Usually, your ideal breakfast is rather black coffee, toast with butter and jams, or even fresh orange juice?
On the weekend, do you liven up and add a little cheese, scrambled eggs (ideally from your hens), or even a little charcuterie?
Very well… Except that, of course, when hiking, bushcrafting or trekking, it’s difficult to bring your coffee maker and your jars of homemade jams!
Unless you are a fan of bush cooking.
However, breakfast being one of the most important meals of the day, it is essential to eat healthily, in a balanced way and with sufficient nutritional intake.
While still having fun… especially if you spent the night outside in a bivouac!
In short, let’s see how breakfast on a hike:
The importance of breakfast while hiking
20, 25, 30 km per day…? Whatever distance you plan to travel you will have to start the day on the right foot.
Imagine!…
You wake up. It’s been a chilly night and you really need breakfast to warm you up, recharge your batteries and start the morning in good shape.
Because this breakfast (which, let’s remember, comes at the right time to break a night of fasting) is the fuel of the day.
Indeed, this meal must be substantial enough to provide you with the minerals and vitamins necessary for the physical effort that awaits you.
Without forgetting carbohydrates (to be preferred), proteins and lipids (to be limited).
In short, breakfast is the first energy, nutritional and caloric intake of the day.
However, it should not weigh on your stomach all morning either! And above all weigh in your bag (not true, the ultra-light walkers ?).
So a nutritious breakfast but light in weight and feeling of rigour.
And in calories, what does it give? Difficult to make an average knowing that the number of calories expended depends on your sex, and your morphology but also on the distance to be covered, the difference in altitude, and the climatic conditions… But count between 2000 and 4000 kcal expended.
The nutritional intake of breakfast should therefore ideally be between 300 and 700 kcal.
How do you get there without feeling heavy?
The perfect ingredients for a hiking breakfast
Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of the ingredients of a balanced and very efficient “nutritionally” breakfast:
- For the hot drink: freeze-dried coffee (or soluble) in individual sachets (288 Kcal/100 g) or green tea (5 Kcal/100g), with (or not) added fructose sugar
- Rolled oats (367 Kcal/100 g)
- Muesli and cereal mix (oats, rice flakes, rye, barley, etc.) with no added sugar (about 400 Kcal/100 g)
- Cereal bar (350 to 400 Kcal/100 g)
- Chocolate in squares or powder (500 Kcal/100 g)
- Dried fruits (apple, banana, apricot, figs, grapes, goji berries, cranberries, etc.) (between 250 and 320 Kcal/100 g) or nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, etc.) (about 600 Kcal/100 g )
- Pumpkin, sesame, sunflower seeds… (50 Kcal/100 g)
- Unsweetened condensed animal milk (122 Kcal/100 g) or sweetened (323 Kcal/100 g) or powdered (459 kcal/100 g) or powdered vegetable drink (almond, hazelnut, rice, soy, coconut, etc.) (between 44 and 176 Kcal/100 g depending on the milk)
- Cheese (on average 338 Kcal/100 g)
- Honey (304 Kcal/100g)
- Wholemeal bread (240 Kcal/100 g)
- Gingerbread (326 Kcal/100 g)
- Fruit jellies (336 Kcal/100 g)
- Salt (against dehydration)
- Spices like cinnamon or vanilla powder
The goal for a satisfying breakfast is to mix these ingredients together to achieve your calorie total for your needs.
For example, a breakfast consisting of 40 g of powdered milk, 80 g of muesli with the addition of dried fruit, nuts, chocolate and a dose of coffee is correct. For more intake and indulgence, add honey, fructose, a sachet of compote… For weight in the bag of approximately 150 g.
These breakfasts can be eaten hot or cold, mixed with water.
How to store your breakfasts?
To transport these breakfasts prepared upstream, simply package them in bags.
There are different kinds:
- Ziplock bags
- Recycled and reusable bags
- Reused dried fruit bags
Depending on the size of the sachets, the breakfasts will be prepared for one, two or three days.
Some recipe ideas
- Chocolate chips + mix of cereals and dried fruits + bannick bread
- Rolled oats + dried apples + cinnamon (hot or cold in a little water)
- Muesli with dried fruits + powdered almond drink + pumpkin seeds (hot or cold mixed in a little water)
- Breakfast cream is composed of ground almonds to which different “creams” of brown rice, oats, barley and a little fructose are added. Despite their name of “creams”, these products have more the consistency of flour (hot or cold in a little water)
- Wheat semolina + sweetened condensed milk + chocolate powder
- Muesli + dried fruits like goji berries + applesauce
- Rolled oats + milk powder + almonds + raisins + dried bananas
- Rolled oats + chia seeds + coconut sugar + raisins + powdered vegetable drink (hot or cold in water)
- Rolled oats + almond powder + cocoa powder + hazelnuts + raisins + powdered milk + brown sugar
- Eggs with bacon or bacon (admittedly, we are more on the bushcraft only on autonomy but, on a wood fire, it’s still the best!)
And the ready-made recipes, what do we think?
Those accustomed to self-guided hiking know the ready-made alternatives offered in specialist shops.
All have their advantages and disadvantages:
- the freeze-dried breakfast: It is perfectly balanced nutritionally speaking, compact and light and easy to prepare. Two drawbacks are all the same: a higher price than a self-prepared breakfast and waste (the bag that must be thrown away and is not reusable)!
- Powdered meals packaged in sachets, to be diluted in hot or cold water (type Bertrand, Feed, Yfood, etc.).
- Survival rations, such as biscuits or complete, which cover a day, from breakfast to the evening meal (everything is provided in the kit, including cutlery).
Personally, I’ve used it quite a bit for breakfast, especially powdered meals (Bertrand): very nutritious, easy to prepare, and not bad in taste… only downside: a bit of a hassle to mix and it’s better to have a water point to clean the bowl afterwards.
