Post-ride chips it is then.

[RogerThat]

Agreed, raw porridge without any flavoring is pretty desperate gruel! I have mine with honey, cream and occasionally when I can get it strawberries. I'm not an all out goody goody as I had a roll on bacon with ketchup on Monday at 11am and thoroughly enjoyed it!!

[Erudin]

Any porridge that came my way for breakfast (or any meal) would go straight in the bin.
Awful stuff IMHO. ....

YouTube - Galway Kinnell reads Oatmeal 10/08/2010

[mjr]

I've tried it because I know that some folk think it's good and slow-release energy and good for cyclists. I tried it, I really did, but I was hungry all morning. For me, it doesn't work .............. and I don't like it either.

There is not just one porridge. You can make it with at least three different oat preparations and in more ways than I can count. I used to think "hungry all morning" but then I tried a different way (53g oatbran + 200ml boiling water + stand + 20g milled linseed + maple syrup sometimes) and that works for me as well as eggs or yogurt+muesli do.

[Mick F]

I suppose if you enjoy something, it's more satisfying to do it than not to do it.
It's like eating porridge. If you like it, you'll be satisfied with it.

A good breakfast for me is a pot of tea, a coupe of rounds of (brown) buttered toast plus two or three rashers of bacon and a fried egg.

You can stuff your porridge.

[MikeF]

Ah, you're mixing up food cals and small cals!!

1 small kilocalorie (kcal) is equal to 1 large food calorie (Cal):
1 kcal = 1 Cal

I'm not mixing up anything! A calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1gm of water by 1 degree celsius. Food calorie - that's not a metric unit, just jargon...... but perhaps a calorie isn't either nowadays as units seem change with fashion, eg I find a litre is now a cubic decimetre - litres are out. In the days when BThUs ruled we knew what we were talking about and it is British.

[MikeF]

You can stuff your porridge.

If you've any spare I'll have it. Porridge every day for me.

[Mattyfez]

In normal language and every day use what we call a calorie is actually 1,000 calories. Which is why it's written as kcal on food packaging. It's one of those language things where unless you're talking very specifically about 'proper' calories then you can safely assume that kcal is meant.

However, I would assume that when somebody writes "cal" they mean calories and when somebody writes "kcal" they mean kilocalories (or Calories with a capitalised 1st letter or Cal). Particularly when they are explaining the difference to somebody else who they say does not understand it !!

Ian

Logic, and indeed the metric system would dictate a kcal is 1000 calories, but people simply abbreviate thousands of calories to simply calories, not thousands of calories for some reason

For example a cuppa soup sachet I've just examined lists each sachet as being 66kcal, 2.6% of the daily amount for a male.

One 'real scientific' calorie is so completely insignificant in terms of human food consumption, so it's just become a slang word for kcal. I don't know why, it certainly can confuse some people, maybe smaller numbers are easier to digest

Anecdotally, quite a good documentary on calories: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05nhyt8/the-truth-about-2-calories

But they even seem confused that K in metric means 1000, it's not surprising people get confused.

[Mattyfez]

I suppose if you enjoy something, it's more satisfying to do it than not to do it.
It's like eating porridge. If you like it, you'll be satisfied with it.

A good breakfast for me is a pot of tea, a coupe of rounds of (brown) buttered toast plus two or three rashers of bacon and a fried egg.

You can stuff your porridge.

Warm porridge is nice with a bit of brown sugar and a drop of vanilla essence. Or jam or honey.

[Mark1978]

Any porridge that came my way for breakfast (or any meal) would go straight in the bin.
Awful stuff IMHO.

I've tried it because I know that some folk think it's good and slow-release energy and good for cyclists. I tried it, I really did, but I was hungry all morning. For me, it doesn't work .............. and I don't like it either.

Each to their own. I have porridge most mornings for breakfast - with a little flavouring, plain is just awful, and it keeps me going longer than any other breakfast I've tried. Indeed I find it perfect for Sunday mornings where all I want to do is gulp some food down as quickly as possible then get out on the bike.

[nez]

My grandfather - Aberdonian born in the 1880s - used to eat it with just salt. In silence. Long long silences.

[LollyKat]

I hate sweet porridge - I eat it with just salt, and some milk. In my family we always have the milk in a separate cup - take a spoonful of porridge then dip it in the cup to pick up a little milk, then eat. It stops the porridge being cooled to a revolting slimy dollop. I don't know if it is traditional but is the way my parents and grandparents always ate it.

And real oatmeal, of course, not flakes. Fussy, moi?

[Farawayvisions]

I'm a porridge lover, but no matter how much of it I eat, I'm hungry an hour later. I don't have salt or sugar, it's made with milk, then topped with honey, nuts, and if it's the weekend I'll pour a bit of double cream over it. I know.
Chips chips chips, give me chips after a ride and please serve them on a plate, though a bowl is acceptable as long as it's a big bowl.

[mjr]

The double cream's a bit odd but the honey might be confusing your hunger response if some current thinking is right. Have you tried fruit?

[Farawayvisions]

Oh yes, I also put banana and sultanas on it.

[bigjim]

but their work rate is easily 3x what an average cyclist would be putting out

You see that confuses me. Not hard I know. But if the fat guy on a heavy bike puffs and blows his way up a long steady climb, is his work rate/ calorie burn as much if not more than the thin, snake hipped tour rider on his feather weight carbon steed?
Often I see tour riders cruising along chatting to their mates rather than running flat out all day.