Healthy Foods to Pack for Camping

When you're ready to take your family on a camping trip, one of the most important parts of planning is the food.

Most kids have much bigger appetites when they've been outside playing all day, so you want to plan for the family being hungrier than normal, while making sure to pack foods that will keep during the entire camping trip.

You don't want to cut your camping vacation short just because you ran out of food, or everything spoiled the first few days, right? Packing food for family camping trips is really just a matter of common sense, so let's explore some basic ways to prepare...

1. Fruits and veggies are excellent, kid-friendly snacks.

And they keep well too. Cut up some apples and put into plastic baggies or containers for the kids to snack on during the drive. These are often good for the first day or two as well, but they'll turn brown and mushy after that depending on the weather.

Packing whole apples will keep for several days more, so you'll have extra for them once the precut ones are gone.

Oranges and tangerines also make great finger foods for kids. You can cut them into quarters, or simply peel them and break them apart into bags or containers for easy, readily available snacks.

Like the apples, additional whole ones can be packed for future camping days.

Both oranges and apples can be bruised if packed too tightly, or if dropped or otherwise handled badly. So don't pack too many of them, and pack them carefully or you'll find them inedible later in the trip.

Don't pack soft fruits such as bananas or strawberries unless you plan to only use them the first day. These go bad quickly, and bruise quickly as well.

Carrot sticks, broccoli and cauliflower florets are also excellent finger foods for kids. They'll especially be a hit if you pack a little ranch dressing or salsa for use as dipping sauce.

Another excellent, portable finger food for kids is cheese sticks. You can buy a block of cheese and cut it into sticks yourself, or buy the ready made sticks at any grocery store.

2. Dry snacks. These are important to pack on camping trips, particularly if you expect to be away for several days or more. Items such as corn tortilla chips, pretzels, crackers, nuts and quality beef jerky are all wonderful snacks for kids that will keep indefinitely.

Dried fruits are another way to take healthy sweets along that the kids love, but won't go bad without refrigeration. Dried banana chips, prunes, raisins, cranberries, apple slices, oranges, apricots, mangos and many more are available at almost any grocery store, or you can make your own if you have a dehydrator at home.

Don't forget dry cereal too, as well as cereal bars.

Most younger kids love to snack on dry cereal throughout the day, and it's easy to pack and keep on a camping trip. You could also take along powdered milk to mix with water for putting into the cereal at breakfast time if you'd like.

You'll also find other kid favorites such as applesauce available at the store, in containers that do not have to be kept cold.