Healthy campsite food

[jackt]

The most packable pastas are small solid shapes like Orzo, or even better, as faster to cook, Stellini.

[pjclinch]

I'd like to see someone eating uncooked pasta.

Dried uncooked pasta would be a bit... crunchy, but fresh would just be rather bland, a bit like bread dough. You could if you were hungry enough, I suppose...

Pete.

[Audax67]

If you ride far enough to get there it's all healthy.

[pjclinch]

If you ride far enough to get there it's all healthy.

Yes, at some point it really does come to more calories = better.

Ian Walker's book "Endless Perfect Circles" includes an account on his record breaking ride from the top to the bottom of Europe and a key point for food was easily available without detour, easy to stuff down and very high in energy. 7 Days Croissants, widely available from petrol stations across Europe, hit that brief. I understand that (a) he ate rather a lot of them, and (b) nobody much is claiming you can't tell the difference between one of those and a croissant from a typical French patisserie.

Pete.

[Sweep]

If you ride far enough to get there it's all healthy.

Yes, at some point it really does come to more calories = better.

Ian Walker's book "Endless Perfect Circles" includes an account on his record breaking ride from the top to the bottom of Europe and a key point for food was easily available without detour, easy to stuff down and very high in energy. 7 Days Croissants, widely available from petrol stations across Europe, hit that brief. I understand that (a) he ate rather a lot of them, and (b) nobody much is claiming you can't tell the difference between one of those and a croissant from a typical French patisserie.

Pete.

I often use pastries (plus espressos made on a stove) as simple fuel on long tough rides.

They do the job.

Off topic of healthy campsite food though - I wouldn't recommend an evening campsite meal of pastries.

And I believe they are effectively classed as junk food.

Yes even the ones with fancy French names.

[mattheus]

Off topic of healthy campsite food though - I wouldn't recommend an evening campsite meal of pastries.

I can think of worse ways to spend an evening!

[Galactic]

I find the "but we can survive on junk food and it's more efficient" argument rather specious, not to mention dangerous.

Leaving aside the fact that this thread is to do with healthy campsite food (therefore junk food is per se off-topic), fueling your audax on energy-gels, caffeine and pasties may be fine for one ride now and again, but is no way to look after yourself on a longer tour when your body is being pushed beyond its usual boundaries day after day. There lies the way to illness, whether just a cold when you get home or something nastily chronic.

I know my body would rebel after just a couple of days of dough-based diet and I wouldn't get any further until I tanked up on vitamins, minerals, complex carbs and fibre.

[mattheus]

I find the "but we can survive on junk food and it's more efficient" argument rather specious, not to mention dangerous.

I don't know who you're aiming at, but as mine was the post before I shall respond anyway

I am certainly NOT advocating such a thing. There are many such posts on the parallel thread e.g. viewtopic.php?p=1875741#p1875741

Leaving aside the fact that this thread is to do with healthy campsite food (therefore junk food is per se off-topic), fueling your audax on energy-gels, caffeine and pasties may be fine for one ride now and again, but is no way to look after yourself on a longer tour when your body is being pushed beyond its usual boundaries day after day. There lies the way to illness, whether just a cold when you get home or something nastily chronic.

I know my body would rebel after just a couple of days of dough-based diet and I wouldn't get any further until I tanked up on vitamins, minerals, complex carbs and fibre.

Yup, fully agree.

[Galactic]

I don't know who you're aiming at, but as mine was the post before I shall respond anyway

Hi Mattheus, no, not taking aim at you, nor at anyone in particular. It was just luck that I posted after you.

But the 'eat only fats / Atkins / gels / industrially baked goods etc' argument is one I meet a lot on the road and since it was broached in this thread I thought it worth pointing out the speciousness of it

[Ian the woodworker]

'speciousness'.
Had to look it up.

[Bice]

I really enjoy playing with my Trangia at the end of a day on the bike.

I take the whole thing, although its main use is making tea.

It and the food must be a third-to-half of the weight I carry, with some meths, small bottle of olive oil and the food itself (esp oranges and other fruits). I give over one Ortlieb pannier to all this.

