How much food should you pack per day?

The short answer for most backpackers: 2,500–4,500 kcal and 1.5–2.5 lb of food per day, depending on your body, pack weight, and terrain. The long answer is why those two numbers fight each other — and how to win.

Start with your burn rate

A rough field formula: take your body weight plus half your pack weight (in pounds) and multiply by 15–25 depending on intensity. A 170 lb hiker with a 30 lb pack on moderate terrain burns roughly (170 + 15) × 18 ≈ 3,350 kcal/day. Our calorie calculator does this for you and saves the target into the trip planner.

On trips under a week, most hikers deliberately pack 10–20% below their burn — running a small deficit beats carrying the extra weight. On longer trips the deficit catches up with you, so plan closer to your actual burn.

Calories per ounce: the metric that matters

Every food choice is a trade between calories and weight. The benchmark:

• Under 100 kcal/oz — heavy for what it feeds you (fresh fruit, canned goods, most bars)
• 100–130 kcal/oz — decent (freeze-dried meals, jerky, tortillas)
• 130–160 kcal/oz — good (granola, most trail mix, cheese)
• 160+ kcal/oz — great (nuts, nut butter, chocolate, olive oil at 251)

A day of 3,300 kcal at an average 125 kcal/oz weighs 1.65 lb. At 100 kcal/oz it weighs over 2 lb — half a pound more, every day. That's why our catalog sorts by cal/oz by default.

A realistic daily template

• Breakfast (~500–600 kcal): granola with milk, oatmeal + nut butter, or a breakfast skillet pouch
• Snacks, eaten hourly (~1,200–1,500 kcal): the biggest calorie block of the day — trail mix, bars, waffles, jerky, chocolate
• Dinner (~700–900 kcal): a full 2-serving freeze-dried pouch — yes, the whole thing
• Optional lunch/dessert (~300–500 kcal): many hikers skip a sit-down lunch and snack through it instead

Note that a "2 serving" pouch is one hiker's dinner. LightSack lists nutrition per pouch — not per serving — so the numbers you plan with match what you eat.

Common mistakes

• Trusting per-serving labels: that 290-calorie dinner is actually 580 in the pouch — and still might not be enough.
• Under-packing snacks: dinner won't save a day that ran 1,000 kcal short by 4 pm.
• Ignoring protein: aim for 60–100 g/day to protect muscle on multi-day efforts.
• Packing day 1 appetite: hiker hunger typically kicks in around day 3 — pack bigger days later in the trip.

Ready to put numbers on it? Build a day-by-day plan in the trip planner and watch the weight and calorie totals update as you go.