No, it’s just that amateur cyclists swear by bananas. Starch, potassium, biodegradable wrapper. Jerseys have handy pockets that can carry several. Walkers and runners often don’t.
High in pectin. Soluble and insoluble fiber behave differently and I used to be able to explain it somewhat but my brain has been too full of other things lately and I don’t think I can do it justice.
One my trainers when I was in college told me that when you crave foods, its not your lack of willpower, its actually your body telling you it needs certain nutrients. He told me when you crave chocolate its because your body needs carbs, so if you get some carbs, your chocolate cravings will go away.
I'm guessing the idea you crave a cheeseburger is the same thing, his body was in need of complex carbs and protein?
This is purely anecdotal evidence of this, but in my experience as an endurance athlete (soccer, cycling, adventure racing) its seems to work. When I've craved chocolate, I just eat some toast or chips or drink some Mt. Dew (a lot of people have no idea how many carbs are in soda) and the desire for something chocolatey goes away.
As others have pointed out in the thread, everybody is different, but in my case, this idea seems to be accurate.
One year I bumped into a friend of a friend at the checkin for a 3 day bike tour and we decided to 1) ride together and 2) see how fast we could do it. Short rests, riding hard, drafting the entire way. All day, in the Labor Day sun.
On day two after we pulled up to the stopping point, we got set up and then crawled back on our bikes to ride to the other side of this small college town to find the Dairy Queen for a bacon cheeseburger. It's not the best tasting beef I've ever had (that was in New Orleans), but it was the best tasting burger.
In a completely unrelated anecdote, one day on a club ride we were almost to the turnaround point for the day. The town was on a hill on the far side of a river valley and it was a relatively nasty hill. One of the older guys was falling off the back and I and a few other people heard him yell something but we couldn't make out what it was, so we dropped back to see if he was okay.
Unfortunately my taste buds get more intense with exercise and not less like some people. I just had to throw out a smoothie this morning I bought as a treat for finishing a race. I forgot how sweet this beverage was on a normal day and it was like candy to me.
I think pectin is easier on the stomach than insoluble fiber, but I have a lot of gaps in this part of my knowledge.
The cheeseburger calls to us all. Some of us are just "better" at resisting the call.