besposito

I've been avoiding ice cream for a long time. However, while chewing on a Clif bar after a hard ride today, I was thinking about acceptable recovery foods. From what I've read, a good serving of high GI carbs (i.e. sugar) + some protein = a good recovery meal. I've also seen the studies about chocolate milk being a good recovery drink, and the nutritional facts of ice cream and chocolate milk aren't very different. So, are a few servings (depending on how long/intense the ride was) of ice cream an acceptable (perhaps even a good) recovery meal?

Per serving:
130 calories
7g fat
14g carbs (sugar)
3g protein

$ick3nin.vend3t

If you want to be a taxi driver, work in McDonalds... Yeah, ice cream will be perfect.

besposito

Even better than pizza and beer?

$ick3nin.vend3t

Possibly.

The only exception would be if the ice cream comes garnished with a hot chocolate fudge sauce, ummmm. Caution mounts if finished off with a generous amount of whipped cream & a side of chocolate blackout cake & coke. Pizza & beer would have to take preference, you could even get rat-assed on a few cans, because the pictures below are all no.







Get your heart attack on!


Ice cream alone though, Yeah, your doing well.

H23Nutcase

Anything with dextrose, heck just use pure dextrose and chase it down with protein shake or soy milk. You want to stay away from high fructose corn syrup. Why dextrose? Because it is one of highest glycemic substance easily available in supermarkets.

CbadRider

There are some studies on the internet that say chocolate milk is a very good recovery drink. IMHO, chocolate ice cream is just frozen chocolate milk.

besposito

Yeah, that's my thinking too. They're both very similar nutritionally. If chocolate milk is so great for recovery, then why wouldn't ice cream be?

valygrl

Sorry, it's LOW FAT chocolate milk. Dammit!

tadawdy

Real "Ice cream" is just that: iced cream. Not milk. More fat, less protein.

gregf83 

Good ice cream is made with cream which has lots of fat, so its kind of like drinking a good recovery drink with a bunch of extra fat. Tasty, but unnecessary.

Lamp-Shade

Whats up with that fudge sauce trying to jailbreak from the plate? Ain't no free rides round here, padna. *catches it with finger and licks, savoring the faint glow in the seconds before a diabetic coma*

tadawdy

Lest anyone be confused, dextrose is just an industry term for D-glucose, the biologically-important stereoisomer of glucose we're all familiar with. For our intents and purposes dextrose = glucose.

Why, in particular, should one avoid HFCS after exercise?It contains glucose and fructose. If you look at a Gatorade bottle, you'll see that it contains "glucose-fructose syrup" (corn syrup?) and "sucrose syrup." (table sugar in water?). This isn't by accident: you can replenish glycogen better by consuming both fructose and glucose, which are also the constituents of sucrose. You've already advocated high-GI foods, so why jump on the anti-HFCS bandwagon here? Corn is good at being a cheap source of energy, which also means we grow it everywhere, feed it to everything, and put it in all of our foods...but those are different problems than sugars derived from it somehow being worse than those from some other source.

Sure, HFCS has its share of issues, but it stems from how it's generally used rather from actually being evil in itself. Where, do you think, is the Gatorade going in the US? Judging from its widespread presence on soda machines and casual obervation, I'd guess a lot of it's being consumed as a soft drink. It won't be long before we water the crops with the stuff. It's got electrolytes, you know.

It's fine for a cheap sports drink. It probably shouldn't be consumed with a burger and fries.

EDIT: if you want a source of carbs for your own energy drink, maltodextrin has been the choice of many because you can carry more calories in your bottle this way.

besposito

Well, ice cream doesn't have HFCS. How much does ingesting fat after exercising limit recovery? That seems to be the only downside to ice cream vs., say, low fat chocolate milk. I know my Clif Mojo bars have like 9-10g of fat in them.

besposito

Well, ice cream doesn't have HFCS. How much does ingesting fat after exercising limit recovery? That seems to be the only downside to ice cream vs., say, low fat chocolate milk. I know my Clif Mojo bars have like 9-10g of fat in them.

H23Nutcase

Here's the biiter truth on HFCS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnni...ayer_embedded#

tadawdy

Yeah. I've seen that video, too. He basically points to: 1. the overconsumption of all sugars and 2. the overconsumption of fructose without the fiber it would naturally come packaged with. It just so happens that HFCS is a popular source of fructose. You might have also noticed that he bans kids from fruit juices.

He's talking about obese children (who turn into obese adults) whose lifestyles include massive consumption of sugars all day long, not people who use it strategically. The main issue with it is that it doesn't produce satiety like the others might, and high doses of fructose may set off other, deleterious side reactions. He mentions my point about a combination of fructose and glucose being useful for replenishing glycogen. He also questions who is really drinking Gatorade. Like I said, it's good if you actually use it during exercise, but sedentary people have no need for it. The metabolic processes while inactive, and those during and post-exercise, are different.

