10 Must-Try Keto Hiking Food Ideas to Power Your Low-Carb Adventure

For outdoor enthusiasts embracing the ketogenic lifestyle, planning meals and snacks for hiking and camping trips requires careful consideration. Maintaining ketosis while exerting energy on the trail involves selecting the right foods to keep you energized and satisfied. This article provides a comprehensive guide to keto-friendly hiking food ideas, ensuring you can enjoy your adventure without compromising your dietary goals.

Understanding Keto and Hiking

The keto diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate way of eating that encourages your body to make ketones from fat, which are then used as fuel. Typically, this means limiting carbohydrate intake to under 50 grams daily, with 75-90% of total daily calories coming from fat. It's important to understand that the body thinks of a carb and a sugar is pretty much the same thing. It doesn’t matter if it comes from bread, a fruit, or a sugar.

One advantage of this is that as long as you have body fat, when you are in ketosis you have a constant energy supply independent of what you eat. So no low blood sugar crashes or bonks. E.g. Your body goes into ketosis (metabolizes fat into ketones) when you significantly reduce carbohydrate intake.

Hiking, especially backpacking, demands sustained energy. Being keto-adapted means your body is already efficient at burning fat for fuel, which can translate to stable energy levels on the trail, avoiding the blood sugar spikes and crashes associated with high-carb diets.

Important Considerations Before You Start

Jumping into keto right before a camping trip isn't ideal. As your body adapts to carb restriction, you might experience flu-like symptoms. If you’re new to keto it’s probably already hard enough just to plan your regular everyday meals, let alone trying to figure out how to stay keto while hiking and backpacking! It's best to be keto-adapted before hitting the trails. However, if you can’t change your plans, you may want to hold off on strict keto until you get home.

Read also: Easy Low-Carb Cheese Crackers

General Principles for Keto Camping and Hiking

Calorie Needs: If you’re planning on relaxing more than usual, then you should eat fewer calories. The second principle is particularly important for backpackers or anyone hiking for multiple hours a day.
Over-prepare: In general, it is better to over-prepare for your trip. There is nothing worse than having a beautiful serene spot in the middle of the woods and running out of food.
Plan Ahead: Plan ahead based on your activity levels and food preferences - Know how much you should aim to eat and what to bring based on your camping style.

Foods to Avoid

Ironically, the most popular camping foods, meals, and snacks are so highly processed that they bear little resemblance to real food. To stay in ketosis while camping, avoid these common culprits:

Candy: High-sugar chocolates and other sweets.
Sugar-added sauces, dressings, and condiments: Ketchup, BBQ sauce, and honey mustard dressing are common sugar-filled campsite culprits.
High-carb alcohol: Most beers and flavored/sweetened alcoholic drinks are carb-rich culprits.
Grains: wheat products, oat products, rice products, pasta, couscous; crackers, tortillas, cookies, breakfast cereals, and grain based granolas.
Potato products.
Most energy bars (super full of sugar and grains).
Bean products (also high in carbs for the protein they contain).
Dried fruit which is all carbs.

Keto-Friendly Food Options for Camping

Here's a list of foods you can enjoy while camping on a keto diet:

Fat bombs: A quick high-fat snack or dessert (and the perfect backup food).
Keto tortillas: Make them at home and pack them in the cooler to make a delicious wrap or burrito.
Deli meats: For more fat, look for salami, mortadella, and full-fat cold cuts.
Premade keto bars: Though there are many “keto-approved” products out there, many of them aren’t as keto-friendly as their labels claim.
Keto-friendly alcohol: Unflavored hard liquor, dry red or white wine, and low-carb beers are the most reliable options.
High fat foods are in and great. Protein is best consumed with high fat foods like hard cheeses, fatty meats, etc. All animal proteins are in. And high fat foods like nuts are also good.
Hard salami brands with zero carbs and a paper casing.
A good hard cheese and wrap it up to keep it from getting too greasy in your bag.
Almonds and especially macadamia nuts, are a great packable trail snack.
Avocados. Pack at least two, one kinda ripe and the other underripe and eat half at two meals each day.
Salami
Biltong". It's air cured without sauce/marinades and is the PERFECT keto trail snack.
Keto Trail Mix (macadamia nuts, almonds, sugar-free chocolate).
Granola bars made out of keto friendly ingredients like crunchy nuts and dried veggies are another great quick-grab item to eat while you move.
Pack a baggie full from a bulk jar or pack a few single-serve packets and put enough into your morning coffee or tea to make it a meal in itself.
Instant coffee in the morning and some sleepy-time tea in the evening and you’re all set.

