Camping food includes ingredients used to prepare food suitable for backcountry camping and

backpacking. The foods differ substantially from the ingredients found in a typical home kitchen. The
primary differences relate to campers' and backpackers' special needs for foods that have appropriate
cooking time, perishability, weight, and nutritional content.

To address these needs, camping food is often made up of either freeze-dried, precooked or
dehydrated ingredients. Many campers use a combination of these foods.

Freeze-drying requires the use of heavy machinery and is not something that most campers are able to
do on their own. Freeze-dried ingredients are often considered superior to dehydrated ingredients
however because they rehydrate at camp faster and retain more flavor than their dehydrated
counterparts. Freeze-dried ingredients take so little time to rehydrate that they can often be eaten
without cooking them first and have a texture similar to a crunchy chip.

Dehydration can reduce the weight of the food by sixty to ninety percent by removing water through
evaporation. Some foods dehydrate well, such as onions, peppers, and tomatoes.[15][16] Dehydration
often produces a more compact, albeit slightly heavier, end result than freeze-drying.

Surplus precooked military Meals, Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) are sometimes used by campers.
These meals contain pre-cooked foods in retort pouches. A retort pouch is a plastic and metal foil
laminate pouch that is used as an alternative to traditional industrial canning methods.