It is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and this is traditionally a time for gatherings to give thanks and share a feast. However, the act of giving thanks and expressing gratitude around harvest time is nothing new.
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My early memories of toast is as a breakfast food usually topped with the basic spreads of butter and jam. At that time toast was considered a “thrifty” choice and was often an economical way to use up stale bread. Over the years, this “comfort food” has evolved and become a significant food trend to the extent that some toast creations are now referred to as “artisan”.
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Mid-September marks the start of the cranberry season in British Columbia and the harvest of the first berries. Red fields of ripe cranberries is a feast for the eyes and, as the majority of cranberries are harvested between September and November, for the next few weeks masses of cranberries will be seen floating in the bogs around the lower mainland and Vancouver Island.
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I have always considered Fig Rolls (UK) and Fig Newtons (North America) as a relatively healthy choice in the world of commercial cookies and biscuits. As easily digestible carbohydrates, they have also been a tasty favourite as “fuel food” for sports. However, they still fall into the category of processed food and so I was pleased to come across a naturally sweetened, gluten free, no-bake alternative to these popular commercial treats.
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At one time, I imagined cycling the Paris-Brest-Paris. For anyone unfamiliar with this event, it is a 1,200km ride in France completed within a time limit of 90 hours. You may be forgiven for wondering why anyone would voluntarily take on such a feat. However, it seems ultra events like this have gained huge popularity over the years. Despite this, these days my goals are somewhat less ambitious and, although my fitness is far from the conditioning required for the Paris-Brest-Paris, my mind can’t resist contemplating this unrealized goal every time I get on a bike.
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As the countdown begins for my goal to cycle 100km by the end of the summer, all the necessary training is behind me. Now it is simply down to selecting the nutrition I will use to fuel the journey. Even as little as 10 years ago, the notion of fueling sport on plant-based nutrition alone was largely unheard of and certainly not taken seriously. A lot has changed since then and now it is much more of an accepted practice and some believe it can even be beneficial to performance.
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As with energy gels, energy bars are a convenient and easily portable food manufactured to fuel endurance sports. One of the main distinctions between energy gels and energy bars is that the gels tend to be primarily carbohydrates and, although energy bars are mainly carbohydrates, they can also contain smaller amounts of protein and fat. As mentioned in my earlier article, Mango and Date Energy Bites, the main purpose of gels and bars is to serve as a sugar that digests quickly to provide energy for extended activities.
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Recently my computer suffered a sudden unexplained and extremely inconvenient demise. As the computer was long past its prime, it was not worth making any attempt to restore the machine and the important piece was the loss of data. With most of my data on a back-up drive, I decided to cut my losses and retrieve what I could from there. This exercise turned into a bit of a trip down memory lane as I sifted through old documents.
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As we move through August, I can’t help but notice that the evenings are getting darker just a little earlier and there is no doubt that summer is slipping inevitably into fall. The older I get, it feels as though time is moving faster and faster. Apparently this may be no illusion and there are various interesting theories and scientific research which suggest this might actually be the case!
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When I first got involved in triathlon training, I was introduced to the world of energy gels and bars. These are items made up of mostly simple sugar and they serve to replenish depleted carbohydrate stores during extended exercise. At that time I was more interested in performance so, as they did their intended job, I did not give a second thought to what was actually in them.
As I am now trying to follow a more whole foods-based diet, when I began training for a 100km cycle ride I started to experiment with different foods for fuel. My staple had become a couple of Medjool dates which sustained me for shorter rides of under 50km. However, as my distances increased, I found I needed a little more of a boost.
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