The best hiking breakfast should be nutritious, lightweight and there should be no risk of spoilage. In this article I will explain what kind of nutrition your body needs in the morning. Additionally, I will discuss the perfect hiking breakfast.
A perfect hiking breakfast is obviously different for everybody. It depends on personal preferences and on the situation. Most hikers don’t want to spend too much time on cooking their breakfast. However, the most important thing is still that it is a healthy and nutritious hiking breakfast. Spoiler alert: you should probably drop some of the carbohydrates and replace them with fats and protein.
PS: click here if you are just interested in the best hiking breakfast (not in the theory behind it).
PPS: Just looking for an easy breakfast (no cooking) that you can buy in a food pack? Check out this article: best hiking meals.
Breakfast is the most important meal
A lot of people claim that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It makes sense when you think about it. After sleeping, your body has not received any fuels for a long time, so it is time to start refilling those fuels with a healthy breakfast. Additionally, this is the first meal before you start walking, you want to prepare your body as good as possible for a long day of hiking.
That being said, everything depends on the situation. For example, if you are doing intermittent fasting, skipping breakfast is an excellent idea. It all depends on your goals.
As a hiker the statement that breakfast is the most important meal of the day is probably true. You are constantly burning calories, mainly during the day, but also during the night. It is hard to keep up with the amount of burned calories. This is why you want to start as early as possible.
Also, if you are hiking you might create micro tears in your muscles. These will result in muscle growth if you have enough protein intake. Your body needs to be resupplied with protein constantly. You will not be able to do that while you are asleep for many hours. So your body will be craving for that protein in the morning.
Macronutrients
In order to understand what you should eat on a hiking trip, you should have a basic understanding of macronutrients. The big macronutrient groups are protein, carbohydrates and fat.
I do not intend to make this article very scientific (and boring for some), so I will not go too in-depth. However, I feel like a quick overview is necessary.
Protein
Consider protein to be the building blocks of your body. It is responsible for the growth and repair of your muscles.
Protein can be found in high quantities in meat and animal products (eggs, dairy, etc.). However, there are plenty of protein sources for vegetarians as well.
Whenever you do intensive exercises, you will create micro tears in your muscles. Proteins will be responsible to repair those tears. This process will eventually result in stronger and bigger muscles.
It will take multiple days before your micro tears are fully recovered. This means that you should get protein throughout the entire day (not just after hiking).
There are different kinds of proteins, but I don’t want to get too deep into that. What is important, however, is the difference between slow and fast proteins. Fast protein, like whey protein will be used to recover your tissue a lot faster. These types of proteins are therefore very good in the mornings. Your body has not received proteins for a long time and it wants to break down protein sources as fast as possible, so that it can continue with muscle recovery.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates or carbs are your body’s main source of energy, your main fuel source.
Carbs can be found in high quantities in bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc.
Carbs are also important in the morning for obvious reasons. However, a breakfast that almost only contains carbs is a very bad idea. A lot of hikers seem to make the mistake of eating too many carbs in the morning and too little fat/protein.
Fat
Fat is known to have a bad reputation and is often linked to unhealthy meals. However, fat is very important for your body.
Let’s just say that fat is very important for your general well-being and health.
Fat can be found in large quantities in meat, fish, oil, nuts, etc.
Make sure that at least 20%-25% of your daily calories come from fat.
Ratio
So what would be a good macronutrient ratio? You want to aim for a 30/45/25 ratio, this means 30% of your daily intake should come from protein, 45% from carbs and 25% from fat.
Obviously you do not have to count everything. However, a general idea of what a healthy ratio looks like could have a positive impact on your health.
Some people prefer to go with 30/50/20, which is fine as well. Hikers who try to lose weight could consider a lower carb intake. You can play around with these numbers a little bit, see what works best for you.
A lot of hikers who do not think about macronutrients at all will be closer to a 15/70/15 ratio (just a guess). This is never a good ratio, your body needs more protein and fat.
For example if you have oats for breakfast, vegetables and rice for lunch and dehydrated spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. Your carb intake will be way too high and your protein intake will be too low.
I do not encourage you to count your macronutrients. My goal is simply to create some awareness about this topic. It would be good for some of you to revise your hiking diet.
Note that you should aim for this ratio at the end of the day, so not for every separate meal.
Some additional info about macronutrition ratios can be found here: https://www.clevertraining.com/blog/best-macronutrient-ratios-goals/
What’s important in the morning
Now that we have a general understanding of macronutrients, let’s take a look at what we need in the morning. Long story should, we need a healthy mix of protein, carbs and fat.
Since your body needs to continue with muscle recovery as fast as possible you want to include some fast protein in your breakfast. Additionally, you want to keep this recovery going for a while, so you should also include some slow protein.
Fats are important as well for general well-being and health. They will also help with feeling full.
