Why moorland food needs its own plan

Moorland trekking is a peculiar beast. You are rarely more than a few miles from a road as the crow flies, yet the terrain is slow, the ground is often boggy, and the weather can turn a pleasant afternoon into a proper squall within twenty minutes. Factor in a heavy pack and you can easily burn 3,000 to 4,500 calories a day without noticing. Pubs and cafés are usually miles away, and bothies, while wonderful, rarely come with a shop attached.

So the food you carry has to do three jobs at once. It needs to be light enough to lug up a 700-metre climb, calorific enough to keep you moving, and appealing enough that you will actually want to eat it when you are cold, tired and damp. The good news is that a bit of planning makes a huge difference, and it is entirely possible to eat properly for four or five days from a pack that weighs under three kilograms of food.

Breakfast: fuel for the first climb

Mornings in a bothy or a tent are not the time for culinary ambition. You want something you can prepare half-awake, ideally using only water you have already boiled for a brew.

• Porridge oats with powdered milk, a handful of raisins, and a spoonful of sugar or honey. Around 100g of oats per person is a generous, warming start.
• Muesli or granola for those who cannot face hot food first thing. Add powdered milk at home so you only need cold water on the hill.
• Instant oat sachets are handy for solo trips, though they cost more per calorie than a bag of own-brand oats.
• A hot drink — coffee, tea or a malted night-time-style drink — plus a couple of oatcakes with peanut butter if you know you will be climbing straight away.

If you struggle to eat much at dawn, decant your breakfast into two sittings: something small before you pack up, and a second helping an hour into the walk when your appetite wakes up properly.

Lunch and daytime grazing

Forget the idea of a formal lunch. On a long moorland day, the most reliable approach is constant grazing: eat small amounts every hour or so, stopping for a proper sit-down only if the weather is kind and the midges are absent. Big meals mid-walk make you sluggish and can leave you feeling cold.

• Oatcakes, crispbreads or flatbreads with hard cheese, salami, or a tube of soft cheese. Hard cheese keeps well for several days in cool conditions.
• Tortillas or bagels squash flat in a pack and hold together far better than sliced bread.
• Peanut butter, Nutella-style spreads or paté in small tubs — calorie-dense and forgiving of temperature changes.
• Dried fruit and nuts, malt loaf, flapjack, and boiled sweets for steady energy on the move.
• Chocolate is fine in winter, but in summer it turns to soup in a rucksack pocket. Save it for the evening.

A useful rule of thumb is to carry daytime food you can eat one-handed while wearing gloves and without stopping. If it needs two hands and a sit-down, it is not lunch-on-the-hoof material.

Dinner: the meal that earns its weight

Evening is when morale matters most. After a long day on the moors, a hot, substantial dinner is worth every gram of fuel it costs to cook.

Dehydrated expedition meals are convenient and now genuinely palatable, but they are pricey for a long trip. A cheaper and often tastier approach is to build your own using:

• Couscous — it rehydrates in boiling water in five minutes and needs no cooking, so it saves fuel.
• Instant noodles or ramen as a base, with added dried vegetables and a stock cube.
• Dried soya mince, smoked sausage or a pouch of tuna for protein. Smoked sausage keeps unrefrigerated for days and can be sliced into almost anything.
• Dried mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and herbs to make repeated meals taste less repetitive.
• A dessert — custard powder, instant whip, or a hot chocolate with a slug of something warming if you carry it.

Salt and fat are your friends here. A little olive oil in a small screw-top bottle adds calories and richness to couscous and noodles, and it makes a world of difference to a tired palate.

Tarns, bothies and water discipline

Upland tarns are wonderful for a brew stop, a wash or a plunge, but treat the water with common sense. In remote areas, water from a flowing tarn or stream above the tree line is usually excellent, but you should still filter or chemically treat it if there is grazing, mining history or heavy footfall nearby. Carry a filter or purification tablets and a spare bottle.

Bothies are shared spaces, so food discipline matters. Keep everything in a sealed drybag, hang it if there are mice about, and never leave scraps behind. If you use a bothy stove, remember that fuel is precious and someone may have carried it in on their back. Cook efficiently: boil once, and use that water for both your meal and a hot drink.

Practical packing and portion control

Decant everything at home. Remove cardboard, tear off excess packaging and repack into small zip-lock bags or reusable pouches. Label each day's food if you are on a fixed itinerary, but always carry one extra day's worth — moorland weather can hold you in place longer than you plan for.

• Aim for roughly 600 to 800g of dry food per person per day, adjusting upwards in winter or for big days.
• Keep snacks in a hip-belt pocket or chest pouch so you eat without stopping.
• Pack one "emergency" meal that needs no cooking, in case your stove fails or the weather turns foul.
• Weigh your food before you leave and note what you actually ate. Your next trip will be better for it.

Get the food right and a multi-day moorland trek becomes a pleasure rather than a chore. Eat little and often, cook one good meal a day, and always carry a bit more than you think you need — the moors have a way of making you hungry.