I currently use PSP22, Go bars and Go gels and don't know much about other brands. Where I live, SIS is just about the only easily-obtainable brand, anyway. So what are the others like in terms of taste, cost and effectiveness?
Don't normally use them either, though those blue ones Jon had at the Snowdonian challenge were quiet edible.
I normally just have malt loaf (banana malt loaf, delicious), muesli type bars - fruesli or the nutrigain elevenses. Just bought some new Ginger versions of the latter.
I've used various types over the years and I'd say that most of the drinks and gels are roughtly comparable. Some taste better or worse, but they all use maltodextrins, which is what gives them an edge over just snaffling sugar down your face.
My personal opinion is that the gels and drinks are what give you an edge if you're moving fast, the bars are more of a snack thing and stuff like malt loaf and fig rolls works almost as well. Steer clear of choccy bars though, they tend to just flood you with sugar.
On brands... original Power Bars taste vile, like extruded rubber, High 5's standard energy bars are okay, but nowt to write home about, the Sports bars they do which we had in Wales actually taste nice, Clif Bars - not now available in the UK - taste fab, but aren't available now. Bob from High5 says the main problem with baked bars like Clif is that they produce wind, though I've never experienced that myself (or not because of bars anyway)...
Gels all taste a bit sicky, the key is top swallow them fast, then drink water to make them digestible. The Go Gel from SIS doesn't require water though, which is handy, but makes them bulkier than say, Clif Shots.
I might use bars for a serious high mountain climbing trip - make sure you can eat them frozen first though - but not for general hill use as they're too expensive. PSP22 or Source and, to a lesser extent, gels, I use quite often on longer days esp when mountain biking. What they're doing is keeping your blood glycogen levels up which in turn helps your fat burning mechanism to function effectively. I reckon the drinks all taste much of a muchness, ditto the gels with the exception of the Clif Mocha, which is actually quite nice. They do work. Twight quotes some study where using gel meant that blood glycogen levels were higher at the end of some long distance trek than at the beginning...
If you've not used energy drinks over a hard day, it's worth giving it a try. Hydration system drip feed seems to the optimum way.
Bottom line: SIS stuff is good, very much in the ballpark, though the bars don't taste as yummy as Clif. This is only a problem if you climb with Americans as they can then taunt you relentlessly with their 'Double Choc Chip Carrot Cake Cherry Peanut Surprise' bars. A quick smack usually does the trick there.
I've never tried them either; like Lloyd I tend to enjoy malt loaf, cereal bars and my home-made trail mix (which is mostly chopped prunes, apricots, papaya, almonds, crystallised ginger, and some maple & pecan crunch thrown in to soak up some of the stickiness).
I tend to drink plain water in the platy (flask of coffee in winter) and brew tea for treats and camp stops. LOTS of tea!
I would be interested to hear how other people get on with them. At strenuous times I stop for a quick carbo boost at the first vague symptoms of hypoglycaemia which could presumably be prevented by the use of these products.
Any excuse to smack an American, and thanks for the other info.
The advantage of sports energy bars over (say) Nutrigrain for me is the superior nutritional content - about twice as many calories in a readily-used form for a similar weight and size. Also, they (Go bars anyway) don't self destruct at the bottom of a rucksack or at temperature extremes.
While we're on the subject, does anyone have a foolproof method for opening gel sachets that doesn't spray half the contents up your arm or in your face?
Jeannie, tea and coffee are BAD for keeping you hydrated, as they're diuretic, making you need to take on far more liquid. Which is fine if you're in camp, not so great if you're on the move. A bit of caffeine is OK to get you going in the morning (it's supposed to increase your endurance) but if I'm out all day in winter and not too bothered about weight, I take a flask of hot PSP22 or blackcurrant/other herbal tea instead.
Joan, the tea is to keep me happy in camp mostly. Makes my little tent feel like home. Then again, I'm in it so much I think it IS home! The flask coffee is cheering on freezing days, but I really prefer water for it's hydration value. To be honest, I prefer to keep the platy and tube watery clean.
Then again, if I keep sipping water every few minutes I keep needing to (erm) pee quite often....bit of a pain if you're a girl, huge pack has to come off and it's hard to do it discreetly!
I used a sachet once, waste of time, a friend of mine bought powerade and said it tasted like flat lucozade.
Like Jeannie, i tend to eat malt loaf, bananas, dried fruit is really good and i love fruitinis, just damned heavy though ! Probably bad for you - has anyone tried the new Rowntrees Fruit Pastille cereal bar - the citrus one is ace ! Maybe this should be a topic (excuse punn), for our fave foods on the go and any recipies, hang on im suddenly turning into Delia Smith... help !!
Never used them myself, but I do have a couple of sachets/bars to try...I'll keep an open mind.
I have used Gatoraide in the past and that was quite good...basically lots of sugar (I used it to keep hydrated out in Saudi when running, and for recovery after it!).
