Amateur trekking question - food!!

This happens to be my first long trek experience. This would be in the Dhauladhar region in Nov. So, the question is how much food to take for a 5-6 day hike? How much weight would this be along with what all's required to cook?

I'm asking this as the guide I'm planning to go with suggested we (there's 2 of us) take a porter along for this purpose and that he'd also be helpful in cooking. Well, the cooking bit I understand..we're awful. But anyway, I'm wondering if we can carry individual food supplies and all of it and do away with the porter bit (not very comfortable with the whole porter idea). So, can someone suggest how much additional weight this would be?

I know there's a lot of people doing long solo hikes and they ofcourse carry all own their own...but I'm not too experienced at this...so this might be a silly thing to ask..but anyway

Any other suggestions/thoughts on the above would also be great.


Cheers!

I have done multiple hikes in himalayas for about 7-10 days without taking any porter with us and obviously no other source of food in between. Also has quite a lot experience in trekking in sahayadri's. So here comes my suggestions :
1. Take loads of dry fruits : they are packed nutrients and fats which does not go bad in short duration (fat is not bad at all when you are hiking for days at a time)
2. Water purifying tablets, there is no way you can carry all the water. But be sure to have at least 3 liter of bottles with you.
3. Take fruits like pomegranate, apples that can survive the journey
4. Have dried products, like sattu. Thepla and puranpoli do also survive for couple of days without going bad.
5. Better than bread is bagels and buns as they have a lot more dough for the same space. Carry cheese & jam to go along with it.
6. Morning cereals and nutrition bars are another thing that will cheer you up.
7. Have some uncut onions, cucumber etc, it does taste like heaven having bhelpuri out in trek.
8. ORS sachets, another absolute must.
9. Ready to make soup packets
10. Tea and condensed milk
11. whole wheat bakery biscuits and freeze dried food (not sure if later is available in pune)
12. Dates
You can carry a small portable kerosene stove and kerosene as we have done in himalayas. In case you are planning to build fire make sure that you have practiced it beforehand, its not easy to get damp timber to light up in sahayadri.
Much more is there, but whatever you take keep a calculation of which food will go bad first, and have it on the first coupe of days. Do not have any alcohol at all, as it will dehydrate your body like hell.

Really rough estimate is about 1/2 kg of above food for a day. What I suggest is to live on the food you are planning to carry for two days and weigh how much you have consumed each day. Carry about 20% extra as you will be trekking.

Thanks a lot Rahul...that was very insightful

I realized after starting the thread that there are quite a few 'food' related posts in this forum. Apologies for bringing up the same topic again!

But my main concern was the weight anyway. And, your rough estimate really helps. Thanks!

Cheers!

I'm going straight to the "Quirks of Indian English" thread to post about how "dried fruit" means nuts in Indian English!