I heard about the Greenbelly trail food from a thru-hiker’s video and since I was looking for some alternative to my protein bars, I gave it a try. I figured ordering the 30-pack box will last me a while.

They’re pretty big granola-bar like blocks of stuff. The packet they come in can be re-sealed too if you can’t eat one in one go (which is a possibility actually).

Pros

Extreme energy content

One of these Meal2Go bars contains 665 calories in 155 grams. That’s as dense as it gets. One powered me through rain and snow up a very steep ascent the other week that took about 4 hours – and I wouldn’t get hungry for a few more hours after that.

Tastes good

They actually taste good, which is often a problem with these energy-focused foods. There are apparently 6 Greenbelly variations so no worries about getting bored from repetition.

Cons

Very dense

Its energy density is a huge pro but at the same time it’s very heavy on the stomach. It does say “best consumed with water,” but to balance how heavy it is I’d need to chug down literally liters of water. It might be easier to stomach if I only eat half of it (it has a crack in the middle to make it easier to break in half), but then I’d need to stop later again and I’m not a fan of that.

Gooey

It’s not dry, so I had to be really careful not to get my hands all greasy with the sugary sweet thing that’s probably keeping it stuck together. This also means that it freezes. When I took a few up in the freezing cold a few weeks back, by the time I stopped to eat them they stiffened rock solid so hard I had trouble biting into them.

Would buy again

While it has its downsides, I think the Meal2Go is great on the trail. It replaced my much smaller (and way less calorie) protein bars as my go-to trail munchie. They can keep me going longer without getting hungry, but at the same time it’s definitely not a light snack I’d have before going to the gym (a few hours before going to the gym, maybe).