Is Pinole and Chia the world’s greatest athletic performance fuel and the secret to the amazing endurance running capabilities of our Raramuri friends?!!  Of course not.  We can all wish there were, but there is no such thing as the perfect sports nutrition.  There are for sure some things better than others (real foods versus processed ingredients we cannot pronounce) but we are all individuals, and not all things work for all folks.

This said, Pinole we believe is in fact pretty dang close to as good as it gets.  It’s been fueling runners and folks with incredible athletic abilities for generations – not just in the Copper Canyons, but really in some shape or form, throughout the world. Pinole is made from Corn, though we prefer to call it Maize because it is so different than what we think of as the stuff in a US Supermarket.  Our Sierra Tarahumara style Pinole comes from Farmers who are using the seed from the crop before which used the seed from the crop before this. No big corporate genetically modified whatever, no sprays, no chemical this and that, just plant, work hard, harvest the bounty.  This is the original “Super Starch”.

From this heirloom maize it is roasted until it gets to a perfect Pinole color and smells of that huge bowl of popcorn you loved as a kid. Then it is small batch processed and ground as it has been for generations and the result is Endurance Athlete gold (well, gold in color and as good as gold to us)!

Pinole is real food, made by good people that care about what they are making.  It provides an awesome slow burning fuel, nominal glycemic spike helping eliminate ‘sugar crashes’, it’s extra easy on the digestive system, and with that distinctive taste of roasted goodness you’ll know why we think that while there is no perfect base ingredient fuel for athletes, Pinole may be as close as it gets.

Chia, our other base ingredient frankly deserves its hyped “Super Food” label.  From such a little seed comes so many benefits to athletes.  We won’t get all sciency’ – heck, it seems like every product can talk about some study that proves this or that – but we can for sure say from a nutritional standpoint there is a reason our friends in the Copper Canyons love Chia.  They are loaded with anti-oxidants that our bodies need to help repair from all we put it through doing the stuff we love. They provide awesome healthy fats (gram for gram more Omega 3’s than Salmon) and are an excellent source of high quality plant protein.  We don’t have any studies, there may not have ever been one completed, but we think potentially one of the reasons that they have helped these amazing athletes that run in such arid and dry climates is their ability to soak and hold so much fluid.  Because they digest nice and slow, having soaked up whatever liquids the athlete has ingested could be a huge help on the body’s ability to stay hydrated and therefore keep a level of performance longer.  Either way, it’s really really good stuff, and when you add it to Pinole as a basis for athletic nutritional products, we think it’s perfect.

 

 

Our Original blend Andale! includes a High Grade Electrolyte blend called Omnimin. It is an all-natural, dried sea mineral concentrate from Utah’s great Salt Lake that provides optimal levels of magnesium and higher values of sodium and potassium. We source Omnimin from a family business (the Anderson's) that has been providing top quality, all natural mineral products for generations.   Omnimin contains the full spectrum of naturally occurring elements, is fully Ionic and in a balance natural to the body due to its Sea source. OmniMin is handcrafted and undergoes the Anderson family’s traditional, all-natural solar-evaporation process. Our suppliers the Anderson family and Mineral Resources are committed to manufacturing the finest all-natural mineral supplements using all-natural premium minerals.

Amaranth. It's what adds that graham type flavor to our Korimalitas. Cultivated by the ancients for thousands of years, it is still a native crop to the Sierra Tarahumara and an important high quality nutrition source for Raramuri families.

Amaranth is also higher in calcium, iron, phosphorus and carotenoids than most vegetables.  It has an excellent protein content for a grain.  It is also a great source of lysine an important amino acid and contains primary proteins called albumin and globulins which are easily digested during activity. As we said, we feel it also gives a most excellent taste addition to our Korimalitas!