When heading outdoors, the question of what to eat and how to replenish it is crucial. By maintaining a more balanced diet to ensure your body’s energy supply, you can improve your physical fitness and develop healthier living habits. Let’s hear what experienced hikers have to say.

Feel too sluggish after eating? Maybe you’re not eating the right way
1. Staple Foods
For staple foods, it's best to choose highly fermented or puffed options such as bread or steamed sponge cakes. Next are low-fermentation options like steamed buns, and lastly come the common unleavened flatbreads often seen in outdoor settings.

2. Avoid Overeating
"Feeling too full to move" is common knowledge. So for lunch during the hike, avoid overeating—eight-tenths full is enough.

3. Eat Small, Frequent Meals
To address the issue of not eating too much at once, it’s wise to eat smaller meals more frequently. That means you can have some high-sugar snacks like bananas or chocolate biscuits during mid-morning or mid-afternoon breaks.

4. Meal Pairings
You can—and should—eat fish, meat, vegetables, fruits, and pickles. The key is balance without overdoing any one item. In the “fire of life” that is the human body, carbohydrates are like kindling and hay, fats are like straw and twigs, and proteins are like firewood and logs—each indispensable.

5. Avoid Hard-to-Digest Foods
Fried foods are easy to store, and many hikers like to bring fried meats, but such items are not easily digested. Tofu is also a common food for those cooking on the trail, yet legumes are similarly hard to digest. Fruits like oranges, tangerines, and mandarins are convenient to carry and eat, but they are relatively harder to digest. Among vegetables, cruciferous plants like broccoli are among the most difficult to digest.

6. Post-Meal Rest
If possible, try not to schedule lunch breaks shorter than forty minutes, and take a short rest afterward to feel more energized.

Differences Between Short-Haul and Long-Haul Food
For short trips, we can prioritize our taste preferences, but for longer journeys, we must consider additional factors:
The food must be suitable for storage and transport, and not prone to spoilage or deterioration due to environmental conditions or extended time.
It must be convenient to eat—even when there’s no access to fire or cooking facilities—meaning it might need to be pre-processed.
It must maximally meet the nutritional needs of outdoor activities and ideally offer specific adaptability to wilderness conditions.
It must be economical and readily available.

How Should You Carry Your Food?
Many people believe that meat is more filling, so should you bring more meat when hiking? Not necessarily. Carbohydrates provide energy more directly and quickly than proteins or fats, and they are easier to digest. Therefore, the primary source of energy replenishment during outdoor activities should be carbohydrates, i.e., grain-based foods.

Carbohydrates

Fried Noodles:
In expeditions like those crossing the Yarlung or Qiangtang regions, you’ll find that their sole staple is tsampa—in Tibetan, tsampa means fried noodles. Similarly, back in the day, the main contents of the thin grain bags carried diagonally by Eighth Route Army soldiers were fried noodles.

Fried Rice:
In addition to fried noodles, the grain bags carried by Eighth Route Army soldiers also contained fried rice. Fried rice originally comes from the nomadic Mongolian diet, where it’s called “lebadar,” and was invented specifically for consumption in the wild.

Oatmeal:
Although cereal is not stir-fried, it is made by cooking oats, grinding them, and then drying them, making it a decent breakfast or dinner option in the wild.

Pan bread, guokui, or naan
Pan bread from northern China, guokui from the northwest, or naan from Xinjiang can be eaten directly or, if conditions allow, cooked into a dish.

Fats and proteins
Stir-fried beans:
Roast soybeans (either yellow or black beans) and store them in a bag for a quick snack. Soybeans contain two to three times more protein than pork or eggs, and their fats are more easily absorbed. The secret to how Zheng He’s fleet overcame the food challenges faced by Magellan and Columbus during their long voyages was none other than soybeans.

Sausages:
Sausages are salty and dry enough to last for several months. Besides fats and proteins, they also replenish salt.

Peanut kernels:
Chewing on peanut kernels can serve as a supplement. It’s best to buy vacuum-sealed ones—flavorful peanuts can be considered a tasty outdoor treat even under tough conditions.

Vitamins
Onions:
Known as the "queen of vegetables" in the West, onions are rich in vitamins and trace elements, easy to store, and can be eaten raw or cooked. They’re ready to eat and can help combat the large amount of free radicals produced during exercise. In situations with limited hygiene in the wild, onions also help boost resistance to colds.

Chili peppers and garlic:
Chili peppers have the highest vitamin content among vegetables. Both dried chilies and chili sauce can meet long-term storage needs. Garlic has strong antibacterial and antiviral properties.

Dates:
Red dates or dried jujubes are essential snacks for any journey. They’re not only high in sugar but also rich in fats, proteins, vitamins, and trace elements. Known as the “king of vitamins,” especially due to their high vitamin C content among fruits.

Water — How to drink it?
Water is the most important component of the human body. Without food, one can survive for seven days, but without water, survival is limited to just 3–4 days. Dehydration can lead to serious consequences such as heatstroke or kidney failure, and may even be life-threatening. In short, water is the most crucial element in outdoor activities. Therefore, knowing how to drink water and how to maintain your body's hydration needs is extremely important.

1. Water intake
Normally, a person should consume about 1200 ml of water per day. In the outdoors, where strenuous activity is involved, you need to drink 3–6 times that amount to meet your needs. Here’s a reminder for those who drink little water: when engaging in outdoor activities with heavy sweating, drinking insufficient water causes the body to reabsorb moisture from urine due to its self-regulating function, resulting in reduced urination. Over time, this can lead to various kidney problems.

2. Salt supplementation
Is it good to often eat high-salt pickled vegetables? Not necessary.
Sodium in the body is mostly excreted, and the body will automatically reclaim some when needed. Only in extremely hot weather or during prolonged heavy sweating is it necessary to supplement salt.

3. Sports drinks
Does drinking sports drinks during outdoor activities effectively replenish energy? The answer is no.
A bottle of sports drink provides very little energy and electrolytes. We often overestimate the effects of sports drinks—the impact of one bottle is almost negligible. The main role of sports drinks is to enhance bursts of energy, with minimal effect on endurance. On the contrary, regularly drinking functional beverages can disrupt the body’s fluid balance system and be harmful to health.

4. Sugar supplementation
Is glucose easily absorbed by the body, so is drinking more of it beneficial? Not really.
The human body is a highly precise self-regulating system. As long as you maintain adequate hydration, it can maintain balance on its own. Therefore, the water we carry daily should be: plain boiled water, mineral water, purified water, or natural spring water in the wild. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to drink—adhere to the principle of drinking every 20–30 minutes, 150–200 ml at a time.

5. Energy Replenishment
In terms of physical preparation: in the past, most people would bring chocolate, and some recommended Red Bull. For outdoor activities, you need high-energy food that also helps combat fatigue, while also being lightweight and easy to carry. That’s why chocolate is often the first choice that comes to mind.
The main ingredient in Red Bull is taurine, along with other compounded components, which can help keep you alert, but it doesn’t do much to restore your physical energy. Chocolate, although high in energy, is relatively slow to digest and absorb. A suitable supplement of amino acids and glucose is a good option. Such foods are especially recommended for longer hikes, mountain climbs, and other outdoor activities.

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