mastertangler wrote on Feb 28^th, 2011 at 8:46pm:

But on the trail I mix in a healthy amount of brown sugar in with my oats and a generous scoop of cream and sugar with my coffee. I figure the sugar adds calories and "fuel" and fills in the gaps (literally) between the oatmeal flakes thus adding a bit more bang for the buck while packing the same volume.

So here's the skinny (groan) on sugar. Carbohydrates are basically sugar and starch. Apples, oranges, potatoes, grains, candy, bread… are all carbohydrates. Carbohydrates break down into glucose molecules. When used as energy, carbohydrate fuel becomes fuel for your muscles and brain. If your body does not have any use for the glucose, it is converted into glycogen and stored it in the liver and muscles as an energy reserve. Your body can store about a half a day's supply of glycogen. If your body has more glucose than it can use as energy, or convert to glycogen for storage, the excess is converted to fat. So if you are very active your body will use glucose rather than convert it to fat.  However, that being said, sugar provides very little else in terms of nutrition and so it is not considered a great way to gather or store useful calories.  Of course processed white sugar is the worst possible source because, being processed, it puts added demands on the body to metabolize it.  But if you think brown sugar is way better I'm afraid you're kidding yourself.  Brown sugar is basically processed white sugar with a bit of molases added for color and texture.  Amongst great chefs dessert (i.e. sugar) is considered to be like royalty - it attracts all the attention but is essentially useless.