Carbohydrates are needed to refuel your body. You will use a lot of energy when you start hiking. Therefore, carbs are very important in your breakfast.
So what about vegetables? In my other article How to eat healthy on the trail, I mentioned that vegetables are often overlooked. You definitely can include vegetables in your breakfast, but you can also eat them at lunch or/and dinner. The most important thing is that you get your daily vitamins, when you eat them does not matter that much. Personally I would not include them in my breakfast.
Bringing food on a hike
Scrambled eggs, some bacon and a fresh piece of bread might sounds like a perfect hiking breakfast. It has a lot of protein, fat and enough carbs. While this is true, it is not that easy to bring eggs, meat and bread on a multiday hike without spoiling it.
When talking about the best hiking breakfast, we should also consider that it should be easy to carry it in a backpack for multiple days without risking spoilage. While it is not impossible to bring eggs and bacon (dehydrate the bacon and bring powder eggs), it is not very convenient. So scrambled eggs and bacon are off the table.
We want a nutritious breakfast, which includes a healthy mix of protein, carbs and fat, but it should also be convenient to bring in a backpack, without risking spoilage.
The best hiking breakfast
Time to discuss the best hiking breakfast. We now know that we need to think about macronutrients and spoilage, but there is another factor: personal preference. Enjoying a breakfast is not unimportant for most of us. Let’s take a look at the ingredients of my personal perfect hiking breakfast.
PS: you can add as much boiling water as you want to this breakfast.
Oats
Oats are one of the most popular choices when it comes to hiking breakfasts and with good reason. Oats are very nutritious and easy to carry in a backpack without having to think about spoilage.
The only issue is that eating plain oats as a breakfast means that you will not have enough protein and fat.
The nutrition values are 17g protein, 66g carbs and 7g fat for each 100g.
Almonds
Nuts in general are absolutely amazing hiking snacks. Almonds are the kings of the nuts. They are amazing when it comes to healthy fats. Additionally, it tastes very good combined with the other ingredients.
The nutrition values are 22g protein, 21g carbs and 49g fat for each 100g.
Cashews
Pretty much the same story as the almonds. I like to include a fifty-fifty mix of both almonds and cashews.
The nutrition values are 18g protein, 30g carbs and 44g fat for each 100g.
Raisins
I like to add raisins because they add a lot of flavor to this breakfast. Additionally, you need to get some fruit into your body and I prefer to eat it in the morning. If you like to bring any other kind of dehydrated fruit that is completely fine as well.
The nutrition values are 3.1g protein, 79g carbs and 0.5g fat per 100g.
Whey protein powder
The magical ingredient that balances out this breakfast is protein powder. I already talked about the importance of fast protein in the morning. Well, adding some whey protein powder to your mix is absolutely a good idea.
I also like the flavor (chocolate) it adds some sweetness to the mix.
For those of you who are wondering, I use Optimum nutrition gold standard.
The nutrition values are 82.5g protein, 4.5g carbs and 2.9g fat per 100g.
Proportions
Now that we know the ingredients, it’s time to think about the proportions. I care about macronutrients, but I do not care about counting calories. I let my stomach decide how much I eat every day. I’ll eat until I’m not hungry anymore. However, this might not work for everybody.
That being said, let’s make an estimation of my average breakfast.
- Oats: 150 grams
- Almonds: 50 grams
- Cashews: 50 grams
- Raisins: 30 grams
- Whey protein powder: 29.4 grams (1 scoop)
This results in a 1356.5 (!) calorie breakfast. That is a very heavy breakfast. I would only be able to each such a breakfast if I’m doing a lot of miles and burn a lot of calories every day.
Let’s break it down and take a look at the macronutrients:
- Protein: 70.2
- Carbs: 151.3
- Fat: 57
This results in a 25.2/54.3/20 ratio.
Wait a minute, shouldn’t the perfect breakfast be exactly 30/45/25?
The quick answer is no. I want to reach the 30/45/25 ratio at the end of the day, not at the end of a meal. I like to eat more fat and protein at lunch and dinner, so this is actually a perfect ratio for me.
Conclusion
The perfect hiking breakfast should include ingredients that are both easy to carry in a backpack and wont get spoiled.
The breakfast should be healthy and nutritious. Think about a good macronutrient ratio.
That being said. I talked a lot about ratios and number. I don’t expect any of you to bring a scale with you. You could of course prepare everything at home before you leave on your trip.
However, don’t be too worried about numbers, just make sure that you have a varied and healthy diet. And make sure that you include enough protein and fat.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to do the math once in a while. This might especially be valuable if you have a consistend eating pattern. If you have been eating the same hiking breakfast for years, it might be time to check the macronutrientst.
Feel free to with experiment with hiking breakfasts, just make sure to think about spoilage and macronutrients when you do. Dealing with spoilage is very easy if you have a food dehydrator, you can learn more about food dehydration in this article How to eat healthy on the trail.