Source of Maltodextrin

[Vicegrip]

I found that once in the groove stopping for more than old water out and fresh water in the bottles causes a little bonk. I feel heavy for a bit until I go back into fat burn. I try and only eat on the fly to help prevent this on longer rides.

[BobCochran]

Thanks everyone, I really like reading the different viewpoints here. Everyone is different and has different bodies that need in-ride nutrition in different ways. I’m very much still experimenting with what works for me. The one thing I know for sure is that I must eat during my long rides. I’ve never tried straight maltodextrin before. I think I tried some sort of a Hammer product, and also something called Cytomax, but both these were a long time ago and I was put off by the steep pricing. I’m just buying a type of food, not a new house (smile.)

I did order a pound of the True Nutrition variety of maltodextrin. I will experiment and see if it helps me. Reese’s cups and Paydays and Fritos might help me too.

Thanks!

Bob

[vvill]

The cost of buying foods that don’t even taste good kind of gets to me too when I think of it as just calories – I much prefer being able to ride on more normal, tasty food. I’ve never really figured it out right as I’ve tended to undereat on long rides (partly because I’m not the steadiest rider in terms of effort). I will fork out the money for stuff like skratch labs on big/”important” rides and also make my own version of rice cakes – but otherwise Gatorade, chips, ham sandwiches, candy, whatever is generally fine for me.

I agree if you’re not doing a hard ride you don’t need to eat for 1-2 hours, maybe more depending on your conditioning. I’ve also read a [very] little about fat-trained endurance athletes and thought it sounded pretty amazing – but I’m not prepared to try to change my body / diet that much. I do like eating carbs.

[Judd]

When I’m riding centuries (which usually means about 6 to 6.5 hours of pedaling time for me), I try to make sure that I eat something about 250-400 calories every hour. Depending on how much I’m sweating, I start doing 1 bottle of gatorade and 1 bottle of water every hour after about 2 hours. I tend to drink a lot more liquid on rides than my riding companions do, which I can only attribute to being big dude (6’3″ and usually hovering around 200 lbs) who sweats a lot.

Like vvill, I’d rather do tasty food instead of pure sugar. After doing four centuries in September, I can say this: I don’t want to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a while and I hate when Nuun is an event sponsor.

[AFHokie]

I haven’t had any bad experiences with a particular sport gel, chew, or drink, but I’ve found I like Clif Bar Bloks the most. For me they’re the easiest thing to eat while I’m on the bike. I have to eat something substantial and solid at rest stops. PB&J’s or Nutella doesn’t usually cut for me and I also tend to have a hard time forcing several down. Something with meat does well, but understandably in addition to more expensive, it’s tough keeping ham or turkey sandwiches, etc from going bad at rest stops in the middle of the summer. I’ll also make sure I eat a banana or two at each stop, but more often than not by the last rest stop I can’t stomach another banana. I’ll drain whatever water/Gatorade is left in my bottles at each stop and depending on the heat will drink at least one additional bottle’s worth before getting back on the bike. By the end of the ride it’ll often turn into a struggle forcing myself to drink more water.

[Judd]

@AFHokie 146628 wrote:

I haven’t had any bad experiences with a particular sport gel, chew, or drink, but I’ve found I like Clif Bar Bloks the most. For me they’re the easiest thing to eat while I’m on the bike. I have to eat something substantial and solid at rest stops. PB&J’s or Nutella doesn’t usually cut for me and I also tend to have a hard time forcing several down. Something with meat does well, but understandably in addition to more expensive, it’s tough keeping ham or turkey sandwiches, etc from going bad at rest stops in the middle of the summer. I’ll also make sure I eat a banana or two at each stop, but more often than not by the last rest stop I can’t stomach another banana. I’ll drain whatever water/Gatorade is left in my bottles at each stop and depending on the heat will drink at least one additional bottle’s worth before getting back on the bike. By the end of the ride it’ll often turn into a struggle forcing myself to drink more water.

I can second the Clif Bloks. They’re chewy and easy to eat while pedaling. Plus you can lick em and stick em to your top tube for easy access like this:

http://www.conradstoltz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/LIezel-Stoltz-Specialized-Stumpy-named-Furikake-and-Clif-Bloks-on-the-top-tube.jpg

[Harry Meatmotor]

Oldie but a goodie.

[Vicegrip]

For the full on hijack and unasked for Opinion. Key point. What you eat or drink does you no good until it is absorbed.
IMO, when making home made drinks be careful not to make them too strong or single substance. If too strong the absorption rate will be slowed down as the mixture resists osmotic absorption. Gatoraid tried to sell a 2X version and it was a resounding failure.

An important thing to keep in mind is the transport channels we thermo-regulating mammals employ to move water. Oddly they found that pure water absorbs more slowly than a proper osmotic mix. Sodium helps via one channel and glucose helps via another. On a basic level this looks like the fastest way to hydrate/replenish is to have a mix of water, sodium and glucose in the right proportions. To much of ether sodium or glucose will slow the absorption. For nutrient replenishment during depletion a overly concentrated mix will simply take longer to absorb. While exerting in warm conditions and losing fluid via sweating we can get ahead of our intake ability. We drink enough but simply water-log our gut. I have been there…..
The key goal is to replace lost fluids and fuel at a minimum about equal to the loss rate. Single substance mixtures are not using all the channels available. If you want to import glucose during high loss rate times you are better off to add in some sodium while keeping the total osmotic values in the right range. There is much more to this but this is my goal in ride mixes. For longer harder pace rides lot-o-water with a bit of the salt and sweet. Chew or Gu type food gets washed in with plenty o water.
Just Riding Around? I like Nom Nom Nom foods. AKA. Most everything else that tastes good but will simply be carried around on the inside rather than my jersey pocket as it is complex and takes my guts a good long while to disassemble….

