The Student Room Group

DofE Silver expedition-

Heyy guys,

I'm going to do my 3 day practice expedition in Dartmoor. And i honestly don't have any ideas for food. We have to take snacks and buy are meal things from the shop there to make for 3 days (breakfast's, lunches and dinner) So if anyone's who's done this/are going to do it can give me ideas for food/snacks asap, that'd be great!!!:smile:
Thank you in advance.

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Meals
Pot noodles are good, very easy to make and light to carry. (Top tip, check the water before you pour it in because some of ours was contaminated by fuel...)
Pasta. (Same as above)
Bacon sandwiches (it sounds labour intensive but one group did this and the rest of us were soooo jealous)
Sausages (same as above)
Instant porridge pots (my mum was against this at first but they are so easy to make and fill you up)
Premade pancakes to heat up or eat cold (just so delicious...)
Waffles (one of my friends lived off these on our bronze)

Snacks
Nuts or trail mix (you'll need the energy)
Cereal bars (bring lots!)
Biscuits (good for energy boosts, particularly when someone feels faint.. :smile: )

There's lots of other things you can take but these are the things I found useful. :smile:
Original post by Ara8311a
Meals
Pot noodles are good, very easy to make and light to carry. (Top tip, check the water before you pour it in because some of ours was contaminated by fuel...)
Pasta. (Same as above)
Bacon sandwiches (it sounds labour intensive but one group did this and the rest of us were soooo jealous)
Sausages (same as above)
Instant porridge pots (my mum was against this at first but they are so easy to make and fill you up)
Premade pancakes to heat up or eat cold (just so delicious...)
Waffles (one of my friends lived off these on our bronze)

Snacks
Nuts or trail mix (you'll need the energy)
Cereal bars (bring lots!)
Biscuits (good for energy boosts, particularly when someone feels faint.. :smile: )

There's lots of other things you can take but these are the things I found useful. :smile:



thank you so much! :smile:Did you take any candy/chocolate? If so which ones would you recommend and how much.
Annd you guys didn't pre prepare any food did you like the sausages? It was cooked on site right?
Original post by SoDoneWithSchool
thank you so much! :smile:Did you take any candy/chocolate? If so which ones would you recommend and how much.
Annd you guys didn't pre prepare any food did you like the sausages? It was cooked on site right?


Our group was soooo unorganised. We lived off pot noodles and just add water porridge. But the other groups cooked them on their little stoves, which we were given by the company that organised our expedition. We were really jealous of them but then again, we didn't have to do any washing up.

We took marshmallows to play chubby bunny. It was fun but we all felt really sick afterwards so try to avoid that... If I'm honest, and I'm going to sound boring now, don't bring sweets. They give you sugar highs and a few in my group ate some the first night and felt really tired and drained. It's best to stick to slow release foods like cereal bars. On one of our practices it was really hot and my friend's chocolate became a gooey mess.

If you do bring marshmallows and decide to roast them, if you're using a little fuel pot for your stove, don't!! The group next to our tent did it and the instructor came up to them and told them that the brown on the outside was fumes from the fuel... and poisonous.

I sound like a misery right now. Maybe @FabulouslyAwks will be able to brighten up this discussion. I'm pretty sure she took sweets so ask her! From memory I think her group were more adventurous in their cooking too and made pasta!!!

I'm doing my silver this year. Did you do Bronze? If you want, we can give you more tips on navigation and stuff like what to do if you step in cow poo or get chased by horses.

It was so much fun, you'll love it if you haven't done Bronze already!
Original post by Ara8311a
Our group was soooo unorganised. We lived off pot noodles and just add water porridge. But the other groups cooked them on their little stoves, which we were given by the company that organised our expedition. We were really jealous of them but then again, we didn't have to do any washing up.

We took marshmallows to play chubby bunny. It was fun but we all felt really sick afterwards so try to avoid that... If I'm honest, and I'm going to sound boring now, don't bring sweets. They give you sugar highs and a few in my group ate some the first night and felt really tired and drained. It's best to stick to slow release foods like cereal bars. On one of our practices it was really hot and my friend's chocolate became a gooey mess.

