On Tuesday, the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club podcast had a notable guest: INEOS Grenadiers Chef James Forsyth. During the interview, the kitchen professional told some secrets about the team’s diet and also revealed some fun situations involving the British team.
Weighing of dishes started three years ago
“When I joined the team, we didn’t use to weigh food. As a cyclist, all you had to do was sit at the buffet and choose your meal.”
“Only in the last three years have we started to look dish by dish and dose by dose. Now we are working on nutrition in a much more individualized way”, says Forsyth.
“Everyone eats in their own way and this differs a lot from cyclist to cyclist. Filippo Ganna, for example. He usually has a meal plan, but when it’s an important day and he normally eats three hundred grams of pasta, he still orders a second dish.”
Richie Porte takes the pan off the table
“If he (Ganna) sees a pot of chocolate on the table, he can’t contain himself. He especially likes the Italian chocolate spread ‘Nocciolata’ because it is healthier and better than Nutella. Richie Porte used to even take the pan off the table.”
Food shouldn’t be very tasty
Who is the hardest cyclist to cook for? “Tom Pidcock!”, says the INEOS Chef without a doubt. “It’s not difficult to cook, but it is demanding. He has nothing to do with the texture of the food, but every day he makes a comment. Sometimes that’s an expensive comment, like truffle.”
“If you already have a nutritional plan ready and a cyclist arrives at around 5pm with a comment, it is sometimes difficult to incorporate it into the diet. Furthermore, you should not make the food too tasty, otherwise athletes will eat too much. That was a big discussion, especially in the past,” concluded Chef James Forsyth.
