By Heather Nicholds
This past weekend I went on a canoe trip with my dad, my uncle and a friend of the family. I knew I would have to put together my own vegan camping food since most people wouldn’t even know where to start.
How can you eat while camping without hot dogs, marshmallows and bacon? It’s actually pretty easy, but takes some prep unless you want to bring lots of wood to keep a fire going long enough to cook grains and beans.
My favorite vegan camping breakfast is oatmeal. I just put rolled oats, ground flax, raisins and sunflower seeds in a big ziplock. When I make oatmeal for others, I usually put a bit of sucanat (unrefined cane sugar) in there to sweeten it.
To eat it, you can add water to soak overnight, or for just 15 minutes or so in the morning. If it’s chilly out, you can use boiling water in the morning to get a nice hot breakfast.
By Heather Nicholds
If you’re going on a short trip, you can bring fresh veggies and fruit. But if you’re going on a longer trip, or if you’re putting everything on your back for a hiking trip, dehydrating is a better plan.
You can season vegetables and then dehydrate raw or after a light steaming. They make nice crackers, but you can also just do trays of veggies to rehydrate at the campsite. All you need to do is put them in a pot with some water and boil until they absorb the water and soften.
Cooking, seasoning and then dehydrating beans and grains makes for easy meals in the wilderness. All you need to is boil them in lots of water for 15 minutes or so and they’ll absorb the water and be ready to eat.
By Heather Nicholds
Apples and oranges keep pretty well, but softer fruit like bananas aren’t a very good choice for camping. I made my dad and I a huge banana-blueberry smoothie and put it in a water bottle for our first day. If you have the time, you can dehydrate fruit slices or blend some fruit together and dehydrate in sheets to make healthy “roll ups” (I’m attempting to avoid copyright, and avoid calling it ‘leather’ – that word is neither appetizing nor very vegan, don’t you think?)
Making your own dehydrated food takes a long time, but unless you want to pay vast amounts of money for packaged vegan camping meals, it’s totally worth it. Plus you can season things exactly how you want and avoid any preservatives or excess salt. You can also minimize the packaging, which is an important consideration in general but especially when heading into a park.
If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can try the oven on low, but without the air flow of a dehydrator it will take quite a while. When Phil and I went on a hiking trip in BC last year, I baked split pea-zucchini bars instead of dehydrating. That’s another option for vegan camping food, since we didn’t want to carry a camp cooker in our packs, but you need to be sure to drink a lot of water with them or they will totally dry you out!
By Heather Nicholds
Healthy homemade cookies are a perfect treat to share around the campfire. I made a carob cookie dough, and mixed in dried cranberries and almonds. A friend of our likes to make bannock – although he’s Australian and calls it ‘twisties’.
Bannock is the word native Canadians use, and I’m sure there are all sorts of other names for it in other countries. It’s a simple dough (just flour and water) twisted around a stick, and then toasted over the fire. You can fill it with jam, maple syrup (my Australian friend uses golden syrup), or whatever else you like.
In addition to being prepared for vegan camping, be sure to prepare for low-impact camping as well. Bring reusable utensils and plates, wash with biodegradable soap, never leave waste behind and be respectful of wildlife’s space.
What foods do you like to eat when you go camping? Let me know by leaving me a comment below.
