Touring - Home-made energy food for touring

I see lots of cool looking energy snacks, drinks, gels. But surely homemade recipes can be just as good. Curious what the budget conscious tourer carries for energy on the go?

Anything, everything. One day on tour I bought an angel food cake, a quart of skim milk, went back to the motel and killed it off. Bananas are the best, Fig Newtons are popular.

http://www.allhomemadecookies.com/recipeindex/nobakecookies.htm

Supermarket salad bars are a good place to hit.

I read a memoir book recently of a cross country cycler who ate Fritos to keep his sodium level even. This better than Gatorade? Is Gatorade truly helpful to anybody?

Hi,
pretzels.... real pretzels have no fat, but lots of salt. In the summer I always fill a sandwich baggie with pretzels.

I read a memoir book recently of a cross country cycler who ate Fritos to keep his sodium level even. This better than Gatorade? Is Gatorade truly helpful to anybody?
Gatorade is very very effective. . . .at half strength. It is far to concentrated in the bottle to do much good. Dilute it with water or use the powder and it is very effective.
Also, diluted gatorade is a good thing to drink when dihydrated, it is the most effective, commonly found thing to drink that will help. (As water when you're dehydrated is not enough).
GORP is a good riding food.

From my backpacking days, glad to hear someone recommending Gorp. May throw some pretzels in...
What about something with peanut butter? A friend of mine was using small sandwich squares w/ peanut butter and honey.

I used to eat a lot of power bars but I find too many can be hard on the stomach. Yesterday I did a 210 km ride and ate a turkey sandwich, a peanut butter sandwich, 2 pears, a liter of chocolate milk that I picked up at a convenience store and two bottles of water along with 2 bottles of reduced Gatorade.

I found I had lots of energy and didn't touch the Cliff bars or trail mix I was packing.
Jim

Peanut butter and jelly and/or banana sandwiches. Crackers with cheese and avocados and mustard. Salami and cheese sandwiches. Pop Tarts. Coke. Bananas. Hamburgers. Ice cream cones. Fig newtons. Cookies. Sadly, the one thing that I really can't eat on the roll is chocolate.

I use gels (gu, clif shots) for if I bonk and feel too ill to eat... Chocolate gu on banana is yummy.

On my first tour, I watched my partner eat a peanut butter and snickers sandwich. :eek:

When I do club rides, I can't eat "real food" and then ride, but that's because I have ride hard to keep up with the pack. On tour (solo) I just eat real food, and take it easy for a little while after I eat.

Power food is way too expensive. Gatorade etc. makes the water bottles grow stuff, so I only put water in them.

some of the free recipie websites have a heap of energy bar recipies to try ...
google it ...

"Grunch" from some guy who lived with the eskimos: One cup of raw rolled oats, one tablespoon of peanut butter, one heaping tablespoon of honey, mix and yum yum sticky yum!

Also - you can make your own nut bars that are super delicious, using honey/dates/flour/whatever to get them to stick together. Nuts are expensive though.

Then...there's always dumpstering. Bakeries and bagelries are easy. Most bagel places throw away at least one huge garbage bag full of bagels a day. Same goes for donut shops. Krispy kreme probably throws away around 500 of those plain donuts a day.

Not exactly health food though. I'm more of a veggies and meat guy. I spent a year in the wilderness eating a pretty much native diet (in the summer: nuts, wild fruit, wild greens and deer, in the winter: organic veggies, fruit, nuts, eggs and deer) and drinking wild water (from a lake) and now my gut doesn't handle sugar/grains as well as it used to. Which isn't all that bad - more motivation to eat what my body likes! Maybe I just notice it more now....

As far as baking stuff: I reccommend the cookbook "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. Tons of delicious baked goods (and other stuff) - banana bread, muffins, wild sour-dough, and the stuff is actually stuff that's good for your body! woot!

Nothing beats a Payday bar.

I carry a jar of peanut butter and cheap granola bars (Safeway brand or simular), Synders of Hanover pretzels, and water. I buy gatoraid when I stop at stores-- I drink about 2-3 oz out of the bottle and chase it with 8 oz + of water.

I try to always buy a greasy, truck-stop style, bacon and eggs breakfast every morning. (Hurray for Denver omlets!)

I eat at salad bars at night if I can find them-- it's pretty easy most of the time.

