Our special “anti-inflammatory” diet

Author: Team Doctor of Chiropractic Kevin Reichlin

25 Jul

For years bike racers have lived on pasta as their primary source of carbohydrates. Jonathan Vaughters has often said that he’ll never eat pasta again as long as he lives! At least the over-cooked pasta that is served in most of the race hotels around the world, the exception being the hotels at the Giro.

At this year’s Tour de France, we decided to make a change for our riders. Instead of having pasta and bread every night for dinner we asked our chef, Willy, to prepare rice. And we are giving the riders rice cakes and corn cakes instead of bread. Why? I believe that the high amounts of wheat products that are normally consumed by bike racers at the Tour have an inflammatory effect in the body. I believe that most people have either an overt allergy to wheat products (as Julian Dean demonstrates) or at least a sub-symptomatic inflammatory response to wheat products.

At the Tour de France, one of the biggest goals is to maintain as low a state of inflammation as possible. The amount of inflammation that the riders bodies accumulate during the day is so high that any little bit of help we can give them, and this includes dietary modifications, is essential.

So, our guys are eating very little wheat products (bread, pasta) and also very little red meat (which also has a pro-inflammatory effect on the body). Most of the meals consist of oats (Willy’s porridge in the mornings!), and in the evenings the guys are eating a lot of chicken, turkey and fish.

Yes, they’ve had a couple meals of pasta and red meat. We do need to give them a bit of variety, but the rule has been rice, oats, chicken, fish and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables! Even the foods that we give them on the bike are rice based.

There’s a bit of insight into what the guys are eating here at the Tour.

Filed under: Garmin Web Site, Home Page, Injured Reserves

10 Responses for "Our special “anti-inflammatory” diet"

ChrisB. July 25th, 2008 at 10:40 am 1
Awesome! This is so great to read. I have a five year old daughter who serves as the “wheat police” at our house. She and mom are almost completely “wheat-free,” while I’m still a sucker for sprouted grain bread.

If by chance there’s any cyclists left who love pasta, brown rice pasta can be pretty damn good, just as long as it’s rinsed well. My little wheat policewoman loves it. Note that she’s also a big fan of eggs and long grain brown rice. I’m pretty sure she’s not related in any way to Alan.

-Chris
HopmasterSJ July 25th, 2008 at 11:40 am 2
Re: Fish

Are you concerned about mercury/PCB content in fish or do you stick to farm raised, etc…?

Thanks
Marsha July 25th, 2008 at 12:44 pm 3
any chance you’ll share some recipes on the web site?
Don Carpenter July 25th, 2008 at 12:49 pm 4
How about a few recipes from Chef Willy.

Thanks
Jennifer July 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm 5
This is fascinating. I have Crohn’s disease/inflammatory bowel disease so I sort of follow a similar path with my diet, although I can’t eat whole grains/fiber, so oats and most fresh fruits and veggies are out. I’ve come to love rice pasta and I had to cut red meat out of my diet entirely because it irritated my digestive system.
HopmasterSJ July 25th, 2008 at 2:05 pm 6
I wonder of the rider’s food hovers toward bland - flatulence in the peloton does not sound fun, but maybe effective.
Arnold July 25th, 2008 at 6:23 pm 7
Me too on the recipe request. Gotta try the brown rice pasta.
Pat Woods July 25th, 2008 at 10:13 pm 8
No Cilantro Lime Rice? Maybe I eat too much of it myself.

I saw in an earlier posting that you guys use Sushi rice, any other kinds of rice you might use?
Steven July 27th, 2008 at 12:38 am 9
Is that a Chipotle Borrito their eating?
Pam July 27th, 2008 at 7:26 pm 10
I hope there will be a book/cookbook. This is good information for those of us who don’t want to medicate but use food and exercise for optimum health.