My MdS Food - What Worked and What Didn't

A key element of the MdS experience is the self-sufficiency, which of course includes food. Food was made up more than half the weight of my pack, and it is therefore a key area that will determine the weight of your pack at the start line.  The race rules state that you must carry at least 2000 Kcal per day though I had no intention of trying to survive on that little, even if it would save me a load of weight. So there is a compromise to be made between taking enough Kcals and the weight. Clearly high energy density foods are beneficial here – however they ideally need to be things that you might actually want to eat! For instance, I found pork scratching’s and pepparami amazing additions to my daily rations (more on that below) but they might not be so good for a vegetarian… Testing out your food is essential, though you won’t necessarily know if you will actually like something in the middle of the desert having covered 40 odd miles with a good few to go. Even going two or three days on your intended diet is a good idea to get a feel for how you’ll react physically and psychologically to it. I discovered I couldn’t stand repeated helpings of the expedition porridge – I suppose this wasn’t really helped by the lure of all the nice looking food around me at home, but it was useful to learn when planning my food. 

Another important factor is making sure it is fit for the conditions you’re going to be putting it through… imagine a dairy milk bar in the sun in the middle of the Sahara – you might have difficulty getting in all into your tummy which would be a shame since you’ll have put a lot of effort into carrying it! Finally a good amount of variation is a good idea – it does not end of good for your morale to look forward to your food rather than dread it.

Breakfast

I had initially gone for all Expedition Foods freeze dried oat based concoctions (800 Kcal) given their compactness an abundance of complex carbohydrate, though as I said above I found I couldn’t stand having these every day. To mix things up a bit I included some granola every other day which helped – I bagged this up with some milk powder so I only had to add water.  Nut variants in particular have a good energy to weight ratio (especially those with ‘luxury’ in the title), though I’d suggest not getting too fixated by this and letting the variation suffer as, for example, 0.2 Kcal/g isn’t going to make a huge difference and by Day 3 you might be desperately wishing you had brought, say, some chocolate granola with you as well. I do like chocolate. I’m just about recovering from my nut overdose.

I found the Expedition Foods breakfasts re-hydrated fine with cold water in the morning, and I actually found I preferred them this way as they retained a little bit of a crunch which was very welcome. I quickly came to hate the wallpaper paste consistency of it when it was warm, and it didn’t taste any better.

Dinner

Dinners were all freeze dried affairs (Expedition Foods 800 Kcal meals). Heating the water with my stove helped speed up the re-hydration but in reality if you leave a bottle of water in the sun for an hour or two it warmed up more than enough. The food was an ok temperature too. The only time this might have not worked would have been when I came in after the long stage (about 2 am), though at that point I really didn’t feel like a proper meal – I just wanted my pork scratchings!

On the Go

After getting a lot of experience of what I enjoyed eating during my training races and long training runs I had a good idea of what I wanted to take with me. However I had to find a compromise between what I enjoyed and foods with a sufficiently high energy density. In the end I went for:

• Twiglets and salted cashews mixed together – twiglets on their own aren’t very calorific, so I mixed a few with the cashews for flavour.
• Wasabi peanuts – these have a very strong flavour so I was a little nervous about how I would get on with them I the heat when I was thirsty. In the end I loved them - nice an salty but with more flavour than just salt.
• Banana chips – I didn’t get on with these at all – they were far too dry and had no enthusiasm for eating them at all.
• Jordans luxury nut bar – the most calorific (Kcal/g) cereal bar I could find. They went down ok to begin with but I started to get a bit bored of them and found them a bit dry later on in the week.
• Ultra Fuel – I took one chocolate flavour Ultra Fuel sachet (440 Kcal) for the 4th CP on the long stage. This is essentially a high energy liquid meal. It wasn’t the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten (or drunk!) but it did the trick. I felt nicely energised for the next hour or so into the following stage.
• Clif Shot Blocs – I knew I wasn’t going to be moving too fast so I decided not to rely on sugars to keep me going - I just took a few of these for each day and went mainly for nuts to keep me going during the day. These are quite heavy for the number of calories but I found the odd one really helpful when I was down in the dumps and on the marathon stage when I was moving faster.
• Nuun & High 5 electrolyte tabs – I took a couple of these for each day. If I was really trying to keep weight down I wouldn’t bother with them but I did appreciate the change from plain water. I only took two flavours though and I’d take a little more variety.

Recovery / Other Snacks

An important part of my daily ration were the bits of recovery food. These were great things to look forward to, especially if I was getting a bit tired towards the end of a stage. During my training I developed my recovery routine which involves taking in some protein as soon as I can after finishing which I find easiest to take in the form of fluid. My favourite recovery shake I’ve tried is the chocolate For Goodness Shakes, which I looked forward to every day. This was followed by a pepparami which always went down well too.  But my favorite protein-y snack were the pork scratchings – lovely and salty and very savoury – and at 

over 6 Kcal/g, very good value in weight.

The other thing I took each day was a Berocca tablet which I took each morning – not sure if this helped but given the hygiene challenges I thought a load of extra vitamins couldn’t hurt.

Daily Calorie Count  

My daily calorie count was around 3000 Kcal, with 3400 Kcal for the long stage. This translated to about 4.5 Kg of food. In retrospect I could have got away with less food and I think I’d probably aim for closer to 2700 Kcal per day with more for the long stage.