I'm a ultra light packer, so I don't bother with carrying cooking gear or much food with me. I have traveled for 3-4 days of really hard riding to get home, (400 miles plus), and lived on nothing but peanut butter, granola bars and gatoraid. I can honestly say that this road diet is every bit as good as any gel or bar and way, way cheaper. With the right training-- I'm quite sure a strong cyclist could ride completely across the USA with this basic diet.


The trick is to eat every 2-3 hours (a tablespoon of peanut butter and half a granola bar), drink every 30 minutes or so and keep hammering.

...lived on nothing but peanut butter, granola bars and gatoraid.

A huge fan of peanut butter, this is good news to me. Thanks.

What about drinks? Is there anything you can mix with regular old tap water to give it some of the better qualities that gatorade/vitamin water/ all that stuff have?

Best cheap energy snack are those Farleys Fruit Snacks. Cheap, and work as well or better than the energy goos and gels. I buy them all the time.

Maximus -- if you do a search over on the training and nutrition forum for "sports drink recipes" or something like that you'll find several. I've used the following a few times:

1 pkg unsweetened Kool-aid
8 tabsp. sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp salt substitute (potassium chloride)

The original recipe called for 3/8 tsp salt, but I found that a little too salty although at that level it closely matches Gatorade.

Also if you have a peanut allergy you can substitute sunflower seed butter. This can be found at Trader Joes and maybe other health food stores. It tastes very much like peanut butter and is not as outrageously expensive as some nut butters. Since my son is allergic peanuts I substittue it sucessfully in recipes for energy bars and they come out wonderfully. Lots of recipes for all this stuff with a quick Google search.

I usually take a small squeeze bottle of honey on long rides and tours.

In a plastic bag we mix a handful of oatmeal, raisins, seeds (sunflower, pumpkin), soy milk powder and a banana. Mash it up. There is nothing better (or healthier) when you are starved and have ten more miles until lunch.

Bicycling magazine, in either the most recent issue, or one before, had a write up about sports drinks, including a recipe on making your own (cheaper)

and a banana. Mash it up.

Meaning, the final result is a little sticky/mushy due to the banana? This recipe sounds delicious and effective, but wondering how messy it is or just how do you eat it whilst pedaling? Perhaps the oatmeal content is high? Guess I just need to try this out for myself.

Thanks for the idea.

On long trips I carry a small yogurt container (6oz) with chocolate chips thrown in. Can be a treat by itself or on bananas or bread or bagels or muffin or carrot. If you aren't into chocolate at any time, you can dig around the chocolate chips and eat them later.

Read today in Adventure Cycling Yellow Pages that, ounce for ounce, foods high in fat give more energy for their weight than other popular road fuels like dried fruit. My question: On a 3 to 4 hour ride, do the high fat snacks get processed by the body quick enough to keep you from bonking? Or are the fatty foods probably best for all day/multi day tourers?

On a 3-4 ride, high fat snacks may not work in time to keep you from bonking. So enjoy that high fat food before you get on the bike! And have a spare Luna Bar just in case.

My question is... have you ever bonked because of food/water issues? It's really is not all that common, I believe. Some of the fear of bonking is generated by companies trying to sell energy products-- products that do work, but aren't really needed unless you're in the Tour de France.

The cycling industry is sells all kinds of stuff you really don't need. I know, I own enough of it. :)

I make several jelly sandwiches with whole grain nut bread. A sandwich an hour is all I ask. I use a type of bread that has enough nuts and grains to take care of the fat and protein needs, added peanut butter would cause problems. On multiday loaded touring 3 good sized regular meals, enough water, and once or twice a day a bit of fig bar or Powerbar.

I like whole grain mini-bagels (can get them from the frozen food section) and I put peanut butter on them, cut them in half and keep them in my pack for my on-the-go food. As far as energy drinks go...I can't stand them...I mix 3 teaspoons of instant tea (sweetened and lemon flavored of course) into my 24oz water bottle. It does two things...kills the plastic taste of the bottle and gives me a little caffeine and carbs with each sip.

I also carry non-chewy almond granola bars for my "emergency food" since they keep well...they are always available in my pack for a "I road way too far and forgot to bring more food" situation.

I like a good breakfast with eggs, feta cheese and whole grain toast. Lunch can be my mini-bagels + peanut butter on the road and then for dinner I like a mixed-green salad with good olive oil, balsamic vinagar, fresh raspberries (if you can get them) and some sliced almonds with a side of some grilled fish or lean pork, washed down with a 12oz Yuengling beer.

