is taken by backpackers on long trips and eaten straight (not mixed in with pasta, but just eaten by itself)?
I’ve heard that people in Antarctica sometimes add sticks of butter to their daily diet (you need a LOT of calories to stay warm in that environment). Yes, you can eat straight butter, or a lot of other varieties of fat. Until your system got used to it you probably wouldn’t want to eat a lot at a time.
Both those, by the way, are in the neighborhood of 6 calories per gram. A variety of nuts and seeds would be a smart item to pack in the situation you describe.
Some backpackers carry single-serving olive oil packets, about 8.5 calories per gram. It’s up to you as to whether or not that’s palatable. Probably also a bit of a mess to pack the empties out with you.
I’ve heard about the Tibetan butter tea - tea laced with yak butter - that non-Tibetans can’t stand but natives love. They, too need something that is calorie-dense at extreme altitudes.
Applesauce keeps fairly well at room temperature, as long as it’s in an unopened container, and some people who do keto diets, especially for medical purposes, hide oil in it to increase their fat intake. Apparently you can do close to 50% applesauce and 50% oil without the flavor or texture changing all that much, if you use a light, flavorless oil.
When my daughter was in Namibia, they are butter sandwiches: a stick of butter between two slices of bread. It was a regular lunch for many people there.
That’s a possibility, though you’d need to keep it from melting. Keeping it in water could do it.
Yeah but can you just drink olive oil straight, or will it make you sick? Also thats a terrible price, you can buy a container or olive oil for far less.
There are lots of different fats out there. Vegetable oil, canola oil, coconut oil, butter, lard, olive oil, sunflower oil, etc.
Can ‘any’ of them be eaten straight or do they all need to be mixed with other things like sandwiches, tea, rice, pasta, applesauce, etc to prevent nausea and diarrhea?
Apparently butter only has 7 calories per gram. I would’ve assumed it had 9. Thats only a little more than chocolate or peanut butter.
Its probably splitting hairs at this point. A pound of chocolate or peanut butter has almost 3000 calories while a pound of olive oil has about 4000. Its not a huge different at that point I would assume.
I haven’t researched the question but, from my experience as a tourist on the Pacific Crest Trail and talking to people who had, peanut butter was the winner. And I assume that that’s down to more than just calories per weight, but also price, availability, packing efficiency, etc.
They throw it into everything. I saw a guy mix up a package of ramen soup at a 1:1 ratio soup to peanut butter. When you’re hungry, you don’t care and peanut butter is the answer to what you’re needing.
Sure you can eat fat. If you aren’t used to it, and you eat a lot of it, you might get some diarrhea. I’ve never heard of nausea from eating fat.
But I assume you are packing some food other than pure fat. And my guess is you can build up to a diet that’s mostly fat, if all your digestive parts work. Beef tallow and lard keep fine at room temp for long enough for a hike. Butter and oil do, too, they’d just be messy. I know a woman who eats a spoonful of coconut oil (solid at room temp) out of a jar every day. And I confess, I might have eaten a butter straight up once or twice. I can assure you it didn’t make me nauseated.
Yeah, I’ve heard peanut butter, tortillas, chocolate, jerky, energy bars, etc are big things on the trails.
I could see why peanut butter would be the winner for the reasons you said (its cheap, its available everywhere, it tastes good by itself, it mixes well with other stuff, etc).
Peanut butter is 167 calories per ounce, so dense. One thing to note is that for human beings, it’s rarely the energy we run out of when we starve. It’s usually running out of protein. So protein containing energy-dense foods are probably a better choice for this exercise than pure butter or vegetable oil, which is all calories but no protein or other essential nutrients.
Milk powder is 141 calories per ounce and is more or less a nutritionally complete food, in that it has most of the vitamins and minerals, as well as protein and energy, to keep you alive almost indefinitely. (might want to take a multivitamin to be on the safe side)
After following a couple of the links provided in this thread, it seems like macadamia nuts might claim the prize. One of the links had them at over 700 kcals per 100g, and the other link put them at over 800.
That’s higher than pecans, almonds cashews, peanuts, or pistachios — but I’d rather snack on any of those last three.
When I’m canoeing or rafting, my standard snack is Peanut M&M’s, which only have about 550 kcals per 100g. But they sure taste good when you’re tired and wet.
That gives me a flashback to my life in Mozambique - through a security company, we had 24-hour/day armed guards at our house. Technically we had no responsibility for the guards other than to pay the company, but of course the people who came as guards were regulars and of course we wanted to connect with them as fellow humans.
So along with providing everything they needed for lots of sugary hot tea whenever they wanted (lots of sugar, tea, water, and a hot plate), twice a day we gave the guards on duty snack plates. Based on our understanding of what would be appreciated/consumed, each snack plate included three pieces of bread covered with ridiculously huge amounts of butter. We’d been told that the high levels of fat would be appreciated.
Yes, you can drink it straight. I think the getting sick part might be at least a little bit psychological, although there is some need to let your system adjust to a high intake of fat/oil. And for people with certain medical conditions, like gall bladder problems, it could be a problem/make them sick.
But a very physically active person burning 4000 or more calories a day might well need something like that.
Yes, but the single-serve packets are portion-controlled, don’t require you to keep an open container with the possibility of a spill, and don’t require refrigeration. If you’re backpacking or doing anything that requires you take haul your gear on your back (or on a dogsled or other small conveyance) then those things start to take on a greater importance. Weight can also be a factor - 7 or 8 single-serve packets weigh significantly less than a large bottle of olive oil.
Yes, you can eat all of those straight… after an initial period of adjustment because suddenly dumping large quantities of anything you’re not accustomed to eating into your system can cause digestive upset and/or diarrhea. Pretty sure the nausea is, as I noted, partly psychological. When I was a kid I could eat solid chunks of butter with no problem whatsoever (and back then I was active enough/growing fast enough to get away with it). Arctic people eat blubber, which is basically solid animal fat (maybe a bit of skin attached for flavor).
There’s no reason you can’t drink olive oil straight, people do… other than worries about adding a lot of calories to your system. And, as I noted, suddenly dumping a lot of it on your system can have side effects - but if you’re constipated that might be a plus, actually. As noted, there are people who eat “butter sandwiches”, where the bread seems to be acting more as a convenient butter holder than anything else. If you’re able to burn off those calories it shouldn’t cause problems for you.
Pure fat has 9. Butter isn’t pure fat, that’s why it has some flavor. Butter is about 80% fat, the rest being water and milk solids, with some very small amounts of protein, calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin A and E. Not dietary significant amounts, but the protein content is why people allergic to milk can’t/shouldn’t consume any butter at all. The process of making ghee removes water, resulting in something that is about 99% fats/oils and about 9 calories per gram.
…and that’s why chocolate bars are also a favorite in Antarctica, the Iditorod, mountain climbing, etc.
Some AT thru hikers bring olive oil at 250 cal/oz, basically they will add it to everything, sometimes take it straight in small amounts.
Also
Grain Alcohol (Everyclear) is 190 Cal/oz IIRC, and sometimes carried for a ultralight night cap, and yes taken straight, though usually with a water chaser (though some carry some less proof spirits and even wine).
Both can also be automotive fuels with little to no modification so I don’t think you are going to best them.