The moment I put the piece of tuna sashimi into my mouth, I thought,
I was standing across from Hannah Grant, the first female chef for the Tour De France, as she thinly sliced the tuna Iâd watched her catch on a fishing boat in the Mediterranean that morning. She was preparing dinner for the eight riders on Team Orica-Scott (the Australian team at this yearâs race), who were about to finish Stage 20 of the race in Marseilles. And I was thereâme, an avid road cyclist, having a serious pinch-me moment.
Grant, a Danish chef who has worked in world-renowned restaurants like Noma and The Fat Duck, has spent the last seven years cooking for elite cyclists. This year, she embedded with Team Orica-Scott as video cameras followed her for an as-yet untitled Amazon docuseries inspired by her book, The Grand Tour Cookbook. I was invited along to watch her work her culinary magic for the final three stages of the Tour.
I talked to Grant about the importance of sourcing local, organic meats and produce for her athletes, who need every bit of nutrition and calories they can get over the 23-day endurance race that covers 2,200 miles. I shopped with her at a farmerâs market, studying how she chooses one tomato over another. I grilled her about how she plans each dayâs menu, considering she must strike a balance between giving the riders what they want and what they need.
Spending time with Grant, the âQueen of Performance Cooking,â as sheâs known among pro cyclists, changed the way I eat. Hereâs how.
Iâm on the hunt for super-ugly fruits and veggies.
While walking around a farmerâs market in Marseilles with Grant as she shopped for produce for the athletesâ meal that night, I noticed her steering clear of anything that looked too perfect. Instead, she was scrummaging for gnarled carrots and misshapen potatoes. âThe wonkier it looks and the smaller it is, the better it tastes,â Grant tells me as she picks up a shiny tomato and immediately puts it back down. âThe uglier your produce, the greater the chance that it hasnât been genetically modified or sprayed with pesticides,â she says. âAnd that means better nutrition for the athletes.â
While I can only find unofficial experiments and a handful of dietitians to confirm this, it makes sense to me. Each week, I open my box of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organic produce and itâs loaded with fruits and veggies that the Japanese would call âwabi sabiââa phrase loosely translated as, âthereâs beauty in imperfection.â But when I go to the grocery store, even the organic sections are filled with perfectly-symmetrical produce that now make me wonder how it could possibly be so pretty. Plus, the âugly produceâ often gets tossed just on appearances alone, leading to billions of dollars in food waste, according to The Guardian.
So now, I look for the ugliest fruits and veggies I can find. While Iâm not 100 percent sure of the particular health benefits they offer over other options, these guys taste just as goodâand thatâs good enough for me.
Iâm not quite as scared of sugar anymore.
So many diets advocate cutting sugar. Iâve tried this tactic myself (I recently did The Whole 30 and felt great), but feel pretty strongly that a life without the occasional bagel, ice cream cone, or slice of key lime pie is one I donât want to live. When I asked Grant for her take on the white stuff, she shared her golden rule: âSugar on the bike is completely fine,â she says. âEat as much sugar as you want when youâre riding. But when you get off the bike, opt for natural sugars over artificial ones, and know that the more sugar you eat, the more sugar youâll crave.â
To keep the team happy and healthyâafter all, sugar has been shown to have negative effects on gut health and immunityâGrant gets a little sneaky. âI made a chickpea blondie brownie that had much less sugar than regular brownies and went over really well,â says Grant. âI also serve a ton of poached fruit and fresh berries. The beauty is that when the sugar you eat is really good quality, less feels like more.â
The bottom line: Some sugarâparticularly the natural sweeteners like honey, agave, and even pure, organic cane sugarâis A-okay when youâre blasting calories on a bike ride, run, hike, or some other physically grueling activity. Now, when I have something sweet, I make sure itâs high qualityâand that I sneak a HIIT workout in at some point that week.
Iâm paying closer attention to my mood when planning meals.
For the cyclists competing in the Tour de France, eating can feel as punishing as hauling up the Pyrenees on their bikes. Yes, theyâre hungry when theyâre done riding. âBut these athletes are burning about 7,000 calories a day,â Grant says. Which means that in one day, they need to consume the same amount of food most people eat over the course of three or four days.
While that may sound kind of dreamy, hereâs what these guys put down for breakfast alone: eggs, oatmeal or rice, muesli, a smoothie, homemade sourdough bread, ham, cheese, avocado, cold-pressed olive oil, yogurt, dried fruits, nuts, and milk. For dinner itâs always two types of protein (usually chicken and beef or fish), rice, pasta, and as many greens as Grant can get the guys to eat. While itâs all locally sourced and prepared by Grantâwho has worked at Michelin-star restaurantsâand her team of professional chefs, food boredom can set in quickly. To avoid this, Grant not only takes into account the difficulty of each stage, but also the teamâs mood when planning the menu. âAt the start of the tour when the energy is high, Iâll serve salads and broccoli,â she says. As the stages get tougherâand moods get darkerâshe serves comfort foods like French fries and macaroni and cheese.
Thereâs a lesson in here for me: When I finish a morning workout feeling great, Iâll make the effort to fry up some turkey sausage and cauliflower rice or make myself a veggie scramble. Other morningsâoften when Iâm slammed with work and short on time, or if I felt low on energy during my workout and ticked off about that as a resultâIâm more likely to pick up a muffin at my local coffee shop.
So Iâve started prepping for my darker moods. I keep a batch of homemade peanut butter energy balls in my freezer so Iâve got a protein-packed snack to eat immediately after a tough bike ride or hike to indulge my need for comfort while still making healthy choices. I also store just-right portions of frozen fruit and veggies for my favorite smoothieâincluding the protein powderâso all I have to do is toss the contents of one bag in the blender with some almond or hemp milk. And on those mornings when what Iâm really craving is a big plate of Challah French toast, I make some with multi-grain bread.
Iâm incorporating good-for-me foods I donât love with at least two foods I
When Grant first started cooking for cyclists seven years ago, the food professional riders ate could be called basic, at best: grilled chicken, a salad buffet, tons of white pasta, and ketchup doused on everything to help it go down, says Grant. When she changed things up, serving more nutrient-dense vegetables and sides like brown rice, there was some dissent among the cyclists.
Thatâs when Grant got creative. Sheâd add a food the cyclists dreaded, like broccoliââBroccoli is dangerous,â says Grantâto two foods that the cyclists liked a lot. âThen, the magic happens,â she adds. âI trick them into trying something and then they actually like it. Once I reach that kind of trust, the door opens to all kinds of other foods.â
When I got home from France, I opened one of the three jars of gourmet sauerkraut that have been sitting in my fridge for months, purchased after I wrote a story on the benefits of fermented foods (despite the benefits, I never got on board with sauerkraut). I added a tablespoon of dill and caraway kraut on top of a brown rice bowl filled with grilled chicken, broccoli florets, and black beans and suddenly, the pickled cabbage was WAY more appetizing, and added a unique flavor to my go-to bowl. Sure enough, Iâve already finished that jar and cracked into a second.