Food for Potential Energy

FOOD FOR POTENTIAL ENERGY.

FOOD. At its simplest level, food can be classified as either
a Macro-nutrient or a Micro-Nutrient.

MACRO-NUTRIENTS
One of the most important aspects of hill walking or trekking is to
maintain your calorie intake in keeping with the terrain & amount
of equipment you are carrying.

The best ratio for active people is:-
CARBOHYDRATES 50-60% Simple carbs like sugar & sweets
are quickly converted into glucose for instant energy use. Complex carbs.
i.e. oats, wholemeal bread, take longer to digest and are better as a
long term energy source as they produce a more regulated supply of energy.

FATS 25-35%. These provide longer stores of energy. Do not exclude
fats i.e. a fat-free diet, as they are essential for the metabolism of
carbohydrates.

PROTEINS 15% These can take days to metabolise but are essential for
the body's repair processes.

WATER.
Important too is to take as much water as you can carry, because
water is rapidly lost through sweat and is essential to metabolise
foods. It had long been thought that water was just a "carrier" of nutrients
but research has now shown water to be an integral part of the body
chemical process.
Due to sweating, many electrolytes will be lost, especially
potassium (the best replacement source is a banana). Even a 5%
dehydration can result in a 20-30% reduction in metabolism,
resulting in decreased performance e.g. headaches, weakness,
fatigue, irritability, loss of appetite. If your urine is clear or light straw
coloured ok, but if it is noticeably dark yellow then you are dehydrated.
Dehydration creeps up unnoticed so remember to drink regularly even though you may not
feel thirsty. Alas, alcoholic and caffeine containing drinks are not
recommended, unless you are in shelter at the end of the day! Alcohol
increases the peripheral blood circulation leading to rapid heat loss
and the dangers of hypothermia.
Caffeine and alcohol are both diuretics causing excessive water loss,
leading to a downward spiral of dehydration. The most alarming aspect of
dehydration is one seldom realises one is becoming dehydrated

SNOW.
Don't eat snow! It takes more energy to melt snow in your
mouth than any increase of energy gained through increased
metabolism. Melt it first.

MICRO-NUTRIENTS
Micro-Nutrients are all the other vitamins, minerals enzymes etc that are
essential in the metabolism of the macro-nutrients. They are contained in
the diet we eat, so if our diet consists mainly of food bought from
supermarkets (unless it is organically produced, and even then it has to
be locally produced), picked when unripe and flown halfway around
the world, your diet will probably be poor in micro-nutrients. So, buy it
from the little old lady selling her garden produce, as you hike past,
otherwise I strongly recommend you take supplements on your hike.

If you think how many calories prehistoric hunter-gatherers could consume while
searching for food (around 5000-6000 daily), and the intake of vitamins
& minerals associated with that amount of food, you will soon work
out that in the relatively short span of time (in evolutionary terms) since
we stopped chasing our food, our bodies are still expecting to receive
much greater amounts of vitamins & minerals than our present day
reduced calorific intake provides. Evolution does not move very fast!

SUPPLEMENTS.
Organic food supplements are just that - they are produced from
organically grown food and not synthesised in a lab. Extra exertion
depletes vitamins & minerals, requiring additional vitamin intake. As it
would be impractical to take fresh vegetable on a hike, the best way
is to take your organic supplements. Organic vitamins include the
phytofactors found in vegetables, which assist in the efficient usage
of the main vitamin, whereas synthetic vitamins without phytofactors
are not so readily absorbed, resulting in expensive urine!

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