What do you think is the most calories you can get for your money?

Also, what is the most calories you can get per weight, (most calories you can pack into a something per gram)?

Cheap Tescos snickers bars?
Chocolate nuts?

Why would be my first question but other than that fatty foods provide the highest amount of calories but they’re all useless.

If you are referring to energy when out on a bike you need carbs not calories. Very different things.

Olive oil, obscene number of calories.

Echo somouk’s thoughts though, why? And not relevant for cycling.

My bad, Carbs is what I meant…

Tesco 6p value jelly blocks FTW.

snickers mars bars etc does me

polar exprorers take jacob crackers (light) and butter (obscenely high in calories) on solo treks.

If you are referring to energy when out on a bike you need carbs not calories. Very different things.

Not quite. Calories are a measure of enetrgy content. Carbohydrates are compunds containing, inter alia, sugars.

Anyway, what about pemmicam?

If you’re after carbs then flapjack is great, mars bars are tastier though. Jelly is one of my favourites, just break it off the block and eat it raw.

There are dedicated gels and bars that will give you the best bang per buck/weight but careful hunting around will find similar cheaper products.

Do some research into how much carbs you need though, overfuelling can cause as many problems as under fuelling. Also don’t forget to get an isotonic drink in you as well, that will provide carbs and liquid.

I can’t be alone in working out grams-of-carbs-per-penny when shopping?

There are raw vegan energy bars called Trek, that seem expensive individually, but are cheaper than Geobars when looked at in this way. They’re actually quite tasty too and easily broken into little squares for stashing in pockets.

polar exprorers take jacob crackers (light) and butter (obscenely high in calories) on solo treks.

cold weather stuff needs a higher ratio of fat – carbs than normal.

they also took brandy. (alcohol is more calorific than fat)

I can’t be alone in working oug grams-of-carbs-per-penny when shopping

I refer the gentleman to my earlier post 🙂

Creamed coconut is definitely the best calories per £ food i’ve found. Not much use for during-ride fuel though.

Fat contains the maximum number of calories at 9 calories per gram, so anything 100% fat is the most calorifically dense food you can get.

I thought noodles were very high in the energy stakes? ie higher than pasta etc etc

cheepest carbs for cycling?

100g of tesco value granulated dissolved in a water bottle with some orange squash? That’s 400 calories, about the max your body can absorb in an hour.

To make it more palatable use maltodextrin from myprotein.com, its still sugar but isn’t ‘sweet’.

Getting technical a mix of maltodextrin, glucose, fructose, electrolytes and whey protein is the quickest to be absorbed and you can get away with significanlty less without induceing a bonk (good if you’re on a diet, you can cut back to about 1/3 of the total calories so arround 130 an hour and actualy go further).

I used to have a recipie for virtualy fat free flapjack whcih cost ~50p a kg to make if you wanted it, oats, some dried fruit blended with a little water and fresh fruit to make a paste/pulp, syrup and a big glug of olive oil.

Ab out 200g of dried fruit, 1 apple, 1 bannana into a blender, blend and add a little water to make it liquid but not enough to be pourable, a few tablespoons.

Warm a little oil in a big pan, just enough to stop it sticking.

Add the fruit and stir ona low heat untill its all one sticky mess, dont burn it!

Add about 500g of oats.

Add an egg if it looks too dry after stiring for a few minutes, the oats should be coated in the syrupy mess.

If it still looks dry then I’ve forgotten the recipie and it needs more of the blended dried fruit.

Stick in a baking tray leaving it about 1″ thick, preheated oven at 180degC, 30min, or untill its golden and slightly crunchy on top, if it doesn’t turn it up to 200 for 10min. Preftect fuel for a long ride, suplement with jelly babies for instant energy.

Bagels are good!

sugar cubes? or if that’s too sweet for you, maybe a block of lard

cost vs weight vs calories and its hard to beat value jaffa cakes.

often fail to survive a day’s ride though – jelly discs and chocolate/cake dust less enjoyable to eat!

polar exprorers take jacob crackers (light) and butter (obscenely high in calories) on solo treks.

Really? I can’t think of two more incompatible foods to eat in arctic conditions (imagine trying to spread frozen butter on cream crackers)

1/2 Pizza Supper from the chippy down the road.

Lunchtime special £1.85 for a deep fried pizza and a ton of chips.

Scott could have got to the South Pole on that!

Bag of sugar?

Perfect fuel for bivvy trips:

Ghee is somewhat calorific, but drizzled on a naan bread is simply divine. Peanut butter has got to be up there, but I read somewhere pure fat is something like 8-9 calories a gram.

902 cal/100g

250g Tesco value lard 27p

83.5 cal/penny

polar exprorers take jacob crackers (light) and butter (obscenely high in calories) on solo treks.

Really? I can’t think of two more incompatible foods to eat in arctic conditions (imagine trying to spread frozen butter on cream crackers)

And just imagine what happens when you lick your lips and your tongue is welded to them.

but I read somewhere pure fat is something like 8-9 calories a gram

Yes that would have been Finbars contribution 11 posts abve yours. 🙂

Not the best in the calorie per £ deal (but still better than sports nutrition products ) ‘9 bar’ seed/nut/carob bars are 279kcals in 50g, good blend of calorie sources (ie ‘fast’ & ‘slow’) and free form all major potential food sensitisers (gluten, lactose, egg, dairy, preservatives)
Quite eatable too,

Perfect (IMO) trail food if you prefer to the stop for a snack rather than nosh’n’go

Neat High 5 powder? About 98% carbohydrate IIRC.

The bigger issue starts to become what your body can usefully use, and what other crap you take on with that intake.

Most calories, probably really cheap butter/lard/spread, since fat has more calories than carbohydrates.
Most carb calories, then plain sugar is hard to beat. Maltodextrin is about the only thing that could be higher, but that is likely to be more expensive.

imagine trying to spread frozen butter on cream crackers

I think they just warmed it enough to put thick slices on a cracker or maybe they melted it to drink/mashed the crackers into it?

dunno really – it was that posh explorer with no toes who said it.

An interesting article along similar lines to this thread:

http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/nutrition/article/nutrition-store-cupboard-sports-fuel-29335

Pure fats ie veg oil are what, 750cal/100g, and pure sugar or maltodextrin is about 450cal/100g. Consequently you won’t do any better than those figures.

For riding fuel ideally you don’t want any fat because it just gets in the way, and you typically have plenty of fat under your skin anyway.

Nutty things are delicious and nutritions, and great for taking whilst on rides because they taste good, but not optimum riding nutrition. Many of those calories won’t do anything for you so don’t really count. Same goes for flapjacks, although less so – because of all the fat.

Maltodextrin is indeed more expensive than sugar (and not NOT the same despite what that bike radar article says) but it doesn’t upset your stomach as much which is why they use it for sports nutrition.

Best cheap riding fuel is flat coke. Or supermarket cola if you’re really on a budget 🙂