My usual fare on kayak camp trips is store bought food ready to heat. Its getting a bit old. In addition to that, I'm going to start doing a bit of backpacking. There, weight is a more pertinent issue.
A couple of years go I bought a food dehydrator (I've been thinking about backpacking for a while *lol*). It sat in the box since then until today when I got it out to try drying some food. Nothing too adventurous to start; just two packs of Uncle Ben's Bistro Express and some mixed frozen vegetables.
I was going to put the rice packs on some parchment paper and just spread the vegetables on the tray. Well, the frozen vegetables went through the tray. So, remembering I got some old window screens from a neighbour, I cut three liners to put the food on. Ca-ching!
I didn't know what to expect so I was surprised to see what the end of the process was. Trays that were covered with food looked like some spirit had consumed a good part of it while I wasn't looking. I don't have a weigh scale yet so I can't quantify the reduction but a rough guess is it was reduced by about 2/3.
The conclusion I came to was this has some promise. Not only for backpacking but also for kayak camping. Saving weight is not so much the bonus n that case but the saving in space is, especially for longer trips.
Next I need to see what rehydration involves, that is to say, the most efficient time-wise. I mean, I don't want to wait for long before being able to eat after getting out of the kayak or reaching camp for the night at the end of a hike. If I'm happy with that I'll purchase a weigh scale and a vacuum sealer.
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