I did a search and read a number of threads on this, but came away more confused than ever. Over the last few years, I have made a concerted effort to get away from artificial crap and eat real food. For long hikes and approaches, I have switched to things like meat/cheese/nuts and like it much better. My question is what to do do on summit day and similar conditions where you are outputting at a very high lever for a long time.
The choices seem to be:
1. regular food
2. Gels and water
3. Gatorade and similar crap.
Intuitively, Gatorade, etc. seems to make sense, as the more you drink (a good thing), the more calories and electrolytes you take in. The problem is that after one bottle, I start to gag on the stuff.
Gels and water seem to work, but the thought of doing one of these an hour is not appealing, plus the carb concentration is going to vary all over the place depending on how much water you drink with the gel. Gatorade at least is going to be consistent and there is a lot of research showing that the carb concentration needs to be within a certain range to work well (~6% IIRC).
That leaves real food, but isn't digestion going to be a problem if you are really hammering?
Any thoughts greatly appreciated. I am thinking about trips like Rainier or perhaps Aconcagua. Thanks.
Jim Thomas