Energy gels - making your own
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009One of the problems of exercising more, is that you need to eat more, now that’s just a good thing when you’re at home after a hard work out as I can continue my lifetime love affair with the roast potato without worry. However you also need to eat food whilst exercising, and that’s harder. The foods you can eat whilst exercising need to be easy to carry, easy to eat and easy to digest. A great many products are sold to help you do this, from powders you mix with water and carry on your bike, to solid bars, and sweet like looking things only with even more calories. My favourite though is the energy gel, very concentrated, easy to eat.
Energy gels have a problem though, they cost about a pound a time, and I eat 4 an hour or there abouts. Inspired by the stories of Maryka of making her own sports food, I decided to follow suit. Maryka though likes to eat a paste that I’ve heard described as baby food. I’ve written up my first attempts at creating a home made Energy Gel, but I’ll probably continue to blog as I attempt more things.
I’ll probably try to recreate “Clif shot bloks” - small sweet like things with lots of calories, very easy to carry and eat. A gel that contains protein - Hammer say they don’t create these due to problems with shelf life amoung other things, which won’t be a problem for home made.
I’ve also got more interested in all things gel like after reading the excellent collection of hydrocolloid recipes in researching how to make gels.