DofE silver expedition- food and snacks

Hey, my silver DofE practice expedition is in a week and I'm a bit concerned as to how I can ensure I'll get enough calories and protein as a vegetarian; the DofE website recommends like 4000cal/day- does anyone have any tips?

Reply 1

bea_murray0

Original post by bee-supernova

I did Gold while vegan, I snacked a lot and as a group we planned meals ahead of time, which helped. For breakfasts I premade a mix of porridge oats, protein powder and chia seeds, in the morning we'd just add boiling water and a banana, chocolate sauce and random toppings we had. For lunch I had like half a pack of microwave lentils in a wrap, maybe with some carrot if I could be bothered, and a cereal bar. Couscous is easy to make with just boiling water, as are instant rice noodles, we bought vegetables such as courgettes, celery and carrots, and used a peeler to slice the courgette and carrot thin enough that it cooked quickly. We pre-cooked tofu and tempeh (it keeps for like 2 days), and you can get taifun tofu which is vacuum packed and not in water so quite good for lunches, and we used the microwave packs of lentils for dinner the last day or two and I think some jackfruit in BBQ sauce from Morrisons. I bought some protein bars, seed + fruit mixes, chocolate etc for snacks, and I would recommend packing double the carbs you would normally, e.g. we did 1 whole couscous packet per person rather than 1/2, which is the recommended portion. Basically, try to get carbs, protein and vegetables at every meal, and plan for bigger portions and frequent snacks. It was harder for me compared to my teammates in terms of planning ahead, but also since my DofE diet was more nutritionally dense I felt a lot better than the boys in the group that survived off pot noodles and boil in the bag!