Book Review - The Feed Zone

Now, for something a little different. 

Derek’s wife blogging here today. The reason being that we recently got a new cook book for athletes through the Break Your Limits crew, and me being the main one who does the cooking, thought I’d give you a bit of a review.

The Feed Zone (Fast and Flavorful Food For Athletes) by Biju Thomas and Allen Lim is written by a chef and a food scientist, for  athletes, although from reading some of the foreword, it sounds like there’s a bit of crossover there, hence the reason for the book. 

The opinion from the authors is that pre, during and post training and race nutrition shouldn’t be limited to pre-packaged items, and that cooking your own stuff isn’t really that hard, and gives a whole lot more scope for creativity and nutritious options. One example is an alternative to sugary ride bars, which is a bacon based rice bar. The book even goes into the method for folding the packaging so that you end up with a little bar shaped pack at the end that will fit in a jersey pocket and you can eat one handed on a bike. I haven’t had any bacon on hand yet, so have yet to try that one, but there are a number of savoury alternatives. And speaking of alternatives, for the gluten intolerant, there are a number of recipes that don’t contain wheat, or give directions to substitute ingredients to make gluten free versions. Similarly for vegetarians.

I’m not a big follower of recipes, so I’m really using it as a basis for ideas. So why did we get the book, I hear you ask? Good question. Derek had recently decided that his post training snack of peanut butter sandwiches, followed by cheese sandwiches were getting a little high on the fat content, so he wanted to cut down. We’ve been through this before, and he made the switch to jam, but every so often, he comes back to peanut butter, perhaps because after a while, even the nicest jams all become just sugary fruit on bread. So, as an alternative, I made up a batch of bircher muesli as a post training snack. Admittedly, Derek could have handled making that one himself, grating an apple and putting milk, oats and yoghurt with a little cinnamon in a bowl in the fridge 8 hours before he was due to get back from a session (Note: Derek here, for the record I have no managed to make bircher museli for myself - yes I am not entirely incapable). However, whoever made it, the result was not sandwiches but a high protein, low fat, filling snack.

I have also made a curry from the book, once more, inspiration rather than replication, based on the ingredients I had to hand. The leftover rice I then made into fried rice, based on another recipe from the book, and again used for Derek as a snack, rather than sandwiches. There’s lots more to try, and I’ll admit, some stuff I won’t try because I am a bit of a lazy cook or I know that Derek just won’t like something that much (not that he won’t eat it, he’s still a training triathlete who will eat anything not tied down), but quite a lot of it is actually catered towards getting athletes cooking for themselves. One example is a quiche which uses breadcrumbs and butter blended together until it binds a bit to make the ‘pastry’ base of the quiche. Just as tasty and filling, but easier than rubbing flour and butter together! Little things like that make it an interesting book.

Criticisms? I think the only problem I have with it is that it in all in imperial measurements. I am the same age as Derek, and while my parents would have an idea of how much 4 oz of bacon would be, I honestly have no idea. I think metric measurements in brackets beside the imperial measurements would go a long way to making the book more universal. Similarly, sometimes I don’t recognise an ingredient from it’s name, like orzo, but it looks like risoni, and a Google search reveals it to be the same thing, but adding in alternative names would help make it a bit easier to use as well. The other criticism, is that eating away, living in a hotel room in another country where you haven’t bought your kitchen with you and all you really have is a microwave and a mini-fridge, isn’t really covered all that much. There is an assumption that is based on large cycling teams, who have their own houses, rather than the individual athlete who is travelling to race on a monthly basis. I think a section that minimised utensils for pre-race based meals would make it ideal. But I guess that’s a pretty specific requirement, and not necessarily one I would have decided not to buy the book on.

Likes? I like the ideas behind the book. I like that it attempts to minimise wasted food by giving ideas for leftovers. (But really, leftovers have never been an issue in our household – I mean when are there ever leftovers with a triathlete in the house? Unless it’s a subtle hint that something really just taste that nice.) I like that it gives ideas for making your own bars. I am really looking forward to trying them (once I get the imperial measurements converted and know how much bacon – Derek would of course say here that there is no such thing as too much bacon, but he’s not the one cooking, so he can be quiet!).

There is also a website  (Feed Zone Cook Book website) with a few of the recipes on it you can check out before you decide you want to buy it (I think I even spotted a bacon & egg rice bar recipe), plus another book dedicated just to what they call ‘portables’ (bars, cake bites etc.), both of which are also available in e-book form. I prefer to make notes on my recipe books though, comments on what variations work, what was well / poorly received etc. so like a hard copy!

So in summary, I bought the book to give Derek a wider range of food he can devour / inhale that was easy for me (or him) to make. Did I find that in The Feed Zone? Yep, pretty sure I did. Thumbs up from us!