A Nutrition Map for Paddling Superior
By Donna Marlor
Rare is the paddler who hasn't dreamed of taking an extended tour. Two months of bliss? "Not always," says Nancy Uschold, with a laugh. She lived out her kayaking dream on Lake Superior last summer. It was a postcard morning on June 1 when Uschold quietly slipped out
of the harbor in Marquette, Michigan. Seventy two days later, with 1,138 miles behind her, she arrived safely back home. A native of Buffalo, New York, Uschold had her first encounter with Lake Superior in 1988. One of her first purchases in 1993, when she decided to move to Marquette, on Lake Superior, was a sea kayak. "I always loved the water and knew I wanted to kayak," Uschold says.
"Almost immediately, I dreamed of paddling around Superior. About five years ago, I started thinking about it seriously, but the timing wasn't right until 2002."  Planning a 10 week trip is a challenging endeavor.
"I had to get in shape
physically, get my gear together, map out my trip and, of course, I needed food," Uschold says. "Figuring out how much to bring, packaging it for travel and coordinating food drops took a lot of time." From a nutritionist's standpoint, an ultradistance, solo kayaking trip presents some unique challenges. The menu must be adequate in nutrients and calories, yet lightweight, compact, nonspoiling,
quick to cook, and good tasting. Not an easy order to fill. Have the approaching springtime temps got you daydreaming about a summer tour? Here are some nutrition tips to get you started on a journey. Getting Ready: How Much Do I Take?
Wouldn't it be great to lose 10 pounds a week and a spare tire while
merrily paddling about on vacation? A nice idea to entertain, but unfortunately, rapid weight loss can cause fatigue and weaken the immune system.
"At the end of the day, sleeping can be as appealing as eating," says Uschold, "and you've got to do both."
"To get ready for my Superior trip, I took several short trips, including a 10 day solo trip around Isle Royale," explains Uschold. "I based my
food supply on records I had kept from previous trips. That meant weighing the amount of food I took before I left, and then weighing whatever I brought home with me."
Uschold's scientific approach to menu planning paid off on her ultratour.
"I only lost about five pounds over the course of the summer which was fine. Of course, I gained it all back in about a month."
I calculated Uschold's meal plan to be between 2,400 and 2,800
calories. A typical day started with 11/2 cups dry cereal, mixed together in a sealed baggy with 1/4 cup dry milk and a couple of tablespoons of soy protein powder. After a couple of hours of paddling, it was time for some gorp, or a PowerBar. Burritos with 2 3 ounces of cheese sufficed for a quick lunch, or perhaps crispped rye crackers and peanut butter. In midafternoon, Chex mix or sesame sticks were typical snacks. Dinner was three cups (cooked) of some type of beans and rice blend, or
noodle and cheese combination, with added spices and dehydrated vegetables.
Being a vegetarian, Uschold relied on beans, cheese, dried milk and soy powder to provide protein. While a vegetarian diet is certainly healthy, the addition of meat and fish items lends more variety to dehydrated meals. Other good protein sources that are also nonperishable include powdered eggs, tuna fish in a foil pack, summer sausage and ready to eat bacon.
Wind, paddler skill, type of boat and level of physical fitness are all factors that affect calorie requirements for kayaking. That's why your best estimate of calorie requirements is probably based on historical records. During shorter trips, it's a good idea to note what foods you ate, along with the weather conditions and a rating of your overall energy level.
If you haven't kept any kind of records of your food intake during camping trips, Uschold recommends using NOLS Cookery by Claudia
Peterson as a resource.
Plan Menu Variety
For her Superior journey, Uschold planned a 10 week menu. Even so, repetition from eating a steady diet of dehydrated foods affected her appetite.
"I didn't eat as much as I thought I would," says Uschold. "But I did periodically meet up with friends. On those days, I'm sure I ate more because I had unlimited fresh food."
Variety becomes very important as the days stretch into weeks.
"On Isle Royale, I found I could eat oatmeal every day for about a week. Then I was tired of it and had to force it down the last three days."
Uschold's "oatmeal" experience is what nutritionists refer to as "taste fatigue." Repetition desensitizes our taste buds, making food less appealing to eat with repeated exposure. That's fine if you're on the grapefruit diet and are trying to lose 20 pounds. But if your energy
supply needs to be replenished daily, then a limited food selection can be a problem.
Considering the average American sticks to a "diet" for a maximum of three days to a week, be realistic when it comes to planning in some "treats" for a lengthy tour. Can you really handle life without chocolate for 20 days in a row? Fortunately for Uschold, her support crew at biweekly food stops provided some additions to her standard menu, like
cookies "They were like gold!" says Uschold and bagels
.
Of course, there were other factors that influenced her dining habits.
"Bugs," Uschold says, smiling. "I wore mosquito netting at all times on land in June and early July."
Renowned for its black flies and mosquitoes, Lake Superior lived up to its reputation.
"Easy to prepare," Uschold says. "That's very important. Between the
bugs and fatigue, you want to keep food prep very basic. All my recipes for dinner are the same: boil water then stir. I used a single burner camp stove, and had a stormproof lighter for nasty weather."
Hydration and Sodium Replacement
"After the first two weeks," Uschold says, " I noticed that some of the commercially prepared dried mixes, doctored up, tasted better than some of my own dehydrated mixes."
I suggest to her it might have been the difference in sodium content: a three cup serving of a commercial product has about 2,300 mg of sodium, much higher than most home prepared recipes. For a person paddling five to six hours per day, sodium requirements can easily reach 5,000 mg. With no salt shaker "at the table," sodium has to come from foods eaten during the day.
I ask her about fluids how did she avoid dehydration?
"I used a Camelback filled with water while paddling," Uschold says, "and on hot days I drank more, without even thinking about it."
For the first several weeks of the trip, water was the only fluid Uschold drank. About halfway through the trip, she requested some powdered Gatorade be included in her food drop.
"I realized something was missing in my diet. About that time I was really craving salty snacks so I asked for more of those as well."
Fortunately for Uschold, she was able to correct what could have been a serious error in menu planning: not enough sodium. While her menu was high in other essential minerals, such as potassium and magnesium, her greatest loss and consequently, highest requirement was sodium.
Food Safety
Food spoilage is always a risk when refrigeration is unavailable.
"I dehydrated everything but cheese," Uschold says. "I also took some
fresh fruit and veggies at the beginning of each food drop. Cheese and fruit kept fresh for several days it was a cold June on Lake Superior!"
Most commercial dried food mixes contain added preservatives, such as silicon dioxide to prevent caking, and BHT, which is an antioxidant that retards spoiling. Home prepared dehydrated will not last indefinitely, and Uschold recommends Kayak Cookery by Linda Daniels as a resource for drying your own food.
And then there are the natural competitors for your food supply.
"Yes, I have a bear story," Uschold says. "One morning, just after breakfast, I heard some rustling outside of the tent. I thought it was a moose and waited expectantly by the tent door. Then I saw it a black, furry head a foot or two away. It took awhile to chase him off. It was very scary but I needed to protect myself and my gear. I'm sure he wanted my food, but I wasn't about to let him have it."
Bugs, Bears and Beauty
"All in all, it was a great experience," Uschold says, "and I was pretty satisfied with my menu plan."
Does she have any final advice?
"For those wannabe paddlers, I guess the best advice I can give is to start with shorter trips, keep your own records, and keep cooking simple if you plan on paddling a lot of miles."
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