The CLIFCast Podcast is back! Episode 6 is now live on iTunes and available to stream below. And this time it’s all about Protein.

Protein is the building blocks of muscle. Without it, you can’t get all the amazing benefits from your workout because protein helps tissues recover and rebuild. But what exactly is protein? What are the different foods we can eat to get it into our body, and is it something we crave? Here we will learn the differences between plant-based proteins and animal-based proteins, when to eat, what protein snacks to have, and we may even shatter some protein myths.

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TEAM CLIF BAR had such great success at RAGBRAI in 2009, that we decided to come back to Ragbrai in 2010, bigger and better. If you’re new to RAGBRAI, it’s an annual seven-day ride across Iowa, beginning near Iowa’s western border and ending along the eastern border at the Mississippi River.

One of our TCB riders, Sean Piper, was cool enough to jot down a recount of each day of his seven-day adventure. Below are the first three days, and head back Monday Wednesday for the rest. Enjoy!

Day: 1 – Bring the Noise (on a bike trailer)

I awoke this morning in Sioux City, Iowa bestowed with an unusual sense of energy and fluidity. For today I know, Team Clif Bar begins the great adventure of RAGBRAI: a 442 mile bike trek across the state of Iowa. Upbeat, psyched, excited, geeked was my demeanor at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, amazingly without a single drop of coffee having yet passed my lips. I felt all this and more as I magnanimously bade farewell to the modern comforts our hotel rooms had afforded us the past evening. “So long Big Fluffy Hotel Bed.” “See ya later Hot & Cold Running Water.” “It’s been real Four Walls and a Dry Roof”.  I am off to discover the great state of Iowa on a bicycle. I suit up in my Clif Bar duds and exit the sliding glass doors with all the swagger of an arctic explorer. Sir Edmund Hillary in spandex. 

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San Francisco bike peoples—the CLIF BAR 2 Mile Challenge team wants to treat you to a free day at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. And all you have to do it hop on your bike!

On Sunday, August 22, Clif Bar’s hosting what we’re calling a “Fun Ride to the Academy.” If you’re San Francisco Bay area-based, you probably know of the pure awesomeness that is the new California Academy of Sciences. So here’s the deal. We’ll give away free tickets (that’s up to $24.95 per ticket!) to the first 100 people who arrive by bike.

As a bonus, those first 100 people also get their bikes parked safe and secure at a San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s free bike valet.

And don’t think we’ll let you go hungry. Clif will sustain you on your journey through the museum with free CLIF BAR samples. Believe me, you’ll need it...the California Academy of Sciences is the only place on the planet with an aquarium, a planetarium, a natural history museum and a four-story rainforest all under one roof.

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LUNA took a road trip up to Squaw Valley last weekend as the official nutrition bar of Wanderlust Yoga and Music Festival. This was both the second year of the event and LUNA’s second time sponsoring, so Mel Leebove, LUNA Field Marketing Manager for NorCal, already had an idea of what to expect. However, her crew lead Gail Nipitnorasate was a newcomer, not only to the event but also to the practice of yoga. Read on below to hear the event unfold through her eyes.

What does “namaste” mean to a group of nine LUNA Bar representatives heading out to Squaw Valley for a weekend of Yoga and music? Well, for me, as a yoga newbie, I’ll have to defer to Wikipedia: Derived from Sanskrit, the term means “I bow to you.” But, it’s much more than that. So, I couldn’t really tell you what it really means until I had experienced four days worth of mantras and chaturangas at Wanderlust - a new kind of festival bringing together the world’s top yoga teachers and the best performers in rock and roll, all in a setting of breathtaking natural beauty.

After a three-hour drive, we (myself, Mel, Skye and David) find ourselves surrounded by the beautiful mountains of Tahoe, high up in the altitudes, breathing in the cold morning air and feeling the hot afternoon sun on our backs. For the next four days, we will be surrounded by 10,000 Yogis.

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UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who submitted a comment and for supporting Jay’s new book. The winners (who will receive signed copies of Jay and Gary’s books and a month’s supply of CLIF BARs) are: Samantha, jnylyn78 and mommaof3ontherun. Congrats!

Way back in 2006, Clif Bar & Company founder, co-owner, and co-CEO, Gary Erickson published his book Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business: The Story of Clif Bar & Company recounting Clif Bar’s origins and our journey to become a different kind of company. Today in 2010, Clif Bar is once again the subject of another great new book: Design is How it Works, How the Smartest Companies Turn Products into Icons, by Jay Greene. In this book, Jay Greene, former Seattle bureau chief for BusinessWeek and an award-winning journalist, explores how Clif Bar and other successful companies have made design thinking part of their DNA.

Jay visited Clif Bar & Company for a few days in October, 2008. He caught us at a particularly exciting time — not only did he visit us a few weeks before the 2008 presidential election, his visit also coincided with our Annual Epiphany Ride and Halloween festivities. In celebration of Jay’s book hitting shelves, I asked Jay to tell us about his book and his visit to Clif Bar & Company. We will also be doing a little giveaway — leave a comment on this blog post today and three people will be randomly chosen to receive an autographed copy of Jay’s book, an autographed copy of Gary’s book, and a month supply of CLIF BARs in your favorite flavor!

Kate: What is “design thinking”?
Jay: It’s really the practice of applying the skills designers use to create products to solve all sorts of business challenges, even ones that don’t require a focus on aesthetics. Designers intuitively use creativity and empathy to help them create something that has an emotional connection with customers. They prototype concepts and collaborate with colleagues to test theories and come up with novel approaches to new products. Design thinking applies those concepts to businesses where appearance doesn’t count for much. Design thinkers use anthropology, sociology and psychology to study customers in order to understand their unstated and unmet needs. 

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