Iron-tipped bamboo spears and a sense of adventure were required on a recent crab hunting trip in tropical Queensland. Our correspondent wrote on the day-long trip (and the meal that followed).
Drink to hydrate, not to fuel. That’s a message of OSMO Nutrition, a low-calorie, low-carb sport drink mix new last year.
Eat-out-of-the-jar good, NuttZo has been a go-to fuel for us at GearJunkie as of late. It is a natural/kosher/vegan energy food option for the outdoors or the everyday diet.
Used to be the food bricks we call “energy bars” were barely eatable. That changed years ago, and nowadays many of the big brands build their bars with whole-food ingredients that you can see and taste with each bite.
They don’t taste like neoprene. But wetsuit maker Body Glove is jumping into the energy category with SURGE, a new line of gels aimed at outdoors types as well as surfers.
PROBAR ships its first gummy energy chew product this month. The all-organic, yerba mate-powered chews are different than anything we’ve previously tasted in the category.
From our reviewer: “Calorie for calorie, Tailwind is priced cheaper than almost all bars and gels, especially if you add in the price of electrolyte supplementation used during longer events. It’s one of the only liquid foods that I’ve tried for endurance racing that I can actually endure for the long haul.”
A novel idea can raise six-figure investment via crowd-source funding sites like Kickstarter. Clean Bottle recently proposed turning its popular hydration vessel square, and people responded in droves.
Polycarbonate water bottle were standard in the outdoors for years. Next, metal bottles came onto the scene. This year, glass is in the spotlight.
Yep, people do actually make camping stoves out of soda cans. There’s even a mass-produced option, which our writer tested out (to somewhat underwhelming results) in preparation for his planned AT thru-hike.
Most cooking pots are made of metal. Energia USA makes its pots out of paper. The company’s Hexa Pot product is a disposable paper cooking pot made for camping, backpacking, and “survival” scenarios outdoors.
As a puffy and fibrous synthetic down, PrimaLoft insulation is most often used in winter jackets for warmth. But a water bottle from Hydrapak shipping this summer adds PrimaLoft in between its double-wall plastic, creating an insulated vessel to keep your water cool.
A new type of hydration tablet, Nuun All Day, is marketed as a product to use not during aerobic activity but “anytime on a normal day.” The tablets have less sodium than the original Nuun recipe, though with a dose of vitamins and minerals to keep you drinking and hydrated at work, home or school.
GearJunkie toured CamelBak’s lab last week for a look at prototype products and the equipment used in the testing and development of new hydration gear. A 3D printer and a radio-frequency welding machine were included in the sneak peek.
Bikes hang from the ceiling. Dogs roam free. In the cafeteria a scent of baked goods seeps from a kitchen behind a counter. Welcome to the headquarters of Clif Bar & Company, where GearJunkie took a tour last week.
In a vast departure from jackets and fleece, iconic outdoor sporting-goods brand Patagonia this year will begin selling salmon jerky. An environmental message is built into the business plan.
With a spicy, sweet taste and a recipe ostensibly dredged from a cookbook used in the Middle Ages, a to-be-released bar from Clif is unlike anything the outdoors world has tasted or seen.
Screw on your Coke bottle and hook up the hose. The JetFlow is a simple threaded converter that comes with three feet of hose and can work in a backpack with a disposable bottle to make an ad hoc hydration system.
Suspect water? Zap viruses and protozoa like giardia and cryptosporidium to provide “germ-free” H20 with this new and miniaturized (and rechargeable!) SteriPEN device.
Forget candy canes. This holiday season stuff your loved ones’ stockings with energy food made for eating when active in the outdoors. Here are a few of our seasonal favorites.
Quick food on the trail often means granola, gorp, or energy bars. With its new pouch product, Mountain House offers a fast meal that can be made in minutes with cold water.
Growing tired of the mainstream flavors of energy bars and gels? A new made-with-bananas bar hit the market this summer that tastes so good it’s being sold as “performance candy.”
Thirsty? Our writer tests three new hydration drinks, including grape-flavor Nuun tablets and a crystallized coconut palm nectar with high amounts of maltodextrin added for energy in a liquid form.
Made of stainless steel, food-grade silicone and sustainably-harvested bamboo, the new Nau/Klean Kanteen collaboration bottle is advertised as the most environmentally safe, non-toxic water bottle on the market. It’s among the industry’s most pricey bottles, too.
Clean drinking water in the wilderness is never guaranteed. In this roundup review, Gear Junkie looks at a half-dozen purification products made for the outdoors.
Cook it up! Gear Junkie reviews pie irons, a classic campfire cooking tool. Just add buttered bread and filling, cook on coals, and open to eat a true outback delight.
A compressed block of nuts and seeds — flax, pumpkin, sesame, sunflower — make Raw Crunch bars appear to be made for the birds. Gear Junkie takes a taste test.
Sidewalk chalk or energy food? Gear Junkie tests “the strangest energy food he has yet to try,” Hammer Nutrition’s chalky, hard Perpetuem Solids.
How do you eat for a week-long wilderness expedition race? Gear Junkie gives a peek inside his race pack for a few tricks from the field.
Specialized Bicycles’ new water bottle has an infused layer of silicon dioxide to promote “the pure taste of drinking from a glass.” Gear Junkie gave the bottle a harsh test in Patagonia this month.
Some Christmas spirit with your energy gel? Clif Bar & Company and GU Energy Labs unveiled holiday-themed energy foodstuffs last month.
