Nuts and dried fruit (although the sugar in the fruit might be an issue) are good choices. What do you mean by sensitive to sugar? That would make a difference in what I'd suggest.

What a fantastic trip you guys are taking!!!

He can have some sugar (and he does on a fairly regular basis) but if he eats a lot his behavior goes haywire and he drives us bananas!! I've found he's OK with pretty much anything that has at least some semblance of nutritional value. Granola bars, even though they have a lot of sugar, also have the whole oats, so he's fine with that. Dried fruit is fine, even though it's very concentrated sugar. Chocolate or cookies, on the other hand, set him off.

Don't get me wrong - he eats his share of chocolate. It's just that I don't want him snacking on it all day long in order to get his calories. I'd rather have him eat nuts.

I'll keep an eye on him and see if he keeps losing weight, but I don't think he will. We've been on the road nearly two months now and I've learned a lot about what kinds of foods and how much food we need so I think we've mostly solved our problems. I'll just put nuts or fig bars in his handlebar bag rather than carrots and that should be enough calories to keep him in the black. And of course, once we get down south we'll slow way down so it won't be an issue at all.

Sounds to me like you have it well under control. The fig bars are a great idea. I'm partial to dried bananas, but the sugar might be an issue. I've seen ones that are simply flattened dried banana as well as the ones that are dehydrated. I put the dehydrated ones in a homemade granola along with nuts and coconut.

Clif Z bars (which are marketed to kids) taste good (and chocolate-y!) but only have about 11g of sugar per bar. My kids are particularly fond of the chocolate brownie one followed by the chocolate chip. Quaker Oats makes a soft oatmeal square that has a lot of oats in it but I'm not sure how much sugar is in each one. Really nuts - walnuts and macademia in particular sound like a good idea providing he likes them. Plus, they'll make him thirsty so you'll be sure he is drinking enough.

This makes perfect sense. Not all sugars are the same. Natural sugars (complex carbs) found in fruits are fine, it's the refined sugars found in junk food that aren't. They will generate a quick high through a spike in blood sugar but you will just crash after your body burns through the cheap carbs. Additionally your body cannot transform as much of these cheap carbs into energy as it can with complex carbs.

Check out the following article, especially #2 Simple Sugar Consumption: The 10 Biggest Mistakes Endurance Athletes Make

Yeah I think you will notice a big difference with fig bars over carrots. Also you can mix things up with raisins. Great source of complex carbs and should be easily available in little boxes (collapsible paper boxes too!).

Have you considered contacting Hammer Nutrition about a sponsorship? They could ship product to different destinations along the way. Perpetuem and Endurolytes are amazing products frequently used by endurance athletes. I never leave home without their stuff for my 100 ad 200 mile rides. A steady steam of Perpetuem, Sustained Energy, fig bars, and pickle juice got me through my first double in March in 13.5 hours. I think I managed around 10,000 calories that day!

Hmmm... I"ve never heard of Hammer Nutrition! I'll check them out.

Another on-the-go solution is to buy some maltrodextrin powder from a home brewing shop. It is a fine white powder that also is called corn starch. It is almost tasteless and can be mixed with water in one of the water bottles so that when he takes a swig he is getting a double benefit of rehydration and refuelling. A few heaped tablespoons full in a 750ml bottle is a starting point.

Maltodextrin/corn starch is a the staple ingedient of the energy bars and drink mixes used a lot by cyclists, including randonneurs, and some are mentioned in this thread. The important part is that it comprises long-chain carbohydrates which even out the energy availability without creating the insulin spkes and mood changes that simple sugars will. Plus it's dirt cheap compared with the commercially produced stuff.

I think Mountain Dew in that part of the world also has maltodextrin (as well as caffeine), and you might check Powerade made by Coca-Cola -- here in Australia its primary ingedient is maltodextrin. Avoid Gatorade at all cost as its main constitutent is simple sugar and that's not what you need; same applies to most other common-brand "energy" drinks.

If all that is unpalatable, the bakeries are a cyclist's best friend. Bread and pastries are made of flour (or should be!) and that comprises the same sort of long-chain carobhydrates that are digested and release energy over long periods.

I'd also suggest that you really do need to think about winding back your daily distances now rather than when you get to Mexico. Keeping up that sort of pace for young people can slowly but surely defuse the enthusiasm. He and the others might seem to be OK with the daily distances, but kids have a tendency to hide important feelings from parents.

I also couldn't figure out the attraction of nuts and trail mixes while cycling. They clog up my teeth, and the tiny bits have a habit of being inhaled in to the bronchial tubes when I start getting energetic up a hill. Nuts also tend to take rather too long in my estimation to digest and instead tend to pass straight through. Dry foods require extra water to be taken in, too. Softer, moister foods (back to the bakery again) seem to be a better option.

Oooo That is a good one. :thumb: +1 on that. Search the web for recipes for DIY gels using maltrodextrin. Lots of good resources out there.

Wow - you guys really are a wealth of information! I NEVER would have thought about corn starch!

+ 1
plus I add chopped dates or trail mix to my morning oats, improves the flavour and nutrition. I also like dried apricots as an easy to eat snack on the bike.

Macadamia nuts (an Australian native) are excellent for putting on weight as well as being delicious.

I'm with Nancy, chocolate and artificially coloured (especially red and green) sweets and drinks sends kids off the planet! Kids diagnosed with ADHD and put on drugs usually just need a change of diet, or parents who take them cycling!

I've been a teacher for 21 years and I can't even begin to tell you about the diets of so many kids I've had with ADHD!! I try to talk with the parents about changing their kids' diets, but they won't even begin to listen. It's a crime, really. I can't imagine putting my kid on drugs when all he needs to do is eat healthy food!

