A guide to freeze-dried foods for hiking in New Zealand with Back Country Cuisine
When you’re hiking or walking on the magnificent trail networks around the Southern Lakes, you need to take a lot of gear to keep safe, warm and dry. As your pack gets fuller and fuller, weight becomes your number one consideration. So wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to compromise on the amount, energy or taste of the food you bring with you?
That’s where Back Country Cuisine comes in with their menu of lightweight, tasty, nutritious, freeze-dried meals. They pack the taste of delicious New Zealand home cooking into convenient pouches that save a lot of weight in your pack. That makes Back Country Cuisine perfect for those long days out on the trails where maintaining your energy is vitally important.
Back Country Cuisine also makes getting nutritional balance easy and stress-free, and also reduces the amount of cooking gear you need to pack – helping save even more weight!
Moisture removal is age old technique of preserving food. It can be done by salting, smoking, and with various drying methods. When you extract moisture you remove a potential breeding ground for bacteria and that makes it much harder for food to spoil. The additional benefits of freeze-dried food are that it’s much lighter and easier to carry, and the pores left behind by the ice crystals mean juicy, tender food when you re-add water during cooking.
Back Country Cuisine is nutritionally balanced. The freeze-drying process retains the natural vitamins, and there are the carbohydrates and sugars you need for instant energy, protein to replenish exhausted muscles, and oils and fats to keep you feeling nice and full.
Quick and easy to prepare
To make your Back Country Cuisine freeze dried meal all you need to do is add the required amount of hot or cold water that’s shown stated on each meal pouch. The stir and let it stand for 10 to 15 minutes. Then you can just tear the lower perforation and use the pouch as a mess-free bowl! When you’re done just rinse the pouch and seal it in a zip lock bag ready to bring home for soft plastic recycling. Easy!
Back Country Cuisine has a wide range of options to suit many diets, including vegetarian and gluten free. Start the day right with a Back Country Cuisine hot or cold breakfast, top up your energy during the day in between meals with freeze-dried fruit or smoothies and finish the day right with the taste of a home cooked meal, followed by a more-ish dessert, all in convenient pouches that weigh less than a third of their weight when you eat the meal inside.
Back Country Cuisine is a staff favourite at Outside Sports. All our people love getting out into the mountains and they know from lots of experience how important it is to pack light and stay energised. Back Country Cuisine fits their requirements perfectly and it’ll do the same for you.
The Back Country Cuisine range of yummy, freeze-dried meals is available now at Outside Sports, instore at our shops in Queenstown, Wanaka, Tekapo, and Te Anau - and online.