Dehydrated foods taste bad
In preparing for my Everest climb, one of the few things I still need to arrange is to have some food to take with me. While most of the food along the expedition is included, once we get to the high camps we have to rely on food we brought and carried up ourselves. Now, the problem with normal food is that a few days worth of it in your backpack can easily be a lot of weight. So one approach is to buy food that is dehydrated, which weighs very little, and you just add boiling water to a package and the contents are ready. Nice solution! The problem with that is it all tastes like crap!
But then again, everything tastes like crap when you’re at altitude. And I have only ever tried dehydrated meals at altitude. In fact, I thought they taste so bad that on my last trip in the Himalayas I could not even make myself open a package and try it. Mentally I was just so disgusted with the prepared dehydrated meal that would be the result that I was getting sick just thinking of it. So I just left them and snacked on other things instead.
In hoping to eliminate this mental block I thought I would prepare some dehydrated meals here at home, where they would come out better, and give them a try. The guy in the mountain store said this should be done, you should try eating them at home to see what you like and what you don’t. And it makes sense, because here you can boil water at 100 degrees (or close to is), whereas in the high camps on Everest you’re lucky if your water boils to 70 degrees. So the meals can be prepared better here.
Anyways, I just tried that with this one meal, and I had to throw half of it out. It was horrible. And while it sucks, I know I’m not alone. I’ve met at least one other accomplished climber who never touches dehy meals. It takes a bit more creativity and planning and thought to put stuff together, but it’s possible. I’m still working out what the best things are, it’s one of the things that I am finding is hardest to learn from one expedition to the next. I may not get it right for this trip but I’ll be closer than last trip. Wish me luck!
