Author Topic: breakfast  (Read 13211 times)

ahconway

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breakfast
« on: July 03, 2005, 11:47:00 am »
I always try to subscribe to the cyclists' mantra "eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty." So I bring lots of snacks on a long ride, usually bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, dried fruit, trail mix, salty nuts, etc. Also Powerbars and their ilk.

My question is this: what do you have for breakfast? I've been doing insanely early rides this summer (out the door around 05.00!) and I tend to have a strong coffee, a banana, and a bowl of granola. That tends to be enough to jolt me into action, but I know the caffeine isn't good for me, and all the milk feels like it curdles in my stomach when I get going.

Any tips?

Andrew

 

Dude

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2005, 06:20:03 pm »
I start nearly every morning with some oatmeal-porrige, sliced banana, cinnamon and yoghurtdrink on top. The carbohydrates in the cooked oats is more accessable and easier to digest due to it being boield and there is still plenty of good fibers. The yoghurt is also easier than milk to digest due to the natural bacteria(afidofilus etc.) that has partly broken down some of the lactos!

Many people tend to get lactos intollerance as they grow older. So maby you should try some of those new youghurtdrinks that are free of lactos all together sins it often is the source of the problem.

Started with this brakfastrutine when I was working in New York as a bike messanger nearly twenty ears agoe and had trouble saving up my pennies due to my constant urge for food! [:D]
 

James

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2005, 07:12:04 am »
Porridge with banana is one that I try at times and have not had any problems.
 

Ratty

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2005, 10:43:21 pm »
I am also a muesli or porridge man when I feel I need an energy-rich breakfast.

If you feel that the milk is upseting your stomach then you can make porridge with water, not milk.  If you add sugar and a pich of salt it tastes nearly the same.

Bread or toast is probably not a bad bet either.

Anthony
 

Danneaux

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2012, 01:23:41 am »
Old thread, but we still have to eat, so...

When riding from home, I usually start with a decent breakfast of hot oatmeal with milk and perhaps an egg and fried sausage or Spam (sometimes turkey Spam) and fruit or a muffin. If it is a really big ride (say, a 400km day), then I stop by McDonald's for something fatty that is slow-burning. Usually that is a sausage McMuffin with cheese (base= English muffin with fried egg, sausage patty, slice of American Cheese), hash browns (a patty of shredded potato, fried), and hot coffee (decaf, with plenty of sugar and enough milk so it is a pale tan in color). I can almost hear my arteries clog and slam shut as I write this. Still, when exercising hard, I seem to not only tolerate, but crave it. If I ate something like that normally, I'd be trying to scrape the grease off my tongue. When riding hard, it seems to "burn clean".

While on-tour (the multi-day variety), I generally awaken at 4:50-5AM and break camp so I can be on the road as soon as possible, usually by 5:20-5:30 or so. I often seem to get in 20-25 miles/32-40km before stopping to eat. It is usually an energy bar or three nibbled with and some electrolyte-replacement drink/water while riding or briefly stopped along with some dried fruit -- typically bananas and raisins and pineapple or apple and a few nuts. If it is particularly cold or I just get the notion, I'll boil some water and do the whole nine yards -- hot cocoa, tea, or apple cider mix, a packet or two of instant oatmeal, and reconstituted powdered milk. I've been taking some small cups of foil-capped applesauce on recent trips, and find those taste very good early in the morning.

Midmorning, I'll snack on something else, typically in the meat-protein category, like canned Vienna sausage, or a small tin of Beanie-Weenie; cold is fine. Lunch is something similar with fruit from my dried stock, and dinner is the big meal of the day, made in camp and cooked on the stove. Supper seems to consist of a dried-soup base, fortified with meat from a pouch or dried (fish or chicken breast from a tin or foil pouch, dried beef or turkey jerkey) and dried vegetables, hot cocoa, tea, or apple cider, and cheese and/or tinned meat or fish on crackers with fruit (canned mandarin oranges = great!). Bread doesn't seem to travel very well for me (either going stale and dry at one extreme or moldy at the other). Sturdy crackers like Rye-Krisp seem to do well. Dessert is an energy bar of some sort, typically the granola and dried-fruit in fruit syrup variety. I find Luna Bars ( http://www.lunabar.com/ ) very tasty, almost like a cookie, but they seem to be marketed primarily to women. <shrug> Taste good t'me.  I try to eat an energy bar or something similar just before I slide off into sleep, as it makes a real difference in keeping me warm through the night.

Looking at what I've written, it appears awfully spartan, and I do lose about a pound a day for each day I'm on-tour, up to a month and then it sort of levels out. I try to nibble throughout the day so I am never really starved, and that helps prevent my stores from depleting. Way back to when I first started touring and cycle-camping over 32 years ago, I've found the harder I work, the more my appetite slacks off, so I have learned to nibble and graze on little things throughout the day, even if I don't feel the need. The old cycling mantra, "eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty" has always worked well for me. If I don't, then I realize I've dug a hole for myself and it takes awhile to get out of it and feel my energy is back where it should be. I get leg cramps if I don't take 0.75l of electrolyte-water mix at 50% dilution after every 2-3l of clear water. I take Gatorade in powdered form and mix it as I need.

