Longbowben, I must be different then you. After hiking hard all day and eating dinner as late as 9:00 pm a mountain house heated meal tastes great in my opinion and has a lot more good stuff in it to keep you going the next day compared to ramin noodles. If I backpack in I usually bring power bars or Big 100 bars, goop (or whatever it is called now), nuts mixed with raisans, tea bags, instant oatmeal and a double serve mountain house meal per day. For water I take a hiking filter with my 70 oz. bladder and then 2 lightweight plastic platypus water bladders. When I use up the bladder it weighs the same as a plastic ziplock so it goes with me during the day and I refill it. I try to get the most calories out of the lightest weight and easiest gear/meals I can. The last couple of years I have gone to ultralightweight gear as much as I can, so I was stoked when Kuiu came out with their gear this year. My pack weight has gone down from approx. 45 lbs. for a bivy setup to about 30 and I am looking to add a Kuiu pack in the future to bring it down even more. The mountains are hard as it is and I'm not getting any younger! Now when I am base camping it's all the good food we can bring!