Vegan Fast and Light
Hey Steph,
Firstly, I guess I want to say fair play to you for living such a fun and happy life, it’s hugely inspiring to see, and it’s always great to see hard-ass girl climbers tearing it up!
I wanted to ask about light, vegan food for climbing. I’ve been climbing about a year and a half now, and turned vegan about 2 months ago (loving it!). This summer I’m going to try my hand at the world of alpinism with a 3-day route up Mont Blanc, and wanted to ask advice on light, quick-cooking vegan food. My concern is the calorie intake, just in terms of keeping my energy levels and body temperature up. If you could help me out, it’d be much appreciated!
Thanks, and keep climbing high and happy (“,)
QS.
That sounds like a good adventure! I’m glad you’re having success with your vegan eating 🙂 I’ve found that vegan options are the best for wall and mountain food, because they are the lightest. Usually I like to bring muesli and powdered soymilk and dehydrated lentil soup for breakfasts and dinners, as well as ginger tea. I also bring some nutritional yeast to add to the soup for flavor, B vitamins and protein. Thin rice noodles are great too, because they cook up almost instantly in hot water, and you can bulk up the lentil soup if you want.
For climbing food, I like the Clif Mojo bars (the Mixed Nuts flavor is less sweet), and sometimes I also take a tiny tupperware with almond butter in it for dipping the bars into. The extra calories and fat from the almond butter adds a lot of energy. The Clif blocks are good for more quick energy–I like the Black Cherry if I need some caffeine and the Margarita flavor, because I generally crave salt over sweet when I’m climbing and hiking. Nuts and dried figs are great energy food, and there are some good soy jerky products that I like too.
This is what I usually bring, and when you carry that in your bag with a superlight stove setup (I use the MSR pocketrocket with the titanium teakettle and one cartridge, which doesn’t weigh much), you really don’t sacrifice much weight for the food. Sometimes in other countries you can’t find the standard cartridges, and the Superfly allows you to use most types without weighing that much more.
I hope you have a great climb 🙂
Steph
High five, fellow vegan climber! Love your posts!
Thanks Natasha!
Justin’s almond butter also sells it in small 1-ration pouches that are really handy to stuff in your pack. I just tear a corner and eat it straight from the pack as a high energy food. You can also make your own mix of raw nuts and chopped dried dates, the nutritional value of raw nuts is far superior to the roasted ones!
I have seen those packs, good idea!
For dinner, whole wheat couscous, textured vegetable protein, nutritional yeast and other spices are light, compact, and vegan. Carry in a ziplock, then mix with hot water and combine with olive oil (carried in a nalgene bottle), and I’ve stuffed 7000+ calories per day (I’m a big guy…) into 2 pounds per day of food. Prep time is about as long as it takes to heat water.
Double high 5 to Natasha and Steph for being vegan climbers! I am really interested to hear what you eat on car camping road trips, or at least some recommendations. I am new to eating vegan and am planning a trip to Bishop in March. I wanna do it 100% vegan and need help!
I follow your blog too Natasha for inspiration. I think you wrote that you were working on a post about road tripping vegan? Would love to hear and get ideas from both you and Steph!
Hi Derek, being vegan on a roadtrip is actually the easiest thing you can do, because mostly what spoils in your cooler is meat or dairy products. I recommend finding a good powdered soymilk that you like, and keeping that in your foodbox for eating with granola and adding to coffee. Almond butter is a great staple, as is peanut butter. My biggest tip is to aways buy block ice, not cube, and keep a few veggies and some tofu in your cooler. Usually if you buy for two-three days, that puts you on schedule with a rest day for restocking on perishables. In your regular food box, you can keep things like pasta, tasty bites, soup cups, almond butter, small boxes of soymilk, bars, dry fruit, etc. I always like to keep a bag of sundried tomatoes in there too.