Mountain/Ski Food

[socaltim]

If there are any good tangerines in the store, I take a bunch pre-peeled to munch on in the car after getting off the trail. Great to re-hydrate.

[blitzskier]

i also carry a jar of organic honey and a spoon. great natrual energy boost

I prefer to maintain the fasting process while skiing, so instead of swallowing the fiber materials in grapes, i just swage them and spit them out.. this is also what i do when eating oranges. chew it, juice it spit it out. otherwise you activate the digestion system and that consumes a lot of energy that needs to go to my legs.

liquid carbs.

[randoskier]

Ski tour food-

For my three week tour in Norway, this is typical- on a long tour if you don't get 4000 kcal/day or more- you gonna crash. I try to keep it the food weight at +/- 1kg per day. This trip I will mail a resupply package to a remote mountain farm with no road connection. Some of the cabins have food supplies in a pantry that you can access, others we bring all. This trip has a nice mix so I never need to carry more than 4 days food (+of course the extra day I always carry). So about 10kg of food per leg.

Breakfast

Granola 170g, 750 kcal+ 60g Nestle Klim powdered milk 300 kcal = 1050 kcal (if I want hot cereal I heat the milk)

Tang orange-drink (100% of daily vitamin C req.) 33g 140Kcal

Doncafe Instant Coffee w/milk+sugar ?

370g 1190 kcal breakfast

Lunch

Ritter sport chocolate bar 100g 571 Kcal
Cheese and Cheddar Crackers 1 pack 39g 200Kcal
½ pack of bacon jerky 42g 210 Kcal (hopefully on some flatbread!)
Biscotti Cioccolati 24g 110 Kcal

305g 1091 kcal lunch

Dinner

Freeze Dried Meals 1000kcal+/package Either:

Voyager Jambon, pomme de terre; 190g 1028Kcal
or
Peak Refuel Beef Pasta Marinara; 180g 1040kcal
or
Voyager Boeuf aux riz et graines 185g 1026 kcal

So for calculation purposes I used; 185 g 1035 kcal

Not so many companies making backpack meals with winter-level Kcals (1000+). In England; Expedition Foods has a whole range of it, but it is such a pain in the ass to order/ship since the UK left the EU that they are no longer a reasonable option.

Cup-a-soup 15g 60 Kcal

Dessert (crumble mixed into vanilla pudding):

Voyager Apple-Banana Crumble or Raspberry Crumble 80g 325 kcal

Jello Instant Pudding French Vanilla 48g (made with 30g Klim milk)= 78mg 330 kcal

Dinner 358g 1750 kcal


1033g/day 4031 kcal total per day
(+ snacks and drinks and flatbread and of course Gummi Bears to get up those mountains)

[randoskier]

i also carry a jar of organic honey and a spoon. great natrual energy boost

I prefer to maintain the fasting process while skiing, so instead of swallowing the fiber materials in grapes, i just swage them and spit them out.. this is also what i do when eating oranges. chew it, juice it spit it out. otherwise you activate the digestion system and that consumes a lot of energy that needs to go to my legs.

liquid carbs.

Both honey and maple syrup are great for energy.

[blitzskier]

Both honey and maple syrup are great for energy.

i never tried maple syrup, i will try it on my next outting, most maple syrup is almost synthetic in the big stores, its hard finding real organic stuff thats not adulterated with corn syrup.

I find your meal choices above to be very acidic foods, any other options for more alkaline meals. our muslces don't need more acid producing food.

[mca80]

Whoulda thunk? Sugar is good for short term energy boost! Flabberghasted!

[blitzskier]

Whoulda thunk? Sugar is good for short term energy boost! Flabberghasted!

sugar really doesn't have the density but it works..for awhile
I get a long fuel burn from juicing dark grapes, usually a liter of juiced grapes can keep me running 3-4 hours , much longer than solid carb type foods that plug up the colon i.e. pasta. i think the greeks and romans figured that out long time ago.

[aclyon]

@randoskier great break down of your nutrition for tours!
you're right, you really need a lot of calories for big days and long tours. although in recent years i've stopped counting calories and instead count grams of carbs. 50-100 grams per hour while moving, plus another 200 or more grams for breakfast and dinner. protein is important in breakfast and dinner for muscular recovery but not really while on the move. fats become important in long tours where your caloric deficit even at 4k a day will almost certainly force your body into a fat burning routine.

it is important to get your carbs from different kinds of sugars-- glucose, fructose, maltodextrin etc, as the body can only absorb a certain amount of carbs from each source per hour. that's why i mix up my maple syrup with gels and gummies. maple syrup by itself will only give you 30-50 grams an hour no matter how much you eat. it is, however, very easy on both the stomach and palate (pretty important when you're cramming that much sugar). for my constitution it goes down a lot easier than honey.

[blitzskier]

. fats become important in long tours where your caloric deficit even at 4k a day will almost certainly force your body into a fat burning routine.

you shouldn't be calorie deficit otherwise you cant perform and the body consumes lean body mass...indeed I forgot to mention that during the "fasted" body state i consume, Kerrygold Butter Stick on the trail, some Starbucks have small little pre-wrapped butter packs, they go great with honey. I don't feel it activates digestion while out on the trail. try it out...

[aclyon]

i come from the trail and ultra running world-- we don't fast. we consume as much carbohydrate as possible and are always training the gut to handle more.

a caloric deficit is easy to accrue while touring or backpacking. for example if i tour for 30 miles i will easily burn 3000+ calories, in addition to the 2000 i burn on average every day just by existing. so even if i consumed 4000 kcal i would still have a 1000c deficit. this is not uncommon at all. compound that with daily touring or hiking and things happen-- even cramming carbs and calories all the time most people will still lose weight.

by consuming simple sugars you only activate digestion at a minute level. that's typically why runners don't consume things like vegetables or other fibrous foods while on the move.

i do occasionally train in a semi-fasted state, but never for longer than a 2 hour workout. if my goal is back to back long days, i'm focusing on training my gut to consume as much as possible.

. fats become important in long tours where your caloric deficit even at 4k a day will almost certainly force your body into a fat burning routine.

you shouldn't be calorie deficit otherwise you cant perform and the body consumes lean body mass...indeed I forgot to mention that during the "fasted" body state i consume, Kerrygold Butter Stick on the trail, some Starbucks have small little pre-wrapped butter packs, they go great with honey. I don't feel it activates digestion while out on the trail. try it out...