Personally (and I still am in process of getting in good shape), I find I will suddenly be real weak about 2 hours into a ride and that something like a small portion of a snickers seems to get me past that weakness and back to the car. I've assumed that "weakness" is what I've heard called 'bonking'.

Lots of great recipes here from everyone. Thanks for sharing them. Be trying one or two this afternoon.

Go Italy (I guess).

As everyone knows, bananas are a great cycling food. But if I combine one with 12 oz of V8, it feels like I'm powered by rocket fuel (well, sort of) for about an hour.

I read a memoir book recently of a cross country cycler who ate Fritos to keep his sodium level even. This better than Gatorade? Is Gatorade truly helpful to anybody?

I tend to be a GatorAde fanatic. In eastern, desertlike Colorado, the stuff kept me going pretty well for hours in very high heat. In Key Largo recently, I drank a quart an hour. It helped tremendously under the tropical sun/high temperature, but a quart an hour proved NOT to be enough. I still found myself somewhat dehydrated and light headed towards the end of the final hour even though I drank a lot. But the heat/sun there was the most intense I've experienced. Next time, I plan to drink considerably more while riding under the tropical sun.

David

any others try to eat as much raw food as possible?

I pack a raw trail mix with lots of raw nuts. Lots of fat and protein. Avocados are great fat too. Figs are a good potassium source if (like me) bananas are not an option.

Oats are my grain of choice if I have to eat something cooked.

Perhaps the following is strange, but I was experimenting today on a shorter (20 mile) ride and it seemed (to quote David in PA) to 'power me like a rocket':

75% - Gatorade powder in water, mixed weak
25% - leftover coffee from breakfast
Plus a decent squirt from the honey bottle

May sound gross, but it was actually tasty while on the road and I had much more energy than usual. This is yet to be tested in extreme heat on a longer ride...

Ramen. Cooks fast and easy, and you can throw anything in it, add the flavor packet, and you're good to go! Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ramen! :D

Koffee

Ramen. Cooks fast and easy, and you can throw anything in it, add the flavor packet, and you're good to go! Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ramen! :D

Koffee
Another benefit - dirt cheap. Always a plus on tour.

This is pretty good:

http://www.ultralightbackpacker.com/moosegoo.html


Recently I've been making a paste of flour, outs, nuts, honey, a little peanut butter, corn syrup, and whatever else and just eating it.

Keep the recipes w/ peanut butter coming!

Peanut-butter stuffed pretzels are my personal favorite.

I think you can get them just about anywhere but the Henry's by me has some of the best.

recipie here (http://www.hoogie.co.nz/info/r_energy_balls.htm)

Homemade energy balls
Makes appx 20 -24 balls
Ingredients
24 dried figs
1/2 cup honey
4 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
2 egg whites
1 cup oat bran

Directions
Add figs, honey, orange juice and lemon juice to the food processor and mix on chop setting until fig bits are finely cut. Set aside
Put all other ingredients [except oat bran] in mixing bowl. Beat with electric mixer for 3 - 4 minutes at medium speed. Add fig mixture and beat until everything blends. Roll 20 - 24 balls [about size of a golf ball] and coat with oat bran poured on plate and rolling ball in it. Place balls in oven and bake at 350F [180C] for 10 minutes or until theya re warm and a bit puffy.
Place in refrigerator to harden. For crunchier texture, bake 2-5 minutes longer, or until dough is thoroughly cooked.

Notes
Substitute Golden Syrup for Corn Oil, and use only 2 tablespoons, or mix is a bit sweet and moist.
Use 2 1/2 - 3 tablespoons of honey as a rough guide, heat spoon in hot water as this makes it easier to get honey off.
Add some raisins/sultanas/dried apricots/roasted peanuts to fig mix for a variety of flavours.

Dang, Hoogie. That sounds delicious. I'll be trying that one.

I see lots of cool looking energy snacks, drinks, gels. But surely homemade recipes can be just as good. Curious what the budget conscious tourer carries for energy on the go?

Hi-

If you do some homework you'll find all sorts of info.

I've put quite a bit together here:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/journal/Cookonabike

86 trail mix recipes alone, pwr bars/drinks &c.

Tim

I've put quite a bit together here:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/journal/Cookonabike


Tim: Great collection of info! Take a while to process all that, but I bookmarked it so that I will. Cool, thanks!