Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Homemade Energy


I recently tried a homemade gel recipe. I think with a little tweaking it will work well. I found several recipes on the net and even stumbled across some you -tube videos that talk you through it. Dont get nervous. Its easy. There are other flavors I want to experiment with, today I will try vanilla. The basic recipe is: 7 TBSP of honey,1tsp of molasses and 1/8tsp of Sea Salt. Mix it in a bowl. I added 1 TBSP of water. Put it in my Hammer gel flask and went to ride 30 miles. The flask was almost full and I used all but one swallow. I really tried to watch the clock and take some in every 30 minutes. The flavor was honey mostly. When it gets warmer I would definitely add more sea salt. If you can find blackstrap molasses use that. It has more magnesium which helps produce and transport energy to your muscles. That is a good thing. Another recipe I found used brown rice syrup. Use 60% brown rice syrup to 40 % honey and 1 tsp sea salt. I havent located this syrup yet but plan to try it. There was also a recipe to add caffeine with instant coffee. I am not so sure about this one. I like coffee, but not sure how this will taste. The ingredients I used cost me about 6 dollars. I bet I will have plenty of sea salt and molasses for most of the season, since those two ingredients are used sparingly. I will definitely buy a larger honey next time. This container has 18 TBSP, so enough for 3 full flasks. With gels/gu costing about $1.50 a piece I can tell I am going to be saving some serious money . Now , if only I can get Jim to try it.

3 comments:

  1. I used to make my own Gu as well, using this same formula... I added a little protein powder to offset the pure carb loading.

    I used Blackstrap Molasses since it was called for in the recipe. It has a distinct flavor that I really don't care for. I have since reverted to using packets of gel, but if I made my own again, I'd probably use regular molasses.

    I like the taste of honey, though and it's tempting to leave out the molasses altogether.

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  2. There are so many ways to flavor this also. The molasses has the magnesium so its important, but only a small amount is needed. I added pure vanilla today and it was good. I will try protein powder also. I am making energy bars next week

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  3. If you're tuning your recipe for the Kanza be sure to only use stuff that doesn't spoil in the heat. A lot of people had problems last year with the heat turning their food into a hot disgusting mess. Perpetuem was actually curdling out there.

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