Cycling UK Forum

gilesjuk wrote:

alicej wrote:Do I now have a good excuse to eat loads of Haribo? Yum!

They're empty calories. There's no nutritional benefit to them.

You're always better to consume either proper food or sports nutrition. Cakes, sweets and biscuits are all empty calories.

Cakes and biscuits have more proper food in them than most "sports nutrition" (which are usually very sugary, with the rest complex carbs). Cakes vary too much to write off - many are too sugary, but some can be very good ride food.(is malt loaf "cake" ? Bread pudding? Lardy cake? )

I've checked out the Haribo ingredients, and sad to report, but the "health food" rumour was just that
They have a smidge (2%) protein, and the flavourings are mostly natural (from actual fruits-n-things). So they're not the worst sweet, but they are still mostly glucose syrup, so not very good except in tiny quantities as a treat or in dire sugar crash.

[I've consumed neat Kendal Mint Cake when starving on a long ride, so it has some uses - but best to get hold of some Real Food ASAP.]

The 'sports' bars I've tried tasted utterly disgusting and were far too sweet even for my sweet tooth. They also cost a bomb.

If you want something really decent, I think you may have to make it yourself. A good Tea Loaf is mostly fruit, with a bit of flour (you can use good flour if you have it) a bit of egg, tea, and not a lot of added sugar. That sounds fairly healthy to me.

Probably none of the things suggested here is very healthy for teeth, though.

Flinders wrote:Probably none of the things suggested here is very healthy for teeth, though.

You're right and that does concern me.
May I suggest the savoury flapjack?
I've not made them for many years, but the ingredients were something like:
Oats
Oil
Strong Cheddar
Chopped nuts (peanuts good)
Or seeds (toasted)
Grated carrots
Chopped sun dried tomatoes
Herbs - oregano, tarragon, basil etc.
Pepper

As there is no syrup to hold the mixture together, I think it's also necessary to add a small amount of flour. Alternately, ground linseed is a fantastic binding agent. A sprinkling of water may also help it to bind and add moisture, but not too much -it will turn to stodge.

Flinders wrote:Probably none of the things suggested here is very healthy for teeth, though.

True, although many flapjacks are pretty good if you stick to fruity ones and avoid the chocolate-based ones!

A few years ago when "gels" and water-soluble powders became the must-have accessory (for triathletes in particular), there were stories of dentists noticing the increase in adult tooth decay. A lot of riders now keep a neat water bottle to rinse with - to me this seems like fixing the symptoms not the problem, but whatever works ...

I've been a little surprised at how few riders clean their teeth on the longer Audax rides (when you consider how much sugary stuff gets chucked down there over a day or more).
______________________
Savoury flapjacks:
i bet these taste great, but all the recipes seem to include dairy (or eggs) so I worry about the "pocket life". Not a problem if you just bake a batch for a group of riders to all use in 1 day

mattheus wrote:Savoury flapjacks:
i bet these taste great, but all the recipes seem to include dairy (or eggs) so I worry about the "pocket life". Not a problem if you just bake a batch for a group of riders to all use in 1 day

The cheese ones would be fine for 2-3 days. Not sure it's necessary to add egg. Make a large batch and freeze them, then they are easily at hand for a ride.

Cheese oatcakes, Nairns do them.
A bit crumbly, but tasty.

Actually, when I was on tour a few years ago, I found that a combination of oat cakes alternated with sun dried bananas made for a very pleasant fuel source that was healthy.

mattheus wrote:Cakes and biscuits have more proper food in them than most "sports nutrition" (which are usually very sugary, with the rest complex carbs). Cakes vary too much to write off - many are too sugary, but some can be very good ride food.(is malt loaf "cake" ? Bread pudding? Lardy cake? )

Most cakes are just refined white flour (bad), refined white sugar (bad), eggs and water.

Some have fruit, some have nuts. But largely they're refined foods which is bad. Short term boost of energy followed by a big crash, plus increasing your risk of diabetes.

Like I said, proper food is best. There is all sorts of sports nutrition, good and bad. It tends to be concentrated, hence sweet and sickly. But if you're on a road bike on the drops you don't want a belly full of grub.

I like banana chips. They take a bit longer to eat than a fresh banana, but they don't squish. They aren't so nice if they get wet, though, so I carry them in the sandwich-sized zip-close freezer bags.

It comes down to what you can process during a ride. On a shortish ride I would be happy with a chocky bar or banana or flapjack.
On longer rides I struggle to process sugary food. So tend to stick to sandwiches made with ham and cheese. I can also get cravings. Last year on one long ride I got a fixation for sausage and mash. Finding it on the menu at the next control was akin to a lottery win. It was a really big issue.
I also like boiled eggs on a long ride. Most of my food is in my bar bag with only clean easily eaten items finding their way into my pockets.

I do like the sound of the Nigella Lawson flapjack recipe.

If I'm taking a sadle bag (ok, not answering the original question) then I'll have homemade banana cake, or peanut butter and banana sandwidges, or cheese marmite and watercress sandwidges, or fruit loaf or currant buns. I'll nearly always bring or buy jelly babies, star bars or snickers.

On a hundred mile ride a large pizza with some meat content keeps me happy. But then it cant go into any of my pockets! For pocket size stuff dried fruits + nuts are great.

Aldi sells bags of jelly beans, M&M style chocolate beans / crispy coated chocolate peanuts and chocolate raisins.
I mix them together and decant into 1oz or 2oz bags roughly 100cal per oz.
Tastes good and interesting to chew.

mattheus wrote:

reohn2 wrote:Mrs R2's Muesli bars made from Porrige oats,nuts,dried fruit(cranberries,prunes,apricots),cashew nuts(or other),mixed seeds(pumpkin,sunflower,sesame) and can of condensed milk to bind it.She got the receipe from Nigela Lawsons "get up and go" series.They taste great and no sugar, just a long slow energy release

(I suspect anything oat-based is still a flapjack, but I'll let that go ... )

Hmm, condensed milk - what's the shelf-life of this magical concoction?

I'm assured by Mrs R2 they'll last about two weeks but they seldom last that long

gilesjuk wrote:

mattheus wrote:Cakes and biscuits have more proper food in them than most "sports nutrition" (which are usually very sugary, with the rest complex carbs). Cakes vary too much to write off - many are too sugary, but some can be very good ride food.(is malt loaf "cake" ? Bread pudding? Lardy cake? )

Most cakes are just refined white flour (bad), refined white sugar (bad), eggs and water.

Some have fruit, some have nuts. But largely they're refined foods which is bad. Short term boost of energy followed by a big crash, plus increasing your risk of diabetes.

Like I said, proper food is best. There is all sorts of sports nutrition, good and bad. It tends to be concentrated, hence sweet and sickly. But if you're on a road bike on the drops you don't want a belly full of grub.

It's best to make your own- you can get good stoneground wholemeal flour pretty easily these days, even ground by water if you want to be eco-friendly, and rather than white sugar you could use something like dark muscovado (if you can cope with the really strong flavour, I think it is great- but in addition you also need less of it). My tea loaf has very little sugar in it, and not much flour. It's mostly fruit. You could stick nuts in if you wanted. Tea loaf is VERY easy to make- no messing about like with other cakes. It's basically chuck everything together and stir.
The energy bars I have tried seem to be positively sickly with sugar, ugh.