Keto Camping Recipes

Rather than mixing and matching from the food list above, you can plan your camping menu ahead of time with the help of these keto recipes:

Keto "Oatmeal": A comforting low-carb “oatmeal” recipe that is perfect for chilly mornings by the campfire. Warm the keto milk over the campfire and stir in the dry ingredients until it resembles oatmeal.
Keto Bread: Make a loaf before you go and toast it in your campfire pan with butter for a quick high-fat keto breakfast.
Keto Zucchini Bread: If you prefer to start your morning with something sweet, this keto zucchini bread will be the perfect breakfast.
Fat Bomb Bars: For a quick no-fuss breakfast, bring these fat bomb bars with you.
Chicken Salad: Skip the deli line and make the chicken salad yourself.
Keto Soup: A hearty, flavorful soup that is incredibly easy to make at home and reheat over the campfire.
Keto Bowl: If you’re looking for a lazy lunch idea, bring these keto recipe ingredients with you and assemble the bowl for a quick meal.
Hot Dogs with Keto Buns: Though you can have them without the bun on keto, there’s nothing like packing a hot dog with all the fix-ins. Don’t forget to bring the two-ingredient keto hot dog buns with you.
Campfire Keto Chili: All you need is the right mixture of spices, sugar-free tomato sauce, cheese, and meat to make a delicious campfire keto chili.
Slow-Cooked Pork: There is nothing like slow-cooked pork by the campfire. Though it’s easier to make it at home and fill your Tupperware to the brim with carnitas, you can also slow-cook the pork shoulder in a large pot over the fire.
Bacon and Cabbage Skillet: Bacon, green cabbage, butter, a skillet, a fire, and a trusty knife are all you need to prepare this keto meal. To maximize storage space, chop the bacon and cabbage beforehand and pack it into separate containers.
Keto Foil Packet Meals: Foil packet meals are an awesome keto camping hack that can save you a ton of time and minimize clean-up. Fold up the edges of each tin foil sheet lengthwise, and fold them over to seal them together. Place foil packets on a preheated grill over medium heat or over the campfire. Cook for 10-15 minutes, flipping halfway through. Feel free to customize your own keto foil packet meals as well.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Fat Bombs: To get your peanut butter and chocolate fix, make a batch of these and take them with you.
Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla Fat Bombs: A delicious camp-friendly dessert for fruit lovers, these fat bombs combine chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla with keto sweeteners to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Eggs, brie, spinach scramble or bake it into a frittata
Miso soup with protein, veggies + butter
Avocado, bacon and eggs
Indian meat and vegetable curry + coconut oil
Braised pork in any style, leaving fat on
Roasted cauliflower w/ coconut oil
Italian Lettuce wraps with salami, ham, cheese, mayo, mustard
Burger plate: Grilled burger, cheese on a bed of lettuce and all the fixings and sauces. This is a pretty standard keto lunch
Meat cheese nuts and a veggie or two

Food Storage and Consumption Tips

Eat fresh food first: Without the climate control of the fridge or freezer, you may find that your fresh foods spoil more quickly than expected.
Prioritize frozen food after fresh: Once your fresh food has been consumed, start eating the frozen food that you brought along with you. This includes frozen meat and pre-made keto meals.
Consume long shelf-life foods sparingly until you’ve finished your frozen foods/meals.
Bring extra snacks that can also serve as high-fat meals. Think of this as your food insurance policy.