But then I am not touring for any time/distance challenge, but to see things and go at my own pace: around 100kms.

Most of my tours have been in France where I can seldom resist a food market: oysters, local offerings, fresh fruit and veg, jars of lobster bisque etc. I avoid farmed fish and processed pork stuff like salame (never seen pigs in open fields anywhere in western Europe except UK). Supermarket salads like couscous salads are everywhere.

Morning carbs and lunch are bagettes from a proper bakery. Most baked stuff in UK is mass produced rubbish masquerading as home made (unless bought at village fete etc), so in UK I stick to biscuits, which at least are consistent.

About half the time I seem to end up wild camping or in deserted camp sites, and finding food places that are open is a challenge in rural France. So you are going to have to carry a bit anyway.

[MelW]

Whilst one reason I go touring is to test out bakery products, as I get older I need to make sure I eat healthily. Evening meals are usually a pouch of beans or lentils, either Jamie Oliver or Merchant Gourmet, and coucous. These are generally, but not always, available in the smaller shops encountered on tour. I've sometimes had to resort to Supernoodles... Breakfast generally dried fruit and some variety of oat bar - but I really should go back to porridge as these bars are quite high in sugar. It's just carrying the weight.
Lunch is always more hit and miss, just depends on what village shop I come across, and whether they do any veggie sandwiches. The times I had a cheese and onion pasty every day are long gone!
What do others do to eat healthily on tour but still enjoy it?

Your diet is definitely NOT 'healthy'. We used to be like you eating essentially starch, carbs and sugar, lots of seed oils, ultra processed foods, bread, wheat, grains, pasta, pizza, rice, a plant heavy diet which was ALL rubbish starch. We got to the stage where we had become seriously unhealthy experiencing lots of inflammation and my hubby was pre-diabetic, always knackered, brain fog. I might have been diabetic as well although I was never tested, but I was becoming asthmatic and short of breath. As I say we were eating crap lots of bread, pizzas, rice, pies, pastry, grains, starch, carbs, UPFs, eating out, alcohol. All bad. Our blood sugar was off the scale.

Then we discovered the low carb no sugar Ketogenic diet with a heavy bias towards eating meat, eggs, non starchy veg, salads, seeds, nuts and natural fats. We ate OMAD and did intermittent fasting 36-48 hours each week for the first 3-4 months. We both dropped a lot of weight especially the flab from around our bellies, waists and hips, necks and faces which was stubborn to go that eating so many carbs and so much starch was giving us. We also did resistance training and lifted weights several times each week and walked. We still rode our bikes from time to time. We felt full of energy could exercise a lot longer and harder without becoming short of breath or fatigued like we did before. We did the Ketogenic diet for about 3 years. It was pretty good apart from some health issues that wouldn't resolve themselves. These tended to raise their heads when doing a cycle tour as we succumbed to eating porridge and pasta, and other carb nasties as we didn't know at this time how to fuel ourselves properly.

Then about a year ago we discovered the carnivore diet and started on that as my hubby's inflammation arthritis and skin psoriasis were still persisting for him eating a Ketogenic diet and my asthma although in decline was still an issue. We had heard that eating grains and plants can be a cause of inflammation and that the carnivore diet is a great antidote to inflammation, arthritis, asthma, etc. Within a week my hubby felt relief from his arthritis and itchy skin and within 4-6 weeks it was much reduced and pretty much gone after 3 months. Result. We had been told that this might have been due to oxalate dumping when eating a lot of veg and salad. Who knows. Anyway now it's a distant memory for my hubby and my asthma has gone. No more inhaler!!

Now we tend to eat OMAD one meal a day in say a 2 hours window late afternoon early evening, beef, lamb, bacon, eggs, cooked in butter or EVOO. We allow ourselves onions with ground beef, olives and the occasional avocado. We are in our 60s but feel 30 years younger. Our skin, hair is so much better, mine is no longer falling out, nails are much much better and we have crystal clear thinking. We keep the weight off now without thinking about it. We don't count calories, been there done that, it never worked and was tiresome and a chore. We don't have sugar carb cravings any longer and are lean and strong. We eat when we are hungry, but because we DON'T eat carbs and starch but instead meat we become satiated and can stop unlike with carbs and sugar when we couldn't and were hungry several hours later as carbs are addictive. We don't eat processed crap any more such as bread pizzas pastries, porridge which we used to eat a fair amount of when cycling or indeed at home as comfort food, but it is a killer so much carbs that cause a MASSIVE spike in blood sugar and insulin which we don't need. We like to keep our blood sugar stable now so don't eat it any more.