If you do bring marshmallows and decide to roast them, if you're using a little fuel pot for your stove, don't!! The group next to our tent did it and the instructor came up to them and told them that the brown on the outside was fumes from the fuel... and poisonous.

I sound like a misery right now. Maybe @FabulouslyAwks will be able to brighten up this discussion. I'm pretty sure she took sweets so ask her! From memory I think her group were more adventurous in their cooking too and made pasta!!!

I'm doing my silver this year. Did you do Bronze? If you want, we can give you more tips on navigation and stuff like what to do if you step in cow poo or get chased by horses.

It was so much fun, you'll love it if you haven't done Bronze already!


Awh thank you and nooo you're great! This is my first expedition. I didn't do bronze and skipped straight to silver sooo I'm a teeny bit paranoid about EVERYTHING. Oooh where are you going for your real thing in the summer?!

I was about to ask you about marshmallows. I guess I'd rather not take them :colondollar: cause we have the fuel pot. Annd finding twigs and leaves just for marshmallows sounds like a pain.

Oh God same. I think most of us in my group may resort to pot noodles:biggrin: But then again I'm hungry 24/7.

hahaha please do tell me about the cow poop and getting chased by horses things!! My luck is so bad I'll end up getting swallowed by a sheep tbh:colonhash::tongue:
Original post by SoDoneWithSchool
Heyy guys,

I'm going to do my 3 day practice expedition in Dartmoor. And i honestly don't have any ideas for food. We have to take snacks and buy are meal things from the shop there to make for 3 days (breakfast's, lunches and dinner) So if anyone's who's done this/are going to do it can give me ideas for food/snacks asap, that'd be great!!!:smile:
Thank you in advance.

Hi! Ara8311a's d of e adventure was so exciting and hilarious, but dangerous: they got chased by horses! Mine involved sheep running away from me:frown:, don't worry they want eat you if you run after them! lol I am such a warrior of nature:biggrin:. Also I kinda fell in this mini stream, troublesome fences and getting so tired (you know that stage you are so tired, you kinda go crazy) belting out HSM songs andd falling flat on my face, right after singing I am soaring and flying (not a great take off). Tip- make sure your boot laces are tied and tucked together in your shoes at all times or you literally face plant.

Also do not eat an entire bag of skittles, you feel sick and tired pretty fast. But my team did make pretty good pasta, make sure you have enough pasta for your whole team 2-3 bags maybe and add sauce over the top. Or just bring your own cooked pasta and take some snazzy cooking with the stove pics, shhhh.

Also have plenty of cookies cereal bars for energy food. And if you don't want to go to the toilet in the great outdoors, don't drink too much water, instead eat cucumber and celery, which are full of water but not too much if that makes sense

Hope this helps!
Also maybe fake a mini speaker for music, hide it from the instructors though
* take
Original post by FabulouslyAwks
Hi! Ara8311a's d of e adventure was so exciting and hilarious, but dangerous: they got chased by horses! Mine involved sheep running away from me:frown:, don't worry they want eat you if you run after them! lol I am such a warrior of nature:biggrin:. Also I kinda fell in this mini stream, troublesome fences and getting so tired (you know that stage you are so tired, you kinda go crazy) belting out HSM songs andd falling flat on my face, right after singing I am soaring and flying (not a great take off). Tip- make sure your boot laces are tied and tucked together in your shoes at all times or you literally face plant.

Also do not eat an entire bag of skittles, you feel sick and tired pretty fast. But my team did make pretty good pasta, make sure you have enough pasta for your whole team 2-3 bags maybe and add sauce over the top. Or just bring your own cooked pasta and take some snazzy cooking with the stove pics, shhhh.

Also have plenty of cookies cereal bars for energy food. And if you don't want to go to the toilet in the great outdoors, don't drink too much water, instead eat cucumber and celery, which are full of water but not too much if that makes sense

Hope this helps!
*won't the sheep won't eat you, sorry:biggrin:
Reply 9
Original post by SoDoneWithSchool
Heyy guys,

I'm going to do my 3 day practice expedition in Dartmoor. And i honestly don't have any ideas for food. We have to take snacks and buy are meal things from the shop there to make for 3 days (breakfast's, lunches and dinner) So if anyone's who's done this/are going to do it can give me ideas for food/snacks asap, that'd be great!!!:smile:
Thank you in advance.


