The Feed Zone Cookbook (edit title/settings)

• Rated 5 stars

“This book was a gift from my friend Bryan - also an endurance athlete. The Feed Zone Cookbook, which is based on experience professional cycling teams that can afford their own chefs and nutritionists, presents a system of cooking and eating that involves high quality food to specifically meet the needs of the world's top endurance athletes.

I like the way it is structured. Even as a low level (recreational) endurance athlete the structure works for me - if it is a weekend and I am training or competing, there is no such thing as "lunch" because I am either on the bike or running through that meal. This book gets it right - while training there are basically four meals - 1.) Breakfast 2.) Portables (food eaten while riding or running) 3.) Après (evidently this means "after") and 4.) Dinner.

Each of these meals has a different goal as far as carbs, protein, micronutrients, etc. are concerned, and therefore different content. One of the great strengths of this book is the portables - most endurance athletes (me, for example) try to hold down various carb gels and other concoctions which are, frankly, expensive and often a little unpalatable. Here we find some palatable alternatives - basically homemade rice cakes (not like the desiccated ones sold at the supermarket - these ones look pretty good.) Dinner, oddly enough, is the time to get those vegetables and micronutrients in and, unlike non-athletes, might actually be the lightest meal of the day.

Even though the recipes, developed by a famous chef, look delicious and simple, this might not be a good cookbook for non-athletes - the recipes are pretty high in calories, especially carbohydrates, and high in salt as well. Furthermore most of the recipes are not vegetarian, and even fewer are vegan. At this point I am primarily vegan; but I think I am going to be able to make some positive changes based on this book. ”