When on cycle tour we have a breakfast of bacon and eggs, 3-4 eggs each and tea. Eggs will keep in panniers providing it's not too warm, but for bacon or meat we wait until the shops/supermarkets are open then nip in and buy a pack and then cook it up soon after. We also have tins of sardines in our panniers as our snacks say if we get hungry during the day. We also have a freshly squeezed lemon and lime drink each day for vitamin C although I am told you don't need it on a carnivore diet but we still have it.

If riding in France and Spain they do lots of tins of mackerel and sardines in different sauces in supermarkets, but we generally go for the ones in olive oil NOT sunflower oil. We also take lots of electrolytes when drinking water which we get from Decathlon which are all over France and Spain. Spain is really good for cured pork without any nasty additives so we eat a lot of this when riding there and also their olives and avocados.

In the evening we either have a steak beef or lamb or if in Spain their lovely pork. Eating meat regularly especially beef and lamb means were are not deficient in any essential vitamins such as the very important B and K vitamins that red meat has. We get vitamin A from avocados and eggs was well as lots of other essential nutrients. I occasionally have cheese with my meat if I feel a little more hungry especially in France with all their cheeses but my hubby isn't keen on cheese. Says it makes it difficult for him to pee. So he doesn't. Eat cheese that is.

We don't miss any of the processed crap food now. We don't even get triggered by it. We know that if we do eat it which we have since done on occasion, it has made us feel so crap after, a bit like having a a few glasses of wine and developing a hang over, that we don't touch it now. Eating a diet high in starch and carbs also depletes our bodies ability to take up vitamins which we don't want.

We also save quite a bit of money not buying all the processed rubbish foods or sugary drinks.

Eating and fueling ourselves is so simple now.

HTH.

[Cowsham]

I'd reserve the stove for boiling water for coffee and tea. Any food I'd probably have as a salad of some sort, and include bread bought along the route. I like cold food every bit as much as warm food.

I discovered wraps a couple of years ago -- I mean to take on bike tour -- they pack flat along with my thin plastic cutting board in the panniers -- with a bottle of squirty mayonnaise or salad cream and some veg and chicken I can knock up a wrap in about 2 min.

[mattheus]

Thanks for that Mel!

So may I ask, when you're at home, what plants do you two eat? (I think you only talk about olives, avacados and some onions - all of which incidentally tend to score highly with nutrition experts!)

[MelW]

Thanks for that Mel!

So may I ask, when you're at home, what plants do you two eat? (I think you only talk about olives, avacados and some onions - all of which incidentally tend to score highly with nutrition experts!)

When at home we tend not to eat plants, ie veg and salad as they seem to give my hubby psoriasis and his arthritis starts up again so we eat like I said a high protein meat beef lamb bacon based diet with eggs, sardines, onions, butter, extra virgin olive oil, black olives, avocados. Although earlier this evening we did have roast pork which we don't often eat but it was on Clubcard offer in Tesco. I had a small piece of broccoli with it as sometimes I do want some veg, but it's not often, but it was hardly two mouthfuls. I also have a tiny bit couple of mouthfuls of sauerkraut white cabbage a couple of times each week before I have my meat to help my gut flora. My hubby doesn't have any. We have a bit of pork left over so maybe have it tomorrow with bacon and eggs for breakfast or tomorrow's lunch. I don't think we'll have supper tomorrow as we just won't feel like it so will fast from tomorrow lunchtime through to sat morning or maybe skip breakfast in the morning and have our OMAD at lunchtime. This is the ideal eating main meal at lunchtime as you don't then eat at the end of the day, likely going to sleep with food still digesting in your tummy.

HTH.