Food Supplements

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psling
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Food Supplements

Post by psling »

Following on from Stu's post on the Bargain Alerts thread:


by Bearbonesnorm » Sun Nov 25, 2018 9:14 am
Hoping the immune hydration tablets will keep me cold-free this winter!

Would eating fresh, non-processed, 'proper' food not do the same? Seems strangely ironic that something so overly manufactured is meant to boost your immune system.
I tend to agree with Stu. Fresh fruit, for example, will help our natural immune system through the winter months. But, are our evolved immune systems suffering under the incessant assault of modern living to the extent that they need supporting by supplements.
I admit to taking a fish oil capsule daily; my reasoning is that I can't eat nuts and I don't like eating oily fish. I also enjoy a mug of echinacea tea each morning - placebo effect?
Only water goes in my riding drinks bottle although in the past (when I may have, possibly, ridden a bit faster than I do these days) I used to knock up a water/juice/salt concoction to replenish electrolytes.
I don't like the idea of taking pills or powders which are marketed to keep me young and healthy.

Processed foods are very convenient but not necessarily the healthiest option in our busy lives. My mum used to walk into town each day to buy fresh meat and veg to add to that grown in the garden and make fresh meals each day. But... she didn't have to go out to work and there were no such things as supermarkets. Some of the foodstuffs we used to eat would be frowned upon to the extent that you would be reported to social services if you fed them to your kids these days - dripping sandwiches anyone? - and yet they were healthy meals for an active child.

Excepting medical reasons, should there really be any need for supplements, whether to make up for unhealthy diet or to keep you riding further and faster?
We go out into the hills to lose ourselves, not to get lost. You are only lost if you need to be somewhere else and if you really need to be somewhere else then you're probably in the wrong place to begin with.
Lazarus
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Lazarus »

for ultimate sporting performance i assume that some form of supplements will be required as all the beneficial stuff may not be easily consumable - by that i mean there is unlikely to be a professional athlete, in any sport, that is not consuming supplements to enhance performance.
As for supplement one could even argue an energy gel is one so perhaps we all take them and perhaps there is always a point. I assume on long trips we all eat things we would not normally consume - even if it just quantity- are they supplements?

On the broader point a wide and varied diet remains the best option for being healthy combined with regular exercise, not smoking, limited drinking etc
Whatever you do you will still get ill sometimes and I cannot see any harm in taking vitamin supplements but a balanced diet will be a better option than just vitamin pills and a poor diet.
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RIP
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by RIP »

Pretty much agree with you Peter, although our similar ages probably account for that. There's a whole other subject about what different "classes" and "richer/poorer" (both temporally as well as fiscally) people choose, or are forced, or feel themselves forced, to eat; so we'll put that aside as possibly OT. There's the usual quotes about "mediterranean" diets or "war-time" diets being super-healthy.

I shall light the touchpaper here, and suggest that bikers on the competitive side of the equation tend to be interested in supplements, stuff or 'diets' that over-drive or modify their bodies, and "electrolytes"/"sports drinks", etc; on the other side of the coin might be the tramps, oh alright like me then, who think it's a load of old tripe (or cow-heel) and our bodies have evolved over millenia to function quite happily on a varied diet and plenty of exercise. My bivi outings tend to roll along quite satisfactorily based on oaty bars, nuts, bits of fruit, sheep-poo-laden stream water, and the odd beer; and I seem to be able to keep up usually. The marketing people don't make much out of us though. Then again, I don't spend valuable time and money chugging supplements, weighing my body, checking my pulse, or visiting hospitals, when I could be out tramping and having fun.

Brought up in the 70's on Angel Delight, Fray Bentos pies, Nesquik, and yes, dripping (on toast), may have given us an interestingly skewed view on all this :wink:.