If I'm where I can get a big, decent meal once a day every 3-4 days or so, I can and do (often can't). Where I go (ranching country), that means a steak, garlic bread and a green salad or a huge beef-based hamburger with a big leafy green salad and steak fries (super-sized French fries with ketchup topping). There's not many restaurants in much of the Great Basin, and those that are there often don't have vegetarian-specific meals. I guess I am fortunate in eating pretty much anything that is available and that has included some interesting things, like some variety of snake at a diner in Nebraska, of all places, and horse meat bitterballen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitterballen ) in Belgium and the Netherlands. I developed a real taste for whole raw herring pickled in their own digestive juices ( http://dutchfood.about.com/od/glossaryhijk/g/Haring.htm ) and they slid down real good head, tail, and all. Surprised me, but I'd get them here if I could. When I went touring with my Dutch friend, we ate broodie hagelslag (bread/broodie -- or in our case, Rye-Krisp crackers -- covered with chocolate sprinkles/hagelslag and colored "dots" -- a common Dutch breakfast treat ( http://dutchfood.about.com/od/aboutdutchcooking/ss/3DailyMeals_2.htm ), as well as stroopwafels ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroopwafel ) and fresh or dried fruit for breakfast or small packets of jams and jellies. Sometimes, we'd supplement it with a pasteboard box carton of the Dutch equivalent of Yoo-hoo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoo-hoo ). He is vegetarian, so we would often eat a sort of stew made of a pasta or brown rice base, sliced tomatoes and tomato sauce, fresh peas, and cashews and sometimes beans for protein. Since most of the ingredients were dry and in bulk, it took some time to soak and then cook.

Though I really enjoy food and know what Good Food is (yes! really! despite what I wrote above), on a bike trip it gets reduced to simple fuel, and I don't have many cravings, though I did ride all day through desert heat sustained by the occasional roadside sign promising root-beer floats (vanilla ice cream floating in a huge mug of carbonated root beer). I was bitterly disappointed to finally arrive and find not only the restaurant, but the entire town were no longer in existence -- having joined many other small villages in becoming a recent ghost town.

Best,

Dan.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 04:47:01 pm by Danneaux »

Pavel

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2012, 10:55:09 am »
As much as I love cycling I don't like the thought that any kind of cycling metric would get in the way of my enjoyment of the day.  What I mean by that is that to me the ultimate aim of cycling is to be places in a different "head space" than I can do with a regular routine.  I try to circumvent my own (admittedly strong) tendency to optimize because then I'm not really "there" looking around and seeing whatever it is that I find.  So, I get up .... and do as I feel.

That said, if I want to put some vigor into my ride then I try not to eat until I finnish because it seems that a combo of digesting and powering the pedals leaves me with even less than usual blood for the brain. :)

My goal for this summer is to get out there and not think.  I have a hard time with mornings but I'm lying to my self really well this year that I will get up bright and early like the people I resent do :D who manage it ... and stopping for a bite on the way to the door would probably result in a two hour meal .... so I'm just a gonna run for the door.  I'll let ya all know how enjoying nature goes on an empty stomach.

I've also made a deal with myself.  If I keep looking at the gps to see how fast I am peddling, there will be a good gps unit for sale here, presently.

JimK

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2012, 11:31:30 am »
I try not to eat until I finish because it seems that a combo of digesting and powering the pedals leaves me with even less than usual blood for the brain. :)

We have a great bakery locally, Bread Alone. They sell a multi-grain baguette, among many other products. Delicious, nutritious. I generally plan to eat a handful of baguette every hour or so on one of my longer rides, like 30 to 50 miles. This year I hope to push further, maybe up to 80 miles. It sure seems to help me stay comfortable if I keep a steady flow of fuel!

6527richardm

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2012, 08:49:21 pm »
If at home I start with porridge with fruit and lashing of honey mixed in.

If away from home I will often start with a tin of cold rice pudding which gives me enough energy to keep going until I find a cafe to fill up at.

allywatt

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2012, 10:22:13 pm »
Being a Scotsman, I find it hard to admit that I really hate porrige in all its forms!  Musli and banana in the morning, and oatcake/pitta with honey and banana every fifteen miles when on tour does it for me.