As for whether ice cream contains HFCS, it depends on what you're eating. It seems to me that a lot of the more fanciful, involved flavors, and certain brands, also have more convoluted ingredient lists.

tadawdy

Who says Clif Mojo Bars are an ideal post-exercise food? I remember looking at those, and they seemed to be marketed more as healthy snack foods for yuppies than to athletes as legitimate foods for recovery.

The idea in limiting fat is to keep digestion fast, keeping the glycemic index high. Fat slows emptying from the stomach, but liquid meals empty very quickly. So, having some low-fat chocolate milk works. You're generally looking for something at about 4:1 carb to protein, while minimizing fat. Also, if you're eating 20g of protein, that's 80g of carbs, and you're around 400 calories without any fat. 400 calories of the ice cream in the OP will give you 21 g of fat, and much of it saturated. To get 30 grams of protein, you've got to eat 650 calories of ice cream, giving you 35 g of dairy fat. Then, you've got plenty of fat to slow digestion.

This is all about strategy and proportion.

paulclaude

Just to add - fructose can only be used to replenish liver glycogen, not muscle glycogen so HFCS is not an ideal source of nutrition for recovery.

Also, Ice Cream sucks. Although I am biased being dairy intolerant, but I never liked the stuff anyway

Lamp-Shade

So now its becoming 'How can I turn something unhealthy into something healthy?"
You can't. Well, you can't unless you are the CEO of a multi-bajillion dollar corporation who has the dough to fund a 5 year study proving how their may be some possibility under certain conditions not specified that you're unhealthy is in fact healthy.
I think people are often quick to confuse HFCS with other forms of non natural sugar, when both mess you up, are huge industries, bla bla bla. There are studies showing that fructose, and fructose alone, is pretty nasty compared to the regular fructose sucrose split in table sugar. But HFCS isn't pure fructose. Regular corn syrup has less fructose than sucrose, HFCS has about the same or a little more (I forget the exact ratio). Studies have been done showing, guess what, the body processes it like sugar, and the metabolic affects are mainly the same.
I'm not parading HFCS as safe. It's not. Its sugar. Is sugar safe? No. Is it fine in moderation? Probably not, even if you could moderate it, which you cant because your biology has predetermined that you are to be fat if you keep shoveling crap into your jiggly maw.
Where it gets complicated are the trace elements left on the HFCS after processing. The ratio of sucrose to fructose isn't whats poisonous, its the traces of mercury, sodium hydroxide, and hydrochloric acid left as residues on every cell of the finished product. But this type of thing happens with most heavily processed foods, so its okay (not).

Richard Cranium

Recovery foods - if they exist - would be a mix of just the right amount of a "nutrients-to-fluids" ratio to affect re hydration and blood pressure. In other words, much of recovery involves fluid and nutrient transport.

Ice cream isn't very effective promoting either.

besposito

Nah, I'm not saying they are. Just what I had on hand at the time. You make good points, thanks.

kimolop

In one of Bob Roll's books he mentioned that it's perfectly ok to stand instead of sit, and to eat all the ice cream you want. Just don't let Eddie Merkx catch you doing it!

GirlAnachronism

I went to a sports nutrition for athletes talk the other night, and asked the nutritionist about eat nuts after working out (my question was aimed more at weightlifting but I think it's relevant here). What she said confirmed what you're saying, which is that fat is not good for recovery as it slows digestion and makes it more difficult for your body to get what it needs from what you're eating.

Freakin'Chickin

Indeed! That is: cream, with at least 10% fat content and... close to 40% with some other brands!

I like chocolate milk as a recovery, and when I know I will have to let my milk bottle sit for more than a couple of hours, I like Edge Recovery powder.

But, then, if you wanna indulge yourself, there is always ice milk that could fit the treat: less fat than ice cream, with still a creamy frozen feeling, some proteins and not too much sugar (usually the flavors are nothing close to "Super-Rocky-Road-with-complete-cookie-dough-chunks)! And, to follow in that direction: frozen yogurt is not bad either, but Ice Milk is closer to the taste of real ice cream.

Lamp-Shade

This is what I've read. I have no degree in such things, just keeping up with publishings.
Fat actually inhibits your cells ability to use any glucose you give it. This is why fruitarians and 80/10/10 raw vegans are largely non diabetic or possibly reversing diabetes, because their levels of fat are so low that their insulin is uninhibited with storage of dietary fat in a high dietary sugar environment. Thats the theory anyways, when i tried it i lost 7 pounds eating 3000 calories a day.
Protein barely affects insulin at all. So little, in fact, its not really relevant to measures of glycemic index, insulin response, yadda yadda. Fat, however, affects insulin for up to 24 hours, or past that if you just got done eating spoon fulls of peanut butter. Diabetes is usually the end result of disabling insulins ability to clear the blood of sugar. For recovery, you really do want insulin to be as free flowing as possible, and this generally means eating a lower fat diet in general. If carbs are your thing, you HAVE to keep fats lower for proper usage.