A snip from a paper on this that better explains my opinion.

“The small intestine must absorb massive quantities of water. A normal person or animal of similar size takes in roughly 1 to 2 liters of dietary fluid every day. On top of that, another 6 to 7 liters of fluid is received by the small intestine daily as secretions from salivary glands, stomach, pancreas, liver and the small intestine itself.

By the time the ingesta enters the large intestine, approximately 80% of this fluid has been absorbed. Net movement of water across cell membranes always occurs by osmosis, and the fundamental concept needed to understand absorption in the small gut is that there is a tight coupling between water and solute absorption. Another way of saying this is that absorption of water is absolutely dependent on absorption of solutes, particularly sodium:

Sodium is absorbed into the cell by several mechanisms, but chief among them is by cotransport with glucose and amino acids – this means that efficient sodium absorption is dependent on absorption of these organic solutes.
Absorbed sodium is rapidly exported from the cell via sodium pumps – when a lot of sodium is entering the cell, a lot of sodium is pumped out of the cell, which establishes a high osmolarity in the small intercellular spaces between adjacent enterocytes.
Water diffuses in response to the osmotic gradient established by sodium – in this case into the intercellular space. It seems that the bulk of the water absorption is transcellular, but some also diffuses through the tight junctions.
Water, as well as sodium, then diffuses into capillary blood within the villus.”

[Harry Meatmotor]

@Vicegrip 146637 wrote:

For the full on hijack and unasked for Opinion. Key point. What you eat or drink does you no good until it is absorbed.

…science stuff…

QFT. This is the a reason Skratch and OSMO products work so very well. They nailed the “science stuff.”

[Vicegrip]

Well heck I could have saved some typing time.

[sjclaeys]

You can get maltodextrin from home-brew sites or stores: http://www.northernbrewer.com/malto-dextrin-8-oz

[DrP]

@jrenaut 146596 wrote:

I’m generally opposed to these processed things (My sister is a nutritionist) and prefer to head towards more natural stuff like the Feed Zone Cookbook.

As someone who enjoys food and cooking, I have never understood the drinks and gels and other “sports” stuff people seem to like to consume. I mean really, what is the point. Enjoy what you consume. Then again, I am riding to get to work or just have fun/exercise rather than beating some time.

On my first really long ride, ~85 miles, I consumed water and a couple of kind bars (only the ones with nuts and dried fruits (and likely puffed rice or some such ingredient), none of the chocolate or other candy bar like items (note that I am a big lover of chocolate, so that isn’t the issue)). And it worked great. Occasionally I now stop for actual food – sandwich or soup (Green Lizard has some good soups in the winter), but otherwise water and kind bars are great. And cheap and easy to locate. My riding buddy, a big sugar fiend, brings dried fruit (usually something fun from Trader Joes – mangos, mandarins, blueberries, etc.). I like those too.

If you like maltodextrin, great, otherwise find what works for you. It might not be the engineered “foods” companies want you to spend your money on. But maybe it is.

[BobCochran]

I went to REI last night and got a 1 serving packet of Recoverite (a Hammer product). If you compare organic raisins to Recoverite, the raisins are definite winners based on price, fiber content, and carbohydrate content. 1/4 cup of raisins offers 31g of carbohydrate vs 33g for a serving of Recoverite (the packet I have contains 49g of product.) Raisins are $3.99 a pound at Mom’s Organic Market. You need ten (10) 1.75 ounce packets of Recoverite to get at least one pound of product and at $2.00 each that’s $20.00 a pound…roughly put, of course, that is not an exactly correct computation but it is close. Raisins can leave your fingers sticky, but that is okay with me.

I will experiment with my True Nutrition maltodextrin when it arrives. The $7.99 shipping charge cost me more than the actual maltodextrin. I suppose I should have also asked, “what other True Nutrition products are worth buying for those century rides?”

Thanks everyone!

Bob

[BobCochran]

@DrP 146678 wrote:

As someone who enjoys food and cooking, I have never understood the drinks and gels and other “sports” stuff people seem to like to consume. I mean really, what is the point. Enjoy what you consume.

I enjoy cooking too and I’d love to bring some turkey sandwiches with me on long rides. The problem is, meats spoil fast when kept inside hot pannier or other bags. So there is a lot of incentive to purchase foods from convenience stores or fast food places. On bike, you want to carry basically nonperishable foods which won’t melt in the heat or freeze into bricks in the winter.

Here is my disclaimer. I’m just a baby bicyclist. I don’t know how the big boys and girls carry food around. I’m going to try one recipe published in the book “Fuel Your Ride” by Molly Hurford. Something to do with peanut butter-oatmeal-honey balls. Those seem messy, too.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@BobCochran 146679 wrote:

I went to REI last night and got a 1 serving packet of Recoverite (a Hammer product).

@Tim Kelley 146591 wrote:

…Tastes like dish soap.

You’ve been warned!

Seriously, Bob, this stuff tastes truly awful (and I’ve tried every flavor). Try some (12-20oz) protein fortified chocolate milk (available at most 7-Elevens) to get a good 3-4:1 carb to protein mix. Or, just mix a scoop of maltodextrin with 16oz chocolate milk and a tablespoon of cane sugar and a pinch of salt. It’s important you get any recovery drink into your belly within 60 minutes of the end of a ride; within 30 minutes is preferable. Then, another snack sized serving of complex carbs and protein in solid food within another 1-1.5 hours. E.g., a 1/4 cup of salted, boiled red skinned potatoes and an egg or 2. Maybe add an 8oz banana-and-milk smoothie or some cherry juice and seltzer water in for some additional micronutrients. Then back to your normal feed schedule.

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