When you are operating aerobically (working hardish but not ragging it) your muscles like to use glucose to function. Your body stores this within the muscles themselves and within the liver, and there is only a fixed amount. When it is gone, say after 15 miles of running, your muscles have to start burning fat. Each unit of fat takes many more units of oxygen to utilise than one unit of glucose, so to do the same amount of work as before your muscles demand much more oxygen. Your lungs and heart have a fixed upper amount of oxygen they can supply, so when you start to burn fat you can't work as hard as previously - called hitting the wall or bonking if you're American. Fat metabolism produces mor metabloites that also inhibit the function of muscles and make you feel ill. Not nice.
At the same time though you may also be losing water. Your muscles generate a lot of heat as they work and unless the ambient temperature is low enough to take away the excess heat by conduction you sweat to loose heat energy from your bod by evaporation. If you loose 2% of your body water your output drops 10%.At maximum output you could loose that in an hour. Our thirst mechanism doesn't work properly and by the time you are thirsty you have already lost enough water to seriously impair your performance.
At most you can only absorb 800ml of water an hour while working hard, mainly as your blood has been shunted from your digestive system to the muscles in your limbs. Water is also absorbed across the wall of the gut by osmosis down a concentration gradient, which means fluid in your body has to have a higher concentration of salt and sugars than the fluid in your gut to draw it across.
This means that if you take on board water with a high sugar or salts content, your body has trouble absorbing it, limiting your overall perfomance by dehydration.A 10% glucose solution slows water uptake by 40%, for example. Most sports drinks are formulated with too much carbohydrate, but as the amount of energy they contain is relatively small they improve your perfomance more by rehydration than by energy supply. A good tip is to dilute them two-fold to make sure you can still absorb fluids easily, or better still just drink water which is absorbed quicker than anything. However many find sports drinks taste better than water so they find it easier to drink more of them.
Taking small amounts of sugar can have its problems though. It isn't possible to take on carbohydrate as fast as you can use it so it's always a loosing battle. The sugar hit can trick your muscles into thinking there's more glucose available than there is when they should be using fat, and make the liver stop releasing what little glucose is left as it thinks there is plenty in the system.
It's hard to tell in a high-output (running, strenous mountain walking) whether lack of energy or dehydration is your problem, but usually it's the latter. I haven't done enough climbing to know if you sweat a lot or you need Clif bars and the like to replace the energy you are very clearly using in going up!
Really all that is the science behind what you already know. Sip water a little and often. If when you pee you see that it's clear (ie pure, excess water) you know your fully hydrated and can't take on any more water. Energy is best taken on seperately. I personally swear by KitKats but they can melt. Peanuts - salted ones replace the sodium you loose when you _really_ sweat when it's hot - are good too. Will have to try maltloaf!
Clif, PSP, SIS etc are all no more than rather good ways to fleece you (unless of course you simply like the taste). They don't do anything other food doesn't. It strikes me - especially from reading Outside and American climbing reports - that there's a lot of fashion involved with people taking them too!
(Sources were Sports Injuries (Ed Christopher M Norris) and Survival of the Fittest (Mike Stroud))
Some good points, Dan, but your last couple of paragraphs are rather off the mark. You need to take on both energy and water; it's not an either/or question.
Your body absorbs the water from an isotonic solution (such as PSP22) more readily than plain water, so it's better at hydrating you. You can make your own isotonic solution from water, fruit juice and salt, but it's hard to measure out the ingredients (and carry them round) if you're backpacking, so readymades are a more practical idea.
And you absorb the carbs from gels more readily than those from chocolate and other snacks, which can take hours to digest, and also divert blood supplies to the gut. Fine if you're out strolling, not so great if you're working close to capacity for hours on end. Sports bars probably don't have so much of a nutritional edge over cheaper alternatives, but they are relatively lightweight and compact for their nutritional punch, something that's important if you're lugging them uphill for hours.
I wouldn't believe everything you read on the side of a packet. PSP etc are basically telling you porkies. If you want to hydrate as fast as possible drink water. If you want energy eat a decent snack. The reference for the effect of sugar in water affecting uptake rate is McArdle WD, Katch FI and Katch VL (1986) Exercise physiology. Energy, nutrition and human performance and it would be in the British Library at least. It would be interesting to read!
Drinking water and eating seperately is deffo the best way to maintain performance levels, though if you're really pushing it, say in a marathon, then there's simply not much you can do about energy levels. Those who can do mad Ironman triathlon things have built up very large glycogen stores in their muscles and livers and like the Duracel bunny can go further for longer!
It's also worth noting that the minimal time for sugar to go from ingestion to muscle is 30 minutes. Polymer sugars - those made up of several glucoses joined together, such as fructose maltose etc - are better than glucose as you won't get such a sharp peak in glucose levels in your bloodstream, nor will you have to wait an age for more complex sugars such as starch to be broken down by enzymes before absorbtion.
I reckon (ie not from a lit review but just me thinking) that a 'whole' food such as maltloaf is best as it contains a whole range of sugars, simple to complex, give a broad boost to your blood sugar levels, and aslo contains sodium, potassium and amino acids that your body also needs to function (though it really takes a couple of weeks for the body to run out of the latter).
Energy contents of the muesli type bars aren't that much less than the expensive energy bars. Nutrigrain elevenses bars aren't the same one's as the so called 'breakfast replacement bars', but are muesli cake bars.
