Food / Hydration

We have a winner! As part of our Mini Treasure Hunt we received hundreds of correct responses and our random winner is Danny Garcia-Velez of St. Paul, MN.

Item No. 3 on my list of “Five Gear Innovations” is. . . Energy Food that Tastes Good!

These double-walled water bottles are made of stainless steel and touted as addressing “the growing concern of toxic chemicals leaching from consumer products.”

Sugar takes a back seat. With Clif Bar & Company’s Mojo Bar, the “salty” part of the equation is key.

“Unwind from the Grind” with an alcohol-free relaxation drink. Reviewer Stephen Krcmar finds out if there is better sleep through chemistry.

Salazon Chocolate Co. touts its bars as an energy food, not a candy.

Justin’s Nut Butter is making a series of chocolate-flavor nut butters that will soon be available in jars and squeeze packs.

When you’re craving junk food during a long ride or workout, nothing is better than junk food without the junk: Sport Beans recently transitioned to an all-natural formula.

The aluminum water bottles many of us have been using over the past couple years may NOT be free of the chemical BPA after all.

To fuel a squad of bike racers like Team Garmin-Slipstream during the Tour de France and other events it can take upward of 7,000 calories per rider per day. Here’s a peek into the team’s recipe box.

Its design has roots in a water bottle made almost 80 years ago. But the SIGG Retro Heritage bottle, available next month, is strangely similar to aluminum water bottles made today. . .

Don’t call the KOR ONE a water bottle. This one-foot-tall elliptical flask is indeed a “hydration vessel”. . .

You may have recently noticed GU Roctane at your local outdoor retailer. You may also have noticed that this energy gel costs 50 to 100 percent more than its competitors. What you can’t learn from reading the label, or the price tag, is that both Roctane flavors — Blueberry Pomegranate and Vanilla Orange — have a taste that’s worth the hefty price.

It’s a little strange popping open a small tin filled with oily fish that still have bones and scales intact. Sure, the heads and tails are missing, but the potent stench of fish billows from the small metal container as soon as you open it. If that’s not too much for you, then you’ve picked the right nutrient-rich trail snack. BELA-Olhao sardines are reportedly packed fresh within eight hours after they are caught off the coast of Portugal.

Justin’s Nut Butter makes the salty sustenance and nutritional boost of good ol’ fashioned nut butter now available in tear-and-squeeze packages for carrying in a pocket or bike jersey to eat in the outdoors or on the go. . .

After a long hiatus from trail mix, I am back into the nutty/fruity energy-food concoctions. Specifically, Bear Naked Inc. of La Jolla, Calif., makes a mean trail mix with its Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trail blends. . .

BPA is dead. After years of dragging its feet, Nalgene Nunc International has dropped the controversial chemical from its entire line of water bottles. Oh, and CamelBak did, too . . .

For winter camping, summer canoe trips, car camping, or leisurely backpacking trips, quality dehydrated food can add hugely to the experience. For this review, I looked at NPO Foods’ Cache Lake brand, “Camp food so good you’ll want to eat it at home!” Or so the company says. . .

Brewing up a good cup of coffee in the outdoors often requires a French press or a portable — but always bulky — camp-stove-compatible espresso maker. But Java Juice Inc., a Los Angeles brewer (www.javajuiceextract.com), distills the process to its utmost simplicity: Pour a packet of extract into a cup of hot or cold water, and drink. . .

In outdoor sports like trail running, mountain biking, adventure racing, and climbing, getting the right mix — and the right amount — of carbs, fats, proteins and nutrients can be literally tough to swallow. But your body cannot function without food. You need to eat — and eat a lot — to excel at any intense outdoors activity. This is my article on how to do it.

There really is nothing like a brown-rice-syrup-acai-berry-shelled-hemp-
seed-peanut-butter-rolled-rye-flax-seed-
cashew-almond-evaporated-cane-liquified-
alfalfa-wheat-grass-juice-rice-flour energy
bar. Nothing.

Nothing but the Probar Superfood Slam bar, that is. . .

In the realm of oddball outdoors food, Command Foods’ line of lunchtime oatmeals — including Broccoli Cheese, Tangy Lemon Chick’n, and Vegetable — takes some kind of cake. These “rolled baby oats”-based packages come ready to cook in one minute in the woods with a bit of hot water, and the taste is, well, unique. . .

Matisse & Jacks is a small San Francisco company that makes boxed mixes for bake-at-home energy bars, competing against the likes of Clif and PowerBar in a market saturated with energy-food solutions.

So why would anyone want to spend the time baking an energy bar?