Feed Zone Portables: A Cookbook of On-the-Go Food for Athletes (The Feed Zone Series)

Product Information

From the publisher: When Dr. Allen Lim left the lab to work with pro cyclists, he found athletes weary of processed bars and gels and the same old pasta. So Lim joined professional chef Biju Thomas to make eating delicious and practical. Their groundbreaking Feed Zone Cookbook brought the favorite recipes of the pros to everyday athletes. The answer is yes, according to the authors, exercise physiologist and cyclist Allen Lim and chef Biju Thomas. They’re writing for cyclists, but runners and other exercisers have similar needs. With the recipes, ideas, and guidance in Feed Zone Portables, athletes will nourish better performance with real food and learn to prepare their own creations at home or on the go. Feed Zone Portables includes

Sainsbury’s and Lakeland sell parchment foil so is easy to get hold of and worth obtaining for ease of wrapping and unwrapping. The first recipe was the swiss rice recipe which had no flavor at all - even half way through an 80 mile ride. I added a few drops of soy sauce infused with white pepper to each bar to make it edible. The texture and energy boost were great but it needed twice the flavor ingredients. How they taste: Excellent. Delicious. Amazing. I’ve tried mini-omelets before, and always hated the taste of cold eggs. But somehow, the extra ingredients overshadow that flavor and eliminate the slimy texture. Banana Walnut Two-Bite Pies Pour enough batter into each waffle form to nearly fill all the squares (the batter will expand when pressed). Cook until the outside of the waffle feels crisp. Repeat, using the remaining batter.However, sports nutrition does play an important role in performance, with plenty of studies to support them, from multiple carbohydrate transporters to the use of electrolytes in sports drinks, Brooke emphasizes. “When in season, most athletes should not worry about where the calories come from in training, but that they match the energy and fluid needed to support the workout. However, fat intake during high intensity activity has a tendency to upset the stomach, so carbohydrate will always be the preferred energy source to fuel our body. Certainly, as the training volume increases as well as the energy expenditure it is common sense to choose foods that require the least amount of energy to convert to fuel. In my opinion, sport food has a benefit over real foods in that they are convenient with a known amount of key nutrients needed to sustain your performance. Carbohydrate and fat have a much lower thermic effect than protein which is high in comparison. However, fat intake during high intensity activity has a tendency to upset the stomach, so carbohydrate will always be the preferred energy source to fuel our body.” In 2015, Sri Lankan scientists discovered that they could more than halve the available calories in rice by adding coconut oil during cooking and then cooling the rice in the refrigerator." When Dr. Allen Lim left the lab to work with pro cyclists, he found athletes weary of processed bars and gels and the same old pasta. So Lim joined professional chef Biju Thomas to make eating delicious and practical. When the menu changed, no one could argue with the race results. Their groundbreaking Feed Zone Cookbook brought the favorite recipes of the pros to everyday athletes.

This is not a fad book. It is based on a lot of research, and more importantly, years of experience in the field with a wide range of world-class athletes. I am grateful to the authors for such a useful book. Bananas or other portable fruits (if riding outdoors), otherwise orange is easy to eat on the trainer too The Last time we whipped up a batch of these they disappeared in a hurry. They're great for vegetarians or anyone who just wants a little variety in their rice cake arsenal. The flavor is somewhere between apple pie and apple-cinnamon oatmeal. Let us know what you think after you've tried them. Feed Zone Portables features real food recipes that are simple, delicious during exercise, easy to make, and ready to go.Get the latest in triathlon training, gear, nutrition and news sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for Triathlete’s newsletter. But whether you choose to use real foods, your own sports nutrition or products that are available on the course, it is necessary – especially in a lead up to a major race – to practice your nutrition strategy in training. “It is important to practice with them to improve gut absorption and reduce surprises on race day.” With the recipes, ideas, and guidance in Feed Zone Portables , athletes will nourish better performance with real food and learn to prepare their own creations at home or on the go. Feed Zone Portables includes This book begins with an in-depth discussion of what kind of nutrition endurance athletes need, how they can deliver this nutrition to their bodies, and why simply fueling isn't enough. As an example, let's assume that you're considering an iron distance race. Let's plan on burning 8,000 calories during the race. Let's assume that you want a fast time, so you derive 75% of your calories from carbohydrate. We'll give you a 2,000 calories credit for your carbohydrate store. That means that during the course of the race, you would need to consume 4,000 calories. Easy enough...eat 400 calories an hour and call it good, right? I’d recommend ensuring you look closely at the nutrient make up of all the recipes before buying ingredients and cooking as they range from 10g to 50g of carbs per serving (you should aim to eat around 60g of carbs per hour while exercising). In my opinion the effort of buying ingredients, cooking the recipes and storing them is only worthwhile for between recipes with between 20g and 50g of carbs per serving, otherwise you can end up eating a whole recipe in an hour or two. This has limited the use of the cookbook as I'm only really interested in about 50% of the recipes on this basis.

I tend to have a big cook off once a month and cook a few recipes to last me a while, I’ve had no trouble freezing anything and defrosting overnight in the fridge before my ride. Rice can be frozen safely if it’s wrapped as soon as possible after cooking and frozen as soon as it’s cool. It’s probably safer to freeze rice rather than refrigerate if you are going to eat more than 48 hours after cooking it.

The recipes are easy to follow with plenty of clear pictures and bits of advice, and the food tastes GOOD. Additionally, they encourage readers to find what works for them and give advice on how to modify recipes or even create your own. The fourth recipe I tried was for individual bread puddings. Basically it's bread, eggs, milk, sugar, and cinnamon. It's really easy and it gave me 12 lovely little treats. My wife has been eating them for breakfast. I'm going to ride up to the top of a mountain once I finish updating this review and I'm taking a frittata and a bread budding to treat myself at the top. It's a lot better motivation than an energy bar. Biju Thomas is a professional chef known for light, simple dishes bursting with bold flavors. He has designed the menus of many successful restaurants in Denver and Boulder, Colorado and has launched his own restaurant, Biju’s Little Curry Shop, in Denver’s up-and-coming RiNo neighborhood. The book opens with the usual chapter on why the book exists, which I started flipping through on the way to the recipes. But wait—there’s really good stuff in here! Some of the highlights:

Biju has been a chef for pro cycling teams and coordinated food for one of the sport’s biggest races, the Tour of California. Biju has also been the chef for the Dempsey/Del Piero Racing, a Grand-Am and Le Mans motorsports team. He also contributes recipes to Skratch Labs, Omega Juicers, and Map My Fitness.Feed Zone Portables features real food recipes that are simple, delicious during exercise, easy to make, and ready to go. Learn more at Velopress.com.