Keep in mind, however, these rules work best for camping trips with the help of cars and coolers.

Keto Backpacking Food Considerations

If you are going on long hikes (lasting longer than 2 hours) or backpacking, it is best to prioritize high-fat, low-water foods that will not spoil quickly.

Fish packed in olive oil: Tuna, salmon, mackerel, and sardines with olive oil are the best options.
Nut butter: Opt for the highest calorie nut butter stored in packets rather than jars.
High-fat deli meats: A simple way to fit more fat, protein, electrolytes, and flavor into your trail meals.
Hard cheese: It may sound crazy, but opt for a block of the highest-fat cheese rather than individually packed sticks. Just use your knife to create your own cheese stick.
Cheese crisps: Whisps, Moon cheese, and even homemade cheese chips are delicious trail foods.
Jerky: You can’t go wrong with dehydrated meats on the trail.
Fat bombs: Make a batch of your favorite fat bombs with the help of the recipes above and our fat bomb guide.
Keto-friendly energy bars: Whether you use the bar recipes above or purchase some keto bars at the store, these are the easiest way to sneak in a quick high-fat snack or meal.
Tuna pouch: Feel free to use any other meat/fish stored in a pouch or can.
2-4 mayo sachets: Use any mayo you can find at a store, restaurant, or rest stop. Optional: Add yellow mustard, salt, and/or pepper for added flavor.
Meat and cheese wraps with nuts: After a long hike, this’ll taste like a restaurant-quality meat and cheese plate. Just wrap 1-2 slices of your preferred deli meat around a piece of hard cheese.
Dehydrated keto meals: This the priciest, yet most convenient option. Unfortunately, most dehydrated backpacking meals are high-carb, so make sure you double-check the label.

Keto Trail Snack Ideas

Beef jerky is arguably the best hiking snack. Don’t be scared off or intimidated by keto beef jerky either. Even non-keto eaters can enjoy these beef jerky recipes, and hikers can celebrate some of these keto friendly backpacking food ideas.
Double Peanut Butter Balls: Perfect for peanut butter lovers.
Coconut Peanut Butter Balls: Similar to the peanut butter balls, but with one key difference: cocoa powder.
Pork rinds
Macadamia nuts
Cut up raw vegetables
Parmesan crisps
Landjaegers(meat sticks)

Hydration and Electrolytes

Staying hydrated is crucial, especially on the keto diet. Here's why:

Carbohydrates help your body absorb both water and sodium. Because the keto diet cuts out carbs, your body’s water absorption decreases substantially. This can be problematic for ketovores during physical activity when sweating increases sodium and water loss.
Ketones are acidic, and this causes our kidneys to trigger more frequent urination to clear out the acid. If you don’t drink enough fluids to replace water lost from increased urination, you could become dehydrated.
The high acid production can actually overwhelm the kidneys’ ability to filter out the acid. When this happens, a condition known as metabolic acidosis may occur. This can be a serious issue and causes vomiting, lightheadedness, and fatigue.

To keep your body hydrated, you’ll want to drink enough fluids and ensure you have electrolytes with those fluids. Sodium is the most important electrolyte to replace. It helps your body absorb and retain water. Other important electrolytes are potassium, chloride, calcium, and magnesium. You can get electrolytes by adding a supplement to your water or by eating electrolyte-rich snacks throughout the day.

Addressing Potential Issues

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies: Due to the diet’s restrictive nature, keto foods can be high in fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins E, D, and K) but low in water-soluble ones (B vitamins and vitamin C). Consider taking a complete multivitamin and mineral supplement if you want to go keto for an extended period.

Fiber Intake: Cutting out plant foods like whole grains and fruits can cause constipation and other bowel issues. Be sure to include sources of fiber. Nuts and seeds are great ways to add fiber to your diet. Non-starchy veggies like dehydrated kale are also essential to include. Finally, you may want to consider a fiber supplement to fill the gaps.

Read also: Magnesium Supplements for Keto

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