Right, just off to brew-up and indulge in a slice of lemon-drizzle.....
Last edited by RIP on Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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middleagedmadness
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by middleagedmadness »

What do you mean reg , I still have dripping on toast ,only the white on toast though ,the black jelly is kept for doorstep sandwiches ,can't beat what mi nanna raised me on ,not to keen on the sheep's brains on toast though what was our Saturday morning staple
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Lazarus »

dripping you heathens

Sugar butties and sugar rolls was what Gran gave us
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by RIP »

This is fun :smile:. We've morphed totally into the anti-supplement twilight zone: dripping, sugar, and I'll chip in beans on toast with HP sauce (includes all the main food groups) in front of the fire while watching the wrestling with my nan (just to clarify, she wasn't doing the wrestling, just watching it) on Saturday afternoons.

As far as "performance-enhancement" supplements goes, I don't make any conscious changes on bike trips apart from adjusting to lack of availability of what I might prefer to eat. Not interested in gels or special drinks etc, only in allowing what passes for my body to propel what passes for a brain wherever it wants to go using average food/drink, or just stop if it can't go any further. I'm intrigued by what the dividing line is between performance achieved by a body using "normal" methods/nutrients and that achieved by a body super-charged with supplements/drugs/etc. Is one any more or less an achievement than the other? Eventually surely the competition just becomes one of 'who is the most chemically-enhanced compared to the others'?
Last edited by RIP on Sun Nov 25, 2018 3:29 pm, edited 4 times in total.
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....

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psling
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by psling »

Just frying up some corned beef, potato and onions for Sunday lunch. Got some pigs ears on the boil for later.

Meanwhile the food and sports supplement companies are making millions out of somebody.

We used to have a spoonful of cod liver oil out of a big jar when we were kids. Each of us used to have our own long-handled spoon (wow, distant memories!) - something I have subsequently invested in myself as part of my backpacking/bikepacking kit. The seeds were obviously sown at a very young age :-bd
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by whitestone »

Hmm, brown sugar sandwiches (no! not the brown sugar Mick Jagger sang about :roll: ) were one of my favourites as a kid.

Currently sat here with a post ride lunch of cottage cheese and banana washed down with a cup of black tea :-bd I need the energy to clean the mud off the fat bike :lol: First genuinely muddy ride of the autumn.
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by middleagedmadness »

I see your pigs ears and raise you 4 ham hocks I have on the boil , do you know how bloody difficult it is to get ham hocks and a joint of corned beef outside of Ireland ,most of the butcher's just laugh asking why I want bits of meat that no one has eaten in 20yrs :roll:
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

I'm from the fish finger era and we probably didn't have the greatest of diets but the thing I remember was how little chocolate, crisps, fizzy drinks there were. Those things were special and considered treats and a visit to the chippy was something that probably only happened a few times a year. I say chippy because there was no other takeaways available. :wink:
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by middleagedmadness »

The chippy still only happens a few times a year in our house and fish finger sandwiches are one of the boys favourite , it makes me laugh when he goes out with his mates that they buy one can of coke and share it amongst them and drink out of the outside taps in the summer ,it reminds of when I was a kid before everyone started harping on about germs from sharing
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johnnystorm
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by johnnystorm »

I think it was Dr Ben Goldacre who said something like "Vitamins = expensive wee and Protein = expensive poo" when it came to supplements. :wink:
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by PaulB2 »

It was disappointing when belly of pork and then lamb shanks became popular because the prices rocketed up. I don’t see flank or neck of lamb much these days either.

I’ve tried to get the kids to eat the delicacy that is a fish finger sandwich but not had much success.
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by ZeroDarkBivi »

OK, having started this debate by mentioning the SiS sale on the Bargain Alert thread, I probably ought to put some context on my remarks.

Of course I don't disagree that a balanced diet with lots of fresh veg, etc, is the best option for general nutrition, and processed sub standard should be avoided whenever possible. But this isn't always simple, especially with busy lives, and if you don't have a domestic god/goddess 'homemaker' preparing meals for the hunter-gatherer. Compromises and shortcuts are inevitable, and a bit of supplement might help balance that a bit. There is an interesting short article on the BC website by their doc, talking about how to avoid winter colds, and he recommends Vit D supplementation when we don't get as much sunlight as desirable, as this cannot be compensated for by diet alone.

