As my training ramps up, I’m trying to get more good carbs into my diet throughout the day. And it occurred to me that most convenient, “grab and go” snacks (especially “healthy” cereal bars) tend to have a higher proportion of sugar in them, and most low sugar and low GI carbs (porridge, baked sweet potato, brown rice) tend to require time / crockery / a microwave etc.
Any foods that combine that kind of health and that kind of convenience? The best I could think of was oatcakes, but the plain ones really need butter and cheese, and the ones with raisins have added sugar in…
Edit: to be clear, I mean off-the-bike snacks. Keeping the carbs up without a sugar spike, but easy to grab whenever I need it at work / on the move etc.
Are you talking about post-ride fuel as you’re heading out the door? or just “it’s the middle of the afternoon and I’m hungry”?
Sounds like it’s the latter and I assume you’re trying to avoid the high sugar granola bar from the office snack bar. For that situation, some good options are:
Vegetables (peppers, carrots, celery) with some bean dip
Single serve greek yogurt with a banana (you can even add 1/4 cup rolled oats if you want to give it some guts)
Yeah my go to off the bike carbs snacks are fruit. A banana and either two apples or oranges are my usual mid-day snacks at work. At home I usually have strawberries and either blueberries or grapes some time after dinner.
The nice thing about fruit is that it is nutrient dense and contains fiber which helps keep your insulin from spiking too much.
Fruit are like nature’s carb snack. Packs a nutritious punch. Not just fresh fruit but frozen too. Personally, I go for the frozen mango chunks and frozen mixed berries. For convenience and fresh, you got stuff like, apple bananas, apple, pears, berries and grapes. For the less convenient but able to front load the work and store a lot for later, you got things like pineapple and watermelon.
Make your own mueslibars? Takes about 20 minutes, lasts a week. You can go as low or high in sugar as you want.
You only need something mashable and sticky (like bananas or peanut butter) and muesli (and whatever else you want in there, seeds, more nuts etc). Mix and press tightly into a baking tin about half an inch thick. Bake lightly until a bit brown, done.
That’s a good point. Also rice cakes are traditionally on the bike fuel, but no reason they can’t be used as a snack and you can flavor them any way you like.
Here’s a GCN video with Hannah Grant when she was at Saxo-Tinkoff showing how to make them:
This. Fruit in most cases is 100% carbohydrate. However, they are simple carbohydrates from fructose, as opposed to the complex carbohydrates that you find in rice, oats and starchy vegetables. Both are good for you of course, eat both!