In Search of the Perfect Figure Skating Food

[...] IceMom.net: In Search of the Perfect Figure Skating Food [...]

I find trail mix is a good choice. You can buy pre-made, or buy the nuts, dried fruit, chocolate pieces of your choice and mix up a big batch which can be put into individual baggies/containers. My son is not lactose intolerant, so cheese goes into the cooler. Breakfast bars come in all sorts of flavors and types and are usually somewhat healthy. Pre-packaged peanut butter crackers, cheese crackers and granola bars are a staple for our cooler. Carrot and celery sticks are often present. Sometimes pop-corn and Jell-O find their way into our cooler. A bag of goldfish can usual be found in there too. And of course plenty of water.

We used to make a snack of 2 low fat Eggo frozen waffles (toasted of course!) – you use them to make a waffle sandwich, we put reduced fat peanut butter & honey in between the waffles. As an occasional change/treat use just Nutella between the waffles. Or could use peanut butter/bananas, I'm sure the choices are endless. My skater did get a little burnt out on this waffle sandwich though, guess I kept it going a little too long. We mostly used it as an afterschool “power snack” when she was skating for 2 hours. Apple slices are good too if they like apples.

Homemade Rice Krispie squares. They pack well, low potential smell factor if left in the car, and if they get warm they don't melt–they just get softer and yummier. I delude myself into believing they're not so bad because they're made with vitamin-fortified cereal. You could make them with Wheaties or some other whole-grain cereal too.

Cheerios

I take nutrigrains to skating often- don't require cooling, have lots of flavours and are reasonably healthy. I also take a little box of raisins along sometimes or a small bag of almonds, I find them to be quite good healthy skating snacks.
Also, if I have a 2 hour practice which I sometimes get if I’m lucky then I tend to need more to eat than a cereal bar or dried fruit. It sounds stupid but where I live you can get children’s Kellogg’s variety packs of cereal for about £2 for 8 boxes and I take one of those along and just eat that without milk (because I don't like milk) and you don't even need a spoon. It doesn't melt or need refrigerated and if you get wholegrain ones then they're pretty good for you but I do sometimes feel that I look a bit of an idiot eating my dry cereal but it tastes good and gives me energy so I don't really care.

I love Kashi bars, they are all natural and without the added sugar of other breakfast bars. They also have yummy Kashi crackers, my favorive are the cheese!

When I get sick of granola bars I eat Larabars which are mostly dried fruit. Get a variety of bars and try them. There are so many on the market these days and they all taste different. I like Cliff bars as well which also don't taste like granola even though they have grains in them. I also eat a variety of nuts and dried fruits. I buy them in bulk and break them up into single servings for transport. I also like trail mix. I also drink yogurt smoothies. You could try the coconut kefir variety and see if she likes them (no milk). I think Rice Dream (rice milk) now comes in hermetically sealed individual servings. I tend toward fruit and vegetable juice myself. Carrot or mango are particularly good for skating because they replace nutrients lost during skating (sweating).

Pirate booty! Original and veggie. I also fill a thermos food jar with sliced hot dogs, chicken nuggets, soup, etc. You can fill an old altoids container with toothpicks for the hot dogs and she could drink the soup strait from the container hobostyle. Beef/turkey/buffalo jerky, Nuts, shelled Sunflower seeds, Freeze dried fruits and veggies from trader joes are easy to pack and the mangos taste just like candy. Hard boiled eggs and tuna are good too but of course they stink and I doubt she wants to be the one responsible for making the arena smell like fish and sulfur.

Um. What's pirate booty?

Ice Girl loves, loves, loves hard-boiled eggs. However, they stink up a vehicle after two weeks.

Planters Trail Mix – Nut & Chocolate variety comes in a ziploc top and will last 2-4 days as a snack during ice cuts. Also my son likes the Quaker Chewy Bars low fat s'mores flavor. Thanks everyone for the suggestions, definitely gonna try to change it up a little bit!

Pirates booty is a natural puffed rice snack that comes in a variety of flavors. White cheddar and veggie are our favs. You can find it at most health/natural/specialty food stores.

That's a good question. As a working skater every day is cooler day for me and I could use some new ideas. Hmmm…the lactose intolerance complicates things. I always have a carnation instant breakfast to drink after my morning skate as I read that chocolate milk is a great post-workout recovery food. then in the cooler i'll pack a few of: cheese and wheat thins, yogurt, V8 fusion, sandwiches, leftovers from dinner, chocolate pudding for the 3pm slump, mixed nuts…and other things I am sure I am forgetting.

Be careful using nutella. It will start an addiction that will have your skater eating it by the spoonful.
Not that I know from personal experience or anything…

I'm trying to dig back into my memories of what I ate during long days at the rink, and I feel like I lived on vegetables. Lots of carrots, celery, and snap peas. Pistachios are also great for protein–I would keep a big bag of them on me all the time so I could grab a few for a snack. We'd also make our own trail mix from raisins, sunflower seeds, and peanuts, which is surprisingly delicious.

Trader Joe's version is good and much cheaper too.

Trader Joe's has tons and tons of different kinds of trailmixes that I like. Costco also has some too. Or we make it homemade sometimes – easy, simple and tasty! And healthy:)

I find bags of mixed dried fruit and raisins really good at the rink. Dried fruit has SO MUCH good stuff inside too. But, selling that to a teen may be a bit tricky. Most of the teens at my rink are eating packets of pre-processed gunk. Or nothing, if you know what I mean.

I got a book called Food for Fitness, it's by Anita Bean and I really do use it alot. It's all about what's good for an athlete pre, during, and post training session or competition. It educated me on what to eat post training, and also has a large recipes section at the back split into chapters such as “mains”, “veggie”, and “desserts”. I go time and time again back to this book for the flapjack recipe.

It basically consists of getting a bag of mixed oats (this sounds really stingy but I buy a 500gram bag for about 16p at my local supermarket – it doesn't need to be fancy! Besides, I'm broke), some golden syrup, maple syrup, honey, whatever floats your boat, some butter or low fat equivalent (I use lo-fat marge and it does the trick just the same without the cals) and of course loads of mixed dried fruit! You can add ground or whole almonds, and/or ground coconut too for extra zing.

The syrup/honey and the margarine that you need to melt in a pan serve as a “wetting” agent and you just need to pour these ingredients onto the oats and fruit in a big bowl until its all sticking together nicely. Pat the mixture down into a shallow brownie-style pan and throw in the oven for 20mins max. It's ready to go.

I wait until cool, break up into random pieces, and throw them in a zip lock bag for the rink. They are full of good nutrients, good for digestive movement (the oats) and provide a sweet fix for when you're feeling washed out post session.

Hope that helps!

Muffins – any varieity, buy them, or bake them in large batches and then then freeze them. Take out what you need for the day – they'll defrost in a couple of hours. If you make them yourself, you can experiment along the healthy vs. tasty scale to see how far you can go before they wind up in the trash. I use a lowfat banana muffin recipe, which gets eaten as long as I remember to stir in some choc chips – fair trade-off, I believe.

Muffins – any varieity, buy them, or bake them in large batches and then then freeze them. Take out what you need for the day – they’ll defrost in a couple of hours. If you make them yourself, you can experiment along the healthy vs. tasty scale to see how far you can go before they wind up in the trash. I use a lowfat banana muffin recipe, which gets eaten as long as I remember to stir in some choc chips – fair trade-off, I believe.