This may be disgusting... but it is what we sometimes do...

Put the leftover oatmeal from breakfast in a plastic bag. Begin adding whatever you found at the bulk foods section, salty, sweet, whatever.... raisins, figs, peanuts, Asian rice crackers, wasabi green peas, peanut butter pretzels, gummy bears, craisins, dried pineapple, puffed rice, granola...

Add a banana or two and close it with a twist tie.

This is the best part.... Begin Smashing. It brings out the inner ten-year-old in all of us. Mix it up until it becomes a deliciously disgusting gloppy mixture.

Lots of energy. Salty sweet to replace the lost sodium. Different every day.

That's hilarious!! I like that part about our inner ten-year-old, but we have actual ten-year-olds with us - will it being out their inner two-year-olds?? YIKES!!!

Chocolate milk! I feed my skinny 12 year old a chocolate milk made with whole milk and meal replacement powder or protein powder after long rides, and at our lunch stops on tour. On longer days I'll try to make sure that's a milk shake or malt instead for a little extra calories. I put whole milk yogurt in her oatmeal, or half-and-half if I can't find that.

We've all found ourselves gravitating toward chocolate milk when we arrive into a town! It really is a good drink for us. Unfortunately, it doesn't carry well and when we have 300 miles between grocery stores, it's not particularly practical!

Beef jerky tends to travel well. Depending on where you are, you may be able to find a local meat shop that makes its own jerky. If you're really fortunate, you may find a shop that also produces its own hard sausages which would be less refined than grocery store brands and which would still travel well.

For breakfast, a bowl of oatmeal is good. Instead of milk, add some peanut butter and a handful of raisins. This will provide a lot of energy for the morning. (This is how I normally start my day, especially in winter.)

Mixing only the dry items could keep this cleaner for your 10 year olds.
Figs & fig bars are a good idea, grapes, plums, strawberries too. One of my favorites is honey. Either straight or I've been known to mix a couple of tablespoons into a bike bottle of water. Mixed bottles are harder to for me to keep clean though.

As you get into more agricultural areas, you might be wanting to stop at the roadside produce stands to find some of these "take along goodies".

As others have said, it certainly looks as if you've got this under your control. Sounds to me like your doing a great job keeping good food going into your family's bodies.

Thanks Nancy & family for the great website too. I'm certainly going to look up some of the places that you mentioned on your sponsor page when I get up there (someday).
~Roger

PS. Somebody mentioned baked goods. Do you make biscuits along the way?

Ah yes, we have gas station convenience stores and fast food restaurants pretty much everywhere we travel, scattered so thick we can hit 4 or 5 a day without changing our course. Sorry about that, I completely forgot where you guys were for a minute!

We use shelf stable milk occasionally, usually soy milk but we've used regular dairy as well. If you don't already drink soy milk it can be... different. The chocolate powders mask a lot of the difference in taste. Hershey, Horizon, and a few other companies also make flavored shelf stable milks in smaller boxes, like juice boxes.

It'll be a lot easier once we get off the Alaska Highway - only 250 miles to go!! So far, we've only been finding stores every 250 - 350 miles or so, which means we've been carrying a LOT of food with us!! EVery time we leave a "town" I'm lugging 50 pounds or so of food for the next week to ten days before we get to the next town.

Most people who cycle this part of the world do 80 - 100 miles per day, but we just can't do that. So - we poke along at 50 miles/day and carry a lot more food than most. It works for us!

That being said, I"m looking forward to getting into more populated areas where there are actually towns every day rather than these little settlements of 1000 people every week! This area gives a whole new meaning to the word "remote"...

Sunflower seeds. I forgot all about sunflower seeds. They are good, found in gas stations, and a good source of several key nutrients (good fiber, good fat, good taste, good calories).

Might be something that'll work for you all.

~Roger

Doen't sound like anything most parents would say of children that are athletic...:):):):) My two clildrens are active and healthy, and eat us out of house and home! Both are blessed/cursed with their mothers metabolism, and are very lean (and heavily involved in XC running/biking/other sports)

-R

Sunflower seeds!! I had totally forgotten about those - he used to eat them all the time. I'll pick some of those up!

The recipe below has been copied from the momentum website, so all credit goes to them:

http://www.momentumplanet.ca/

http://www.momentumplanet.ca/food/nrg-bars

I modified the recipe in this way:
>Almond butter in place of peanut butter.
>Added chopped dried Fig in place of banana chips [although both would be good too]
>Organic chocolate [dark - no semi-sweet]
>pinch of allspice
>no coffee in the bars I made for the kids [the adults got a dose of good, dark roast]

=======================================================================================
4 1/2 cups granola
3 cups sesame seeds
1/2 cup finely chopped banana chips
1/2 cup raisins or craisins
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 tbsp finely ground coffee beans
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 cans (600 ml) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 tbsp honey


Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl, or just add them to the dry and mix. Butter up an 11" X 17" pan and spread contents into the pan. Make sure the mix is pressed well into the pan. Cook at 300? F for 20 minutes. When mix is totally cooled, cut it into bars. You can wrap them individually in wax paper or put in a container and store them in the freezer and they'll make great snacks for future trips.
========================================================================================

It appears that maltodextrin actually spikes blood sugar faster than white sugar.
Google for "maltodextrin glycemic index"

More fats in the main meals? Extra butter / marg on sanwiches, pastry products if possible. Fat has the highest calories to weight ratio.

For pies you could use a setup like this.

http://www.mountainbike-expedition-t.../kochkiste.jpg
http://www.mountainbike-expedition-t...ides/food.html