Thruhikers are black holes when it comes to nutrition. When you burn 6,000 calories per day, it can be incredibly difficult to eat enough food to sustain yourself. And we can only eat so many Cliff Bars before we can’t stomach them any longer. Luckily, with rising interest in nutrition, it’s becoming easier to find snacks that are made with quality ingredients.
As a general rule of thumb, ultralight snacks should have at least 100 calories per ounce. In order to prevent yourself from carrying 20lbs of food, adhering to these numbers gives you a better food to weight balance. But this is just a general guideline and most hikers will choose a handful of items that don’t fit this description.
| Best Flavor | Thrive Jerky |
| Highest Nutritional Density | Skratch Labs |
| Greatest Value | Caveman |
| Most Unique | Slopeside Syrup / Untapped |
If you’re constantly looking for ways to satiate your hunger, it can be helpful to find snacks that are built with a focus towards athletic growth. Hikers can benefit from balanced snacks with plenty of salt in order to allow us to replenish our electrolytes. The best snacks for thruhikers are lightweight, nutritionally dense and delicious.
Slopeside Syrup / Untapped
Favorite Product: Lemon Waffle
Calories: 140
Cost: $9.95 / 4 Waffles
$2.49 / each
Slopeside Syrup’s approach to nutrition is unique and delicious. The Lemon Waffle is tasty, full of essential nutrients and extremely lightweight. Weighing just 1.1 ounces and filled with 140 calories, this little waffle is an ultralight backpacking snack. You can expect to receive plenty of Iron, Carbohydrates and Sugar to keep you going for the day. As a waffle that costs about $2.49 each, these are comparable to most granola bars that you’ll find at the grocery store in terms of cost. But they are much more palatable!
About Slopeside Syrup / Untapped: Untapped is a New England company that has a unique take on nutrition for the endurance athlete. While most shops feature products that are full of ingredients with weird names, Untapped keeps it simple. Ted King, the company’s founder, saw tremendous potential in maple syrup. And it wasn’t long before the company started turning that delicious syrup into fuel for endurance athletes. Today, the brand offers traditional syrup, waffles and mapleaid.
Skratch Labs
Favorite Product: Raspberries & Lemon Bar
Calories: 220
Cost: $29.50 / 12 bars
$2.46 / each
Skratch Labs did a good job of approaching balanced nutrition when they designed the Raspberries & Lemon Bar. Weighing 1.8 ounces and containing 220 calories, these bars contain about 122 calories per ounce. Our main caveat with many of Skratch’s products is that they’re extremely sweet. Now, thruhikers can handle plenty of sugar. But the Raspberries & Lemon Bar offers next-level sweetness. Due to this fact, it’d be tough to stomach more than a few of these bars per day.
About Skratch Labs: Skratch Labs was born when Dr. Allen Lim began making his own fuel for athletics. He worked as a cycling coach and was inspired by the need to boost the nutritional content that was accessible to these types of athletes. Dr. Lim began diluting conventional sports drinks to minimize the sugar content. And then he started to add the minerals and nutrients that our bodies actually need during performance, giving us a more balanced way to hydrate. This company focuses on natural ingredients, attempting to veer away from conventional fillers and additives.
Thrive Jerky
Favorite Product: Original Turkey Jerky
Calories: 80 per serving
150 per package
Cost: $6.99 each
Thrive’s Original Turkey Jerky puts brands like Jack’s Links to shame! With premium marinated turkey in each bag, the flavor is rich, the texture is soft and the nutrition is superb. Each resealable bag contains 2.2 ounces of jerky. And with 150 calories per package, this product falls just a little bit under the 100 calories per ounce threshold. However, due to the delicious design of this jerky, the weight is worth it.
About Thrive Jerky: Thrive Jerky was developed to provide nutritionally clean products. The brand is of the belief that proper food impacts your overall well-being, which means that what you choose to fuel yourself with impacts you on many levels. Thrive products are sweetened with Stevia instead of processed sweeteners. Most jerky companies pack their products full of sugar because it’s addictive and delicious. But not Thrive. And the resulting products are better for your body.
Caveman Foods
Favorite Product: Chocolate Almond Crunch Grain Free Granola
Calories: 150 / serving
7 servings / bag
Cost: $7.99 / bag
$1.14 / serving
As someone who isn’t usually fond of granola, I was completely blown away by Caveman’s Chocolate Almond Crunch Grain Free Granola. This product is delicious, unique and easy to love. As a certified paleo-friendly food, this granola is made with ingredients like almonds, sunflower seeds and chocolate chips. It’s also dairy free, gluten-free, vegan and soy-free. Vegan thruhikers face tremendous difficulties while resupplying in most trail towns. But Caveman’s conscious dedication to developing healthy products can help those with specific nutritional needs. The Chocolate Almond Crunch Grain Free Granola contains 7 ounces of delicious ingredients. With 1050 calories in each bag, your calorie to weight ratio ends up being about 150 calories per ounce. This value is nearly unbeatable and the ingredients are whole in nutritious.
In addition to having terrific products like the Chocolate Almond Crunch Grain Free Granola, Caveman also has grain free protein bars and plenty of meat snacks.There’s something for everyone to love in Caveman’s line of products.
About Caveman Foods: Caveman Foods is built to provide clean snacks with an unbeatable flavor. Their line of foods is paleo certified and they’re designed to mimic many of the types of foods that our ancestors ate. Because of this, most of their products incorporate meat, eggs, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. But they don’t include all of the fillers that many contemporary foods include.
That’s it Fruit
Favorite Product: Strawberry Minis
Calories: 60 / bar
Cost: $25.99 / box
$0.87 / each
That’s it Fruit’s Strawberry Mini fruit bars are unlike any other product on the market. Comparable to a thick fruit leather, these bars are made with just fruit. In fact, the nutrition label includes “apples and strawberries.” Each mini bar is 0.7 ounces in weight and contains 60 calories. That comes out to about 85 calories per ounce, which is a little bit under the thruhiking threshold. However, since it can be difficult to find preserved fruits and vegetables along your journey, adding a product like the Strawberry Minis to your food bag can make a tremendous difference in your health. Overall, these bars are tasty, compact and unique.
About That’s It Fruit: That’s It Fruit functions with a mission to use whole ingredients in their products. Instead of packing their bars full of fillers and additives, the ingredient lists contain real plant foods and even chocolate. In fact, the nutrition labels will never have more than 5 ingredients because the brand is of the belief that simple is better.
It can be extremely difficult to find food that fuels a thruhike. Powdered donuts and pizza only take us so far before we get injured. Luckily, there are plenty of snacks to explore that bend the status quo. The best snacks for thruhikers are calorically dense, unique in flavor and affordable. Whether you’re taking on a long long-trail or you’re getting out for a few days, adding proper nutrition to your day will make a difference.
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