Punches way above its weight class

There are many approaches to food and meals in the back country. Some people have the means to purchase pre-packaged freeze-dried meals and eat out of the foil pouches they come with. Others decide to go with a "no cook" option and simply eat prepackaged things from the supermarket - jerky, protein bars, crackers, cheese, candy, etc. Others decide to "cold soak" easily rehydratable things like couscous or oatmeal. Some dehydrate their own meals at home then reconstitute them in the field. Some purchase easily preparable items from the supermarket (Knorr sides, Ramen noodles, pasta, etc.) And some go all out and cook from scratch in the back country.

Unless you go with freeze dried prepackaged meals or one of the no-cook options, you will inevitably dirty a pot at some point. How exactly will you clean it in the back country? Will you wash it and leave debris behind? Or will you collect that debris and pack it out or bury it? Or will you wipe the pot clean with toilet paper, tea-bag, or other similar method? (Packing that out.) If the pot were your plate, you could lick it clean, but you aren't a giraffe: you don't have a tongue long enough to get the bottom of the pot. Even if you could somehow wipe the pot out, what do you do if your meal scorched/burnt on the bottom of the pot?

That's where the GSI compact scraper comes into play. This 3.4"x2.1"x0.3", 17.5-gram, $7 item has a soft rubber squeegee on one side, and a hard plastic edge on the other side. I use the soft rubber side to wipe out every remnant from the bottom of my pot and/or bowl, transferring those food/drink scraps directly into my mouth, before wiping the last traces away with a wet lightload towel (washable, reusable). I have found this method quick and efficient. In my list of bang-for-the-buck items that could be brought on a backpacking trip (where "buck" is the weight), this one is quite high on the list.

Keep hiking my friends