Healthy Camp Cooking

In most conversations about camping I am being asked for advice on camp cooking. To me this subject is difficult and easy at the same time. It is difficult because of the myriad of varieties of camping cookware available on the market. The look and complexity of your camp kitchen depends on your individual needs and on how easy or gourmet your cooking is. And from my personal observation and research this can vary significantly from camper to camper.

Some campers are happy living on sandwiches and macaroni and cheese. Others bring camping ovens for baking fresh bread and cake, rotisseries for chicken and coffee makers for their gourmet coffee. It is hard to advise all of them at the same time.

For ease of cooking some people praise the use of Dutch oven, others like hobo dinners: cooked in a pouch of aluminum foil, others, like me, like the grill. But I have seen fish cooked on a stone sitting on hot coals. My son loves potatoes baked in the coals. It doesn’t get easier than this.

My family has a lot of special dietary needs as I am a vegetarian and my son has sensitivities to dairy and gluten. And I still manage to make easy and nutritious meals for us every day while camping. It is all a matter of what you are used to at home. I do not think that camping diet should vary significantly from what we eat at home. Special dehydrated meals may be necessary for backpackers, but are not required for car camping.

For me a camping trip is not a good reason to indulge kids in junk food such as hot dogs and chips. Special treats have their place once or twice a day, but children should not learn to associate camping with processed food. While it may be easier for parents to fill hungry mouths with store-bought snacks, I tend to bring plenty of not-easily perishable fruit such as apples, oranges and bananas and make them into healthy snacks.

As you can see I am a big advocate of healthy eating, but I certainly see a trend among conscious parents to do the same. Similarly more and more children have food allergies and sensitivities, especially to milk and gluten. Parents need to adapt as a necessity. Fortunately there are more and more stores and products catering to such needs. I can find many gluten free products at a local bakery at Wiarton, a small town on Bruce Peninsula, near the place we go camping. I found wonderful dairy free ice cream made of coconut milk called Coconut Bliss by Luna & Larry’s at another small town along the way (but made in USA). Some of those products are more expensive than the regular variety, but some are reasonably priced, when compared to better brands.

If you are looking for healthy recipes I will give you a few of my favourites in my future blog post: http://www.momanddadcamping.com/camping/campfire-cooking/5-easy-camping-recipes.html