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Duke of Edinburgh Food Ideas

Hello, soon i will be starting my duke of edinburgh gold award and was wondering what food i would need to take? I need to come up with a days meal and i dont really know what i could take and how much i would need :/

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Reply 1

sarah0sarah

Hey

I'm not doing my expedition until later on in the year but I always find stuff like cereal bars and small chocolate bars and nuts are good for snacks. Give you lots of energy. My friends all planned out their snacks, I was slightly impulsive and just bought whatever and made it last, but for Gold it's better to be safe and plan I think! I always find that the hard part is looking for lunch, because of the issue of food going off. I usually stick with Crackers (which actually have flavour :P) And my friend bought in some garden peas last year (which I was quite envious of :P) and we all bought two packs of pringles each as well. We all had pasta with different sauces on each day for our meals. Emergency rations, need to be things like chocolate, cup a soup ect. I.E. things which will help you to keep warm if you get stuck in the middle of no where :wink:

And for breakfast we had heated pain au chocolates :P

GOOD LUCK :smile:

Reply 2

Deutsch_Beth

Best meals for dinner I found were pasta with those sachets of sauce: taster than the standard Super Noodles and more filling.
Lunch time pitta bread works well. Doesn't go off quickly, light and easier to store than sandwiches.

Also jelly babies, they are proper bursts of energy!

Reply 3

Wailinza

Original post by Ivorydawn

Best plan. For gold, we took those special dehydrated food you get from the camping store. Some dont taste too good but its all well balanced and has all the right amounts of nutrients for hard walking. We were supposed to have that for breakfast and dinner but I could only manage a couple of those. Other times, I preferred Mr Benns ready made rice, took pepperami sticks, cereal bars for brekky, a packet of shortbread and always had a bag of mixed nuts in my pockets along with Kendal mint bars and glucose tablets for extra energy. I did not keep any chocolates in my pockets cos they melt close to the body. I also took a couple of instant hot chocolates and miso soup for just before night time.

Good luck . . . its a hard slog at the time but when you look back its so well worth it!!!

I loved it now I think about it.

Thanks guys :smile:

Definitely Jelly Babies..! Just snack on them all day everyday - great for short term energy. I tended to live off flapjack for lunch (as non of us could be bothered with setting up the stove at lunch time). You probably know about the camp meals you can buy.. I can't remember the company names atm but I can tell you that the orange freeze dry ones are awful. I had the green packs which were literally boil in a bag.. A lot nicer than expected - but everything tastes better when your cold wet and tired i guess :P And don't be fooled by the desserts.. choc pudding was minging too lol. A few of the lads in my group actually brought things like baked beans and sausages but it completely depends on how much you're willing to carry and how hungry you think you'll be. As quite a small girl I couldn't carry a huuuge amount of weight and didn't really eat too much anyway. But everyone's different! Also differs between guys and girls. See if you can get the fittest person on your group to carry extra..? It helps big time! :smile:

Reply 6

crazylemon

For meals I took boil in the bags, on the expensive side but meant no cleaning up and easy, just heat them or eat cold (not recommended). Less bulky than things like pasta too. Faster aswell

For snacks stuff ranging from dried fruit to chocolate.

Reply 7

Crazy Paving

Sausages are a favourite, and easy and quick(ish) to cook, as well as marshmallows. You can also make camp doughnuts with a bit of bread, sliced into squares, jam in the middle and fried in some batter.

Reply 8

Ivorydawn

Surely sausages would go off after a couple of days?? Would they just be something for early on in the week?

Reply 9

Upside Down

uncle ben's rice is brilliant for d of e, as is fresh stuffed pasta.
just boil for a few minutes and it's done :smile:

Reply 10

arianex

Original post by Ivorydawn

I completed my final Gold expedition last summer! :biggrin:

Stuff below is what we actually ate, so that should hopefully be a nice starting point for you to adapt :wink:

Dinner: Fresh filled pasta parcels for the first night ONLY + sachet sauce, Uncle Ben's for the 2nd night, and ASDA's own pasta arrabbiata for the last night (the all-in-1 dried kind - it's deceptively filling!) Bring Cup-a-Soups if you fear you'll be still hungry, they're a welcome addition - especially if the weather turns turtle...

