Mediterranean Diet Friendly Hiking & Camping Foods

Trying to eat a healthy diet that’s sort of Mediterranean Diet compliant while hiking and camping has been challenging.  Prior to changing my Way Of Eating (“WOE”) I’d throw Peanut Butter M&M’s and some Honey Roasted Peanuts together and call it “Trail Mix.”  I’d also pack along Fig Newtons, Doritos, a Snickers (for that blood sugar while hiking boost) and made some pretty impressive beef based camping dinners.  Which ultimately helped bring me to a point where things needed to change. Here is a list of some Mediterranean Diet friendly Hiking and Camping foods that I’ve experimented with recently that don’t leave me filling guilty, but do leave me satisfied.

1.  TRAIL MIX is now lightly salted mixed nuts instead of the concoction mentioned above.  They’re shelf stable, work on a trail or in a campsite, and are packed with good fats and protein.  At first I didn’t like this change, because compared to the candied stuff I was eating this was bland, but the more I embraced a new diet the more my taste buds picked up on the flavors of various nuts.  This is easy and even better there’s a tendency to accidentally crush foods taken on adventures.  Nuts don’t crush easy, so they stay an intact snack.
2. GUACAMOLE & BANANA CHIPS replaced my Doritos and whatnot.  I’m able to easily find unsweetened dehydrated banana “chips” in my local grocery stores.  After trying some plantain chips with guacamole awhile back and liking it, I gave the banana chips a try.  Amazingly these flavors go well together.  I’m amused using one fruit as a scoop to eat the other fruit, since both bananas and avocados are fruits.  This only works while hiking if I buy the individual small packages of guacamole (I get them at Sam’s Club) so there’s no major mess.  Back at camp I can break open a much larger thing of guacamole and have at it.   See my other ramblings about Mediterranean Diet Chips here.
3. MANDARIN ORANGES are a go to when adventuring now.  They replace what was previously a Snickers bar or similar on my hikes.  They are their own biodegradable wrapper, they are a small natural sugar boost, some fiber and other goodness.  Mostly they work because they peel easily enough and can be done while in motion hiking.
4. MINESTRONE SOUP is something I like that has very little about it that I believe to be non compliant with the diet.  I’ve been taking the Progresso brand Minestrone along with me recently to campsites.  While I prefer cooking a fresh meal, there are just those days that I’m too wiped out to cook or the weather demands doing something quick and hiding in the tent.  This is one of my solutions in those moments.
5. BABY CARROTS are by themselves a favorite snack.  I toss them in a mason jar, add a little water so they stay fresh seeming, close the jar, toss in the portable cooler and they’re usually good for an entire trip.  If nothing else, they’re so filling that they help cut down on the desire for worse things that I could be eating.  The mason jar aspect of this is because they close tight and nothing weird leaks in, even in those moments where a camp cooler gets all running with ice melt.
6. CELERY & HUMMUS is one of my main Mediterranean Diet friendly snack foods at home.  I’ve had mixed success taking this camping.  Celery, like the carrots mentioned above, goes into a mason jar easily enough and stays fresh.  The hummus is a little trickier.  I’ve put it in mason jars, but then it is a hassle to scoop any back out so I don’t eat as much.  I’ve left it in original containers with a large bag around it to keep out moisture, and sometimes had fails where water got in and made it weird.  If I was primitive camping i’d have to go the mason jar route since I’d be limited on what I could replenish.  I’m a little more lenient with this in more generic camping scenarios.
7. ROTISSERIE CHICKEN CHILI – This is a fantastic camping dinner with zero guilt attached.  I assemble it at home, close it up in mason jars, which you can clearly see play a large role in my adventuring foods, and merely reheat on a camp stove.  See recipe below.
8. MEDITERRANEAN DIET FRIENDLY PIZZA – This might be a little fattening, but here’s a pizza recipe for over a fire pit that has a metal griddle on top.  See recipe below.
9. OVERNIGHT OATS via a “Just Add Water” method for breakfast.  Milk gets weird when camping, but if you put dry oats into a mason jar, measure in some dry powered milk, then all you have to do is pour a little water in and give it a shake before bed when camping and there’s a breakfast waiting in the morning that’s super filling.  See my other ramblings about Overnight Oats here.

ROTISSERIE CHICKEN CHILI RECIPE

-Pull the meat off a rotisserie chicken and shred it into bite sized pieces, set aside.

-Dice one small onion, 4 stalks of celery, a handful of baby carrots, a tablespoon of pickled jalapenos and add to a stock pot with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and cook for a few minutes until they’re all starting to soften.

-Add the chicken in, cook for a few more minutes while all those wonderful things merge.

-Pour in one can of generic tomato sauce, doesn’t really matter what brand, so long as you get about 16oz in there.

-Pour in a half can of your favorite type of cooked beans.  Why not a full can?  Because I don’t like beans to totally dominate a chili.  Freeze the rest of the beans for some other project!

-Add two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar.

-Cook for a few minutes until it is clearly simmering, stirring frequently so nothing sticks or burns to the bottom.

-Add in 2 tablespoons of generic chili powder.

-Add in some garlic powder, to taste.  I’m the kind of person that loves garlic, so I go crazy with it.  For your purposes, add a little, let it simmer for a minute, stir and taste.  Then add more until you’re content.

-That’s it.  You want to taste this several times and maybe up the chili powder, garlic or vinegar based on personal preference.  This is sort of like making a chicken knockoff of the Wendy’s chili that I’ve rambled on about on this blog already.

-Let it cool, close it in some mason jars, and when you’re camping just reheat it on a camp stove.  Easy, filling, wonderful.

 

MEDITERRANEAN DIET FRIENDLY PIZZA RECIPE

Here’s the trick for this camping pizza recipe to work:  You need a fire ring at a campsite that has one of those barred cooking grates above it, and a very low and even flame in the fire itself to work with.  Beyond that the idea is simple:  take some common pizza fillings and heat them up.  To make this diet friendly you’re going to want to find your favorite high carb healthy seeming wrap.  Let’s say for sake of argument that you acquire a common Tomato Basil Wrap from a grocery store.  That’s going to be your crust, already eliminating some sort of generic white flour pizza crust that’d not diet friendly.  Also assume that this is going to be more like a calzone, so it will not by an open faced pizza, rather a folded over thing.  This is because it has to get hot enough to melt cheese, without burning.  Follow these steps:

1.  Get your nice even fire going with a low flame.  A charcoal fire would be ideal, so long as there are no flames licking the metal grate at the campsite you’ll be fine.
2.  Take your wrap, place it on a table, spoon some spaghetti sauce across it, using whatever your favorite brand is.
3. Sprinkle on some mozzarella cheese.  Do not put giant gobs of cheese on, because this all has to heat up in a limited time frame.  If you’re following a decent dietary routine anyway then you’re not likely prone to using huge amounts, so embrace that point.
4. Add any standard pizza toppings you want at this point that you feel respects your personal dietary preferences.  Thinly diced onions, peppers, turkey pepperoni, mushrooms, whatever.  But be sparing, this will work best as a thin construct.  Anything that goes in should be capable of being eaten raw, or is labeled as “fully cooked” because this is not going to be something that allows for cooking from a raw state for the sake of meats.
5. Fold it in half, so looks more like calzone or a quesadilla.
6. Gentle put it on the fire’s grate and let the heating process begin.  You’ll absolutely need to flip it once or two to keep it from burning and you’re going to just have to touch it to feel when the contents are hot, versus pulling it off before it burns.  It is “done” when cheese seems melty and the contents are likely hot, but the outside has yet to burn.   This is as close to pizza as I’ve come up with for camping.