I'm doing gold soon - pasta for evening meals definitely. For lunch just something quick - we had spam on crackers on my bronze. Breakfast.... Sausages!! For snacks, we had flapjacks and called them moralijacks

Posted from TSR Mobile
I bought these for my expeditions and they worked really well. Enough in here for 2 expeditions worth of breakfasts and dinners plus desserts. They taste pretty good, keep for ages and are really light. Only need to add hot water so are much easier to sort out.

For snacks, nuts were an absolute life-saver on my silver practice when I didn't bring enough food. Cereal bars and dried fruits also work quite well. Bring some treats as the oat-based foods get boring after a bit, but not too many of them.

Pitta bread works quite well for lunch. I bought some John West packed lunches to go with them. Good and light with decent energy. Mug of soups can be nice to have with lunch.

The key is really to have something very light and compact that won't get squashed in your bag, plus with good nutritional value. Don't go with anything that takes a while to cook as it won't be worth the effort.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Ara8311a
Meals
Pot noodles are good, very easy to make and light to carry. (Top tip, check the water before you pour it in because some of ours was contaminated by fuel...)
Pasta. (Same as above)
Bacon sandwiches (it sounds labour intensive but one group did this and the rest of us were soooo jealous)
Sausages (same as above)
Instant porridge pots (my mum was against this at first but they are so easy to make and fill you up)
Premade pancakes to heat up or eat cold (just so delicious...)
Waffles (one of my friends lived off these on our bronze)

Snacks
Nuts or trail mix (you'll need the energy)
Cereal bars (bring lots!)
Biscuits (good for energy boosts, particularly when someone feels faint.. :smile: )

There's lots of other things you can take but these are the things I found useful. :smile:


Pot noodles? So when you have limited space for kit and equipment you reckon taking a product that is 50% empty packaging is a good idea?

As for the rest, why take food that either takes ages to cook or is inedible without boiling water? Really wise...
Original post by SoDoneWithSchool
thank you so much! :smile:Did you take any candy/chocolate? If so which ones would you recommend and how much.
Annd you guys didn't pre prepare any food did you like the sausages? It was cooked on site right?


Ignore everything that person said about proper food!

Firstly, avoid taking anything that has a load of wasted space. So things like pot noodles are ridiculous, they're a small amount of food in a huge amount of empty packaging. The smaller the amount of space your food takes up the easier it will be to pack everything and keep it all organised while you're out there.

Secondly, avoid taking anything that is inedible if it isn't cooked, or anything that is inedible without boiling water.

Thirdly, avoid taking lots of stuff that is full of sugar.

In terms of actual meals you really can't beat boil in the bag style meals. They have a bit of a reputation for not being very nice, and they never used to be, but they are actually pretty damn good now and they are a lot of calories in a small package, and while they are nicer eaten hot they are completely fine to eat cold so if you don't have the time to break out the stove and heat them you can still have a proper meal.

Snack wise, nuts are a good shout, cereal bars are alright but you they're generally pretty high on sugar so you don't want to be eating loads of them. You definitely should also take some sugary snacks but not many and I'd leave them untouched unless you really need a quick energy boost.
Original post by FabulouslyAwks
Hi! Ara8311a's d of e adventure was so exciting and hilarious, but dangerous: they got chased by horses! Mine involved sheep running away from me:frown:, don't worry they want eat you if you run after them! lol I am such a warrior of nature:biggrin:. Also I kinda fell in this mini stream, troublesome fences and getting so tired (you know that stage you are so tired, you kinda go crazy) belting out HSM songs andd falling flat on my face, right after singing I am soaring and flying (not a great take off). Tip- make sure your boot laces are tied and tucked together in your shoes at all times or you literally face plant.

Also do not eat an entire bag of skittles, you feel sick and tired pretty fast. But my team did make pretty good pasta, make sure you have enough pasta for your whole team 2-3 bags maybe and add sauce over the top. Or just bring your own cooked pasta and take some snazzy cooking with the stove pics, shhhh

Ah, fun times! I'm so sad you aren't doing Silver, we'll never be in the same group! :frown: The horse thing was quite scary, and completely not my fault! It was the others who started running...

