Please, just shoot me in the head. I've gone over the top this time. I have created an Excel spreadsheet with a whole bunch of different types of foods in the hope of finding the best lightweight food.  Please don't laugh; bear with me, this actually is interesting.

In the quest for lightening my load I finally made it to the food in my backpack. I have already created spreadsheets with the calorie intake for each meal so I know I'm not carrying too little or too much food. But one analysis remained, how can I lighten the per day weight of the food that I carry? I have read in multiple places that long-distance hikers use "1 1/2 lbs per day" as a rule of thumb. But when I weigh my food I am always over 2 lbs per day. What are they doing different than me?

I now understand the errors in my ways.  Check out the table below.  This table is sorted by Cal per Oz.  The topmost items are the lightest foods for the number of calories they contain.  If you carried only Mountain House Mac & Cheese then you would only have to carry 19oz to achieve 2500 calories (a typical daily intake).  Here's another way to look at it...  If you want to carry 1 1/2 lbs per day and you need 2500 calories then you have to average 104 calories per ounce.  So in the table below you need foods like Cheese Nips Crackers or Instant Oatmeal.  Flour tortillas won't get you there and neither will Tuna Creations (both are my personal favorites).  You can eat these less efficient foods but you have to compensate with foods like Swiss Mix or Mac & Cheese to up your daily cal to weight average.

I also included the Protein, Carbs & Fat in the table because you need to consider a balanced intake.  I generally sum these up for the day to see if I'm in the right ballpark. Depending on what nutritional advice you take, you will probably want something like 60/20/20 percentage (carbs/protein/fat).

I was a bit surprised to see that the trail mix was only slightly above the magic 104 cal/oz.  I always thought trail mix is one of the more efficient ways to carry calories.

I wish I had a more complete list of foods but this was all I had in my backpacking food bin when I got in this crazy mood. Any guesses on the food that would top this list? I'll give you a clue...  Native Americans knew what it was and buried it in the ground for food caches.