In Praise of the Calorie

A man with dual citizenship

Like most outdoors folk, I oscillate between two worlds. In the “regular” world, shirts are pressed, shoes are polished, labour is saved, comfort is paramount and the calorie is presented on food packaging as something to be minimised or even avoided altogether. It’s an understandable consequence of living in a largely sedentary society. But, in my outdoor life, everything is turned upside down. Scruffiness is expected, effort is good, discomfort is welcomed and Calories are there to be relished.

So, what even is a Calorie?

In dietetic terms, a Calorie (strictly a kilocalorie, but that needn’t trouble us) can heat a litre of water by a degree Celsius. Let’s use that as an excuse to muck about some schoolchild physics. A litre of water is equivalent to a kilogram. I weigh about 80 kilograms. The human body is pretty much all water (hence the internet meme about us being basically cucumbers with anxiety). So if I metabolised 80 Calories very quickly (so as not to lose the ensuing heat) I could raise my body temperature by a degree Celsius. [Or thereabouts. In the unlikely event that my old physics teacher is reading this, he’s probably gone into cardiac arrest]. The point is, and I think we can at least agree on this, food keeps us warm as well as fuelling the activities we love.

Expedition Foods’ client base includes some astonishingly energetic folk, with several of you getting up to incredible adventures in the polar regions and the Greater Ranges. My outings are much more modest and closer to home than that: my pleasure is fastpacking, that strange hybrid between fell-running and wild-camping. But I can still burn a fair bit of energy jogging the Lakeland fells and pitching on a high summit, without having to navigate the crevasses of Antarctica or Nepal.

Beware the peddlers of not-enough-nosh

One thing that strikes me about the outdoor foods market is the calorific inadequacy of many of the offerings. This came to a head when my two worlds collided on a weekend away with my wife. We’d had a fairly low-key afternoon idling round the gear shops, then gone for dinner. This particular eaterie published calorie counts on its menu. Having just been perusing food sachets in the gear shops, the contrast was absurd - grotesque, even. Here was a restaurant offering a thousand-calorie burger to people who’d spent the day shopping. Meanwhile, a few doors down, the outdoor shops were offering half as much energy to people who’d spent the day backpacking or cycling.

That’s why I keep coming back to Expedition Foods sachets, with their 800 and 1000 Calorie main course servings. I’ll still have room for a 450 calorie pudding, and another 800 calories for breakfast. It’s probably the bare minimum in terms of replacing effort expended, but that’s not the issue for my one-night-only nano-adventures. Where it really counts for me is in keeping warm on a cold, possibly snow capped, summit in minimalist gear. I like to think a thermal camera would be able to spot my camp from low orbit.

So, whatever your sport may be, relish your food when you’re out on your adventures. In this world, calories are good. Eat up.

By Norman Hadley

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