Original post by Andy98
I'm doing gold soon - pasta for evening meals definitely. For lunch just something quick - we had spam on crackers on my bronze. Breakfast.... Sausages!! For snacks, we had flapjacks and called them moralijacks

I know. I had half heated up pancakes and porridge for breakfast. It was torture eating them when the tent across from us was making sausage and bacon. :frown: Not sure that I would want to make them though. My group's attempts at cooking constantly failed...

Original post by mackemforever
Pot noodles? So when you have limited space for kit and equipment you reckon taking a product that is 50% empty packaging is a good idea?

As for the rest, why take food that either takes ages to cook or is inedible without boiling water? Really wise...


They're easy to make and afterwards you don't have to wash up. If you're that bothered about space in your bag you can also get the instant noodles in the packets. We didn't have much trouble with room in our bags as we were only on bronze and with careful packing, we managed to fit quite a lot in them.

And I'm just saying what other people did. We also knew that we would have access to water and time to boil it as we had the equipment. And why not take food that takes a while to make? We had the entire evenings to cook on our expeditions and we didn't have a trouble with time.
Original post by Andy98
I'm doing gold soon - pasta for evening meals definitely. For lunch just something quick - we had spam on crackers on my bronze. Breakfast.... Sausages!! For snacks, we had flapjacks and called them moralijacks

Posted from TSR Mobile


Why did you call them moralijacks?
Original post by SoDoneWithSchool
Heyy guys,

I'm going to do my 3 day practice expedition in Dartmoor. And i honestly don't have any ideas for food. We have to take snacks and buy are meal things from the shop there to make for 3 days (breakfast's, lunches and dinner) So if anyone's who's done this/are going to do it can give me ideas for food/snacks asap, that'd be great!!!:smile:
Thank you in advance.


See my post below!


Posted from TSR Mobile
(edited 8 years ago)
I don't really eat pasta. Here's what I brought:

2 ham baguettes for lunch on the first day
A tub of ANZAC biscuits (oaty biscuit things used in WWI)
Flapjacks
Pot Noodles for dinner
Snickers bars
Scotch pancakes
Lucozade Sport
Instant hot chocolate

Oh . . . And I ate a whole bag of Tangfastics in one day and I was so full of that I got sent on a run at the campsite . . . Then nearly fell asleep at dinner.

All very stodgy, but it kept me going! I was so glad to have vegetables when I got home.


Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 17
Original post by mackemforever
Ignore everything that person said about proper food!

Firstly, avoid taking anything that has a load of wasted space. So things like pot noodles are ridiculous, they're a small amount of food in a huge amount of empty packaging. The smaller the amount of space your food takes up the easier it will be to pack everything and keep it all organised while you're out there.

Secondly, avoid taking anything that is inedible if it isn't cooked, or anything that is inedible without boiling water.

Thirdly, avoid taking lots of stuff that is full of sugar.

In terms of actual meals you really can't beat boil in the bag style meals. They have a bit of a reputation for not being very nice, and they never used to be, but they are actually pretty damn good now and they are a lot of calories in a small package, and while they are nicer eaten hot they are completely fine to eat cold so if you don't have the time to break out the stove and heat them you can still have a proper meal.

Snack wise, nuts are a good shout, cereal bars are alright but you they're generally pretty high on sugar so you don't want to be eating loads of them. You definitely should also take some sugary snacks but not many and I'd leave them untouched unless you really need a quick energy boost.


Second point, I don't see your logic

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 18
Original post by Edminzodo
I don't really eat pasta. Here's what I brought:

2 ham baguettes for lunch on the first day
A tub of ANZAC biscuits (oaty biscuit things used in WWI)
Flapjacks
Pot Noodles for dinner
Snickers bars
Scotch pancakes
Lucozade Sport
Instant hot chocolate

All very stodgy, but it kept me going! I was so glad to have vegetables when I got home.


Posted from TSR Mobile


Anzac??? Great Scott! I didn't know they still existed!!!

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 19
Original post by FabulouslyAwks
Why did you call them moralijacks?


Cause they always cheered us up:tongue:

Posted from TSR Mobile

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