(To us, all of the above actually tasted much nicer than special camper's packet food - and was much nicer on the wallet. :biggrin:

Wasn't heavy at all either.)

Lunches: Marmite sandwiches (preferably made with pita!) are probably the way to go here - make and wrap them well and you'll have no problem with stuff going off, even if it's white bread. :wink:

(Don't make sarnies with very wet fillings, they'll go soggy and turn bad that way.) I also brought along Ginsters' Cornish Pasties for two of my lunches - yes, you can actually keep them cool by popping them into the center of your rucksack, and it's not impractical to pull out when you need it.

Brekkies: This one I skimped on in relation to the lunches and dinners; but it was easier for our group to go light on brekkie and keep snacking until we hit lunch. (May not work for you, so tailor accordingly.) But we had stuff that was pretty similar to the lunches, albeit lighter - or heavier versions of our snacks.

Snacks: MIXED NUTS/Trail mix (preferably unsalted - otherwise drink plenty!), clementines (after every lunch), candy/cereal bars, Kendal mint cake + any other sweets you like. D of E's probably one of the few occasions where you can binge like a pig without worrying too much about it going to your thighs xD Oh, and Dextro glucose tabs for an energy burst :wink:

"Desserts": Something a little extra we had - not essential, but we had them because it's extra nourishment (ha) and was very light for me to carry (and I'm a midget - only 5 foot 1). We decided that we'd have little cake bars/choc swiss rolls every night to fill us up. They can go under snacks if you want, too. I ended up also buying a normal-sized Cadbury cake roll that we shared as dessert for lunch on the last day - YUM. :biggrin:

Emergencies: The same things you have for snacks, but make sure that it'll last you at least 24 hours. Definitely a hot choc/Cup-a-Soup sachet in there, too.

(PS// You'll notice that I mention no meat stuff - that's because we had a vegetarian girl in our group. :tongue:

So all my food was veggie; but I'm sure you can throw in some Pepperami and meat gravies if you want them.)

Having a bit of a system with your day's meals certainly makes it easier - I had 4 ziplock bags for 4 days' worth of food (1 day's brekkie and lunch per bag), and other snacks in the side pockets. That way I wasn't pulling out loads of different bags!

Final rule of thumb: Unless you can handle it, don't bring tins. Extra weight, extra trash. (Exception to this would prob be the mini John West fish tins; those aren't too heavy, even for me. :wink:

)

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 11

Ivorydawn

Thanks, that helped alot :smile:

Reply 12

jhughes1

Original post by Ivorydawn

i found that a really good way to get food on the go, like the snacks and stuff is to: get a jar of peanut butter of jam, or anyother sort of spread in a jar.. (plastic is better) then scoop out half of it and put it to the side, then get all sorts of things like nuts, dried fruits, broken biscuits, or anything else. then mix it all up and leave a little spoon in there :smile:

and as your walking every half a mile or so just scoop out a bit and eat it :biggrin:

good luck

Reply 13

a_lea

i am doing d of e bronze in 2 days and here are my teams plans for food:

breakfast-
ready packed pancakes
hot chocolate
croisants

lunch-
pitta bread
nuts
cereal bars
sausage rolls
dry fruit like dates

dinner-
penne pasta
dolmino sauce
peperami
cup a soup

snacks-
dry fruit
nuts
cerial bars
sweets
rice cakes
fruit bread

Reply 14

biniandlucy

hey everyone, I am doing my silver DofE this weekend and was hoping fir any last minute tip that you may have? I dont lnow what snacks to pack and how many?! And how many spare pairs of clothes? and do i need to put my sleeping bag in a waterproof bag?
thanks :smile:

Reply 15

Cazzer117

Hi. Flapjack bars, dried fruit and nuts make great snacks and they are slow release energy. Put you sleeping bag into a large bin liner to keep it dry in case it rains...which it looks like it will this weekend. Good luck.