Danneaux

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2012, 02:00:35 am »
Pavel,

Individual physiology can surely differ, and even though conventional wisdom is to eat before hungry, it just doesn't sit well for some folks. Some people get by with carb-loading and tuning their meals the evening before a long ride and report good results even with little food intake the day of an event or ride. My marathon-running friends often take a pass on any kind of solid food before a high-energy race, relying instead on "clean-burning" fuels while running...things like GU energy gels ( https://guenergy.com/ ). I have tried Kellogg's Special K Protein Water mixes ( http://www.specialk.com/protein-water-mixes ), but for some reason those didn't agree with me and made me feel out of sorts after ingestion. The idea behind these watery-gel energy/electrolyte things is they absorb quickly and divert very little blood from the muscles to digestion, minimizing that "loagy" feeling of general unease that can come with trying to exercise and digest a big meal at once.

That's where eating just a little at a time can help; for me that sometimes boils down to just a bite now and then, perhaps as little as once every 20 minutes or so. It is an intrusion on the carefree, zen-like "flow" of a ride, and I do have to make a conscious effort to eat and drink in advance until it becomes habit.

You'll know best of course, but it might not hurt to tuck an energy bar deep inside a forgotten pocket "just in case" the hungries get'cha; they lie in wait and sneak up when a person is the farthest possible distance from a store, restaurant, or other food source. I've found it helpful to keep a little "emergency larder" of food on hand in my rack-pack side pocket for day rides, and stocking it the night or week before it's needed is a nice way to prevent oneself from taste-testing it early.

Quote
It sure seems to help me stay comfortable if I keep a steady flow of fuel!
Jim, I've also found it helps me to keep the food flowing. A doctor friend uses the term "grazing" to describe it (think: cows...a little bit at a time, but steady just as you propose with that delicious bread). Running out of glycogen stores can cause a real drop in energy that used to be called "The Bonk" in cycling literature; it seems that is still the term ( http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/article/beat-the-bonk-17082/ ). I experienced it once or twice when I first started cycling long distances in my 'teens and it felt like someone reached in and pulled my batteries out. It took till the next day to really feel fully recovered. I felt so bad, I took steps to ensure it never happened again.

Richard...rice pudding...I love that stuff and can inhale vast quantities. Man, its good.

allywatt, I don't know if this will be more palatable than porridge, but I've found a reasonable substitute can sometimes be made by putting dry cereal (commercial things like oat-rings/Cheerios, etc) in a bowl with milk, then microwaving the lot for a few seconds till warm but still sort of crispy. I discovered this one morning after realizing I'd run out of instant oatmeal. Wasn't too bad with a banana sliced atop it, but tasted enough different it might help? The texture was a bit different, and that can be enough to make a difference for some folks.

Best,

Dan.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2012, 03:08:23 am by Danneaux »

philb0412

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #10 on: February 26, 2012, 05:55:08 pm »
When cycling down to Portugal in the summer of 2010 myself and a couple of friends decided to use up our left over rice from the curry for breakfast. I find oats by themselves very heavy and stodgy, so mixing them, uncooked with a bit of water (or juice from tinned fruit) to soften them and then adding them to the leftover rice really made a great breakfast that you could really pack in. To the rice and oat mix we added whatever dried or fresh fruit we had and either sugar or honey. It's so good that I still eat it now when I have leftover rice. Remember to salt the rice, having salt present really brings out the flavour of the fruit and oats.

Danneaux

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #11 on: February 26, 2012, 06:10:22 pm »
Brilliant, Phil!

I don't have sufficient nutritional knowledge to know, but I wonder if the effect of combining the rice and oatmeal is additive. I've heard (and my eating seems to confirm!) that mixing rice and beans produces some sort of effect that increases the amount of protein in the mix beyond what either of the ingredients have alone.

So, this uses the previously-cooked rice with the softened oatmeal, so it isn't a hot/fresh-cooked meal, right? If so, that would also save on stove fuel, and the oats could soften while I put the tent away in the morning, making for a quicker liftoff from camp.

Does the mix have a salty-sweet combination? Thinking salted rice + naturally sweet fruit...?

In any case, it sounds really good, and I think I'll be giving it a try here at home so I can fine-tune the mix.

Best,

Dan.

philb0412

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #12 on: February 27, 2012, 06:30:35 pm »
Yeah Dan we had it cold. Just cook more rice in the evening so as you say we could set off quickly in the mornings without much fuss.

It does have a salty sweet combo, salty rice and sweet fruit.

Danneaux

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2012, 06:31:23 pm »
Thanks, Phil. I tried some of your mix this morning, and found it can be easily "tune" to give a variety of tastes. Dried bananas make a different mix overall than do dried apricots or canned mandarin oranges with juice.

Seasoning makes a difference, too. Adding cinnamon made a world of difference, and these changes hold the promise of keeping this porridge fresh for diners over time. Y'do know...it's now called "Phil's Cold Rice & Oatmeal Breakfast Mix" here'bouts? A tip of the hat to you, sir; you've really come up with a nifty concoction!

Best,

Dan.

philb0412

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Re: breakfast
« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2012, 07:05:53 pm »
Haha, thanks very much Dan. And yeah you are right about the cinnamon, I forgot to mention that. Failing the oats and dried fruit I think leftover curry and rice is always good for breakfast too!