As for the SiS 'Immune' tablets, I always use a hydration tablet in my water for training indoors, so why not use one that has some extra goodness and costs the same as the other flavours? I used to take Berroca, and that definitely was an expensive way to turn my piss fluorescent, but at least I could see the effects...!
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Lazarus »

The chippy still only happens a few times a year
Please say the reason for this is because you own a chip pan
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by middleagedmadness »

Lazarus wrote:
The chippy still only happens a few times a year
Please say the reason for this is because you own a chip pan
No :lol: I grew up thinking all fish was coated in bread crumbs or batter wanted my kids to realise that it doesn't , plus the chippy we use being in the black country the chips are cooked in dripping and battered which really doesn't help with the old blood pressure
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

Please say the reason for this is because you own a chip pan
I can't recall that I've ever owned one.
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by RIP »

"Vit D supplementation when we don't get as much sunlight as desirable (*), as this cannot be compensated for by diet alone". Again, I'm interested in the evidence for this type of thing. Do Inuit, or Nordkappers or whoever, for example suffer more health problems than the rest of the planet because they have months on end with little daylight? Do they take supplements? Actually they probably live well because of all that exercise taken in those long dark nights :wink:. Really, isn't the UK lucky enough to have such a fabulous variety of foods to choose from without them? Still, who am I to dis a $150billion industry which presumably must be doing something right :wink:. But we also have [BBC] Doc Louis Levy's Vitamin D opinions being challenged by two Professors in the Lancet, so who knows?

(*) probably because we're all here busy bashing away on our keyboards instead of being out there on our bikes... :wink:
Last edited by RIP on Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Moder-dye »

Oohh..... Dripping sarnies and sugar ones too. Proper chip pans full of lard! My Nana used to make potted meat and brawn too from pigs heads :-bd

In my job I still see some old crofters who have houses you feel the need to wipe your boots on the way out of. One old guy I love (reminds me of my grandad) wanted to make me his home made saucermet rolls (like a cheap chopped beef and fat burger) one day. The frying pan was solid lard with crisped bits and fluff in it as he warmed it up (could have sworn a cat had been in it) any way I thought I'd best eat up and tell work to expect me to phone in ill the next day. It was gorgeous and I was right as rain. :-bd

I've been taking nothing but cold showers the last 2 months and swear its helped my immune system as the family has had 2 stinking colds in that time and I've been fine. Also wakes you up!

Anyway on supplements I happily use high 5 energy powders or zero electrolytes on long/ hot rides and do find them both tasty and beneficial to keep ticking over. I might also eat a load of poor show at times too on trips :lol:
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Moder-dye »

I do take vit D when I remember, but then I am at 60* North so sunlight is hardly great. I did hear a doctor the other year on the radio saying after a full summer of basically topless gardening in Scotland his vit D level only just got to normal levels, and then the winter comes.
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by RIP »

"topless gardening" - now we're talking! My meagre(*) medical qualifications permit me to recommend that the whole population, both male and female, follow this advice frequently :-bd.

(*) none
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Moder-dye »

:lol:
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by voodoo_simon »

Guess there’s a difference between supplements to the diet and substituting the diet.

Think when doing sport, then supplementing the diet is convenient and acceptable but once at home or in the office, then real food is the best way.

Take Aways? Twice a month for me, generally a curry and if I’ve been out late at night ‘training’, then I’ll have a chippy tea. These are the days that I’ll cycle to work, stand up for 9 or 10 hours, cycle home to go out in the hills training, so an extra chippy is a nice treat :???:
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by middleagedmadness »

Joking apart there is a place for supplents BUT at a elite level ,a good few years back I used to fight at international level( it is definitely not obvious I was fit althlete to those who've met me ) and supplements definitely assisted with recovery for the next training session but it was in conjunction with a very regimented and balanced diet ,as we were training 6 nights a week and fighting at least once every 8 weeks they definitely helped ,now as I only have determination and no skill left I just eat reasonably well and try to stick to water when out ( until the whisky gets opened that is)
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Re: Food Supplements

Post by Charliecres »

Just had a finger sandwich - on white bread, of course. But with a side of peas.
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