Leave-no-trace camping eat · Eating in Leave-no-trace camping
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Eating in Leave-no-trace camping
Eating in Leave-no-trace camping
If you're traveling for only a day or three, you can bring along fresh fruit, breadstuffs, and other semi-perishables, and pack out any parts you can't eat (e.g. orange peels, apple cores). Although they're biodegradable, peels and cores shouldn't be left behind; if you leave them out in the open, they'll be an eyesore, and if you bury them, something's probably just going to dig them up. And you definitely don't want to risk seeds germinating and introducing a new species to the area.
Keep your food (and trash) away from the locals; the appropriate methods depend on what kind of beasties live there. Not only does this have obvious selfish benefits, you don't want to mess with the feeding habits of wild animals. It's bad enough that bears in Yellowstone have graduated from stealing picnic baskets to breaking into cars; we don't want to train the critters of the world to follow people around looking for these amazing hot dogs they had once.
For longer trips, freeze-dried foods are the best option, being easy to carry, easy to prepare, and easy to keep from impacting the environment. And they're really not bad to eat. Most commercial backpacking foods can be reconstituted with boiling water in their own packaging, which can be sealed up in a plastic bag after eating, for packing out. (You can reduce the packaging even more by transferring the contents to a sturdy ? but less bulky ? plastic baggie. As long as the baggie stays sealed, it'll easily keep for several days like that.)
Building fires is generally taboo, not just because of the risk of turning the place into a smouldering ash-heap, but because it requires collecting firewood and leaves half-burnt wood. Far better to use a gas-powered camp stove, which can weigh less than a pound and is generally more efficient at boiling water than an open fire anyway. If you have to build a fire, keep it in an existing fire ring or improvise a temporary one, use only small dead branches found lying on the ground, let them burn entirely, and scatter the cool ashes when it's done.
Washing up after dinner can be a little tricky. Ironically, using disposable "dishes" (such as the pouch your freeze-dried beef stew came in) is easiest on the environment in this situation, because all you need to do is pack them out (for landfilling at home). Coffee cups can be rinsed out with a little clean water and reused later by the same person without hygiene concerns. If you need to wash a cooking pan, first clean out as much of the food as possible. (You're hungry, right? Lick it.) Wash it with as little biodegradable soap as you can get away with, instead using hot water to do the work. Scatter this dishwater away from camp sites and far from water sources. Better yet, bury it, which helps that soap to actually biodegrade.
Brushing your teeth with your favorite minty-flavored, fluoride-enhanced toothpaste is a good habit. But you're not taking any serious risks of tooth decay or gum disease by brushing without it for several days, and that means one less strongly-scented germicide you'll be spitting into the environment. You also have permission to skip flossing; you're on vacation.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Leave-no-trace camping
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Leave-no-trace camping Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.