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The Feed Zone Cookbook

Fast and Flavorful Food for Athletes

Published by VeloPress
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

The Feed Zone Cookbook offers 150 athlete-friendly recipes that are simple, delicious, and easy to prepare.

When Dr. Allen Lim left the lab to work with pro cyclists, he found a peloton weary of food. For years the sport’s elite athletes had been underperforming on bland fare and processed bars and gels. Science held few easy answers for nutrition in the real world, where hungry athletes must buy ingredients; make meals; and enjoy eating before, during, and after each workout, day after day.

So Lim set out to make eating delicious and practical. His journey began with his mom, took him inside the kitchens of the Tour de France, and delivered him to a dinner party where he met celebrated chef Biju Thomas.

Chef Biju and Dr. Lim vetted countless meals with the world’s best endurance athletes in the most demanding test kitchens. In The Feed Zone Cookbook: Fast and Flavorful Food for Athletes, Thomas and Lim share their energy-packed, wholesome recipes to make meals easy to prepare, delicious to eat, and better for performance.

The Feed Zone Cookbook provides 150 delicious recipes that even the busiest athletes can prepare in less time than it takes to warm up for a workout. With simple recipes requiring just a handful of ingredients, Biju and Allen show how easy it is for athletes to prepare their own food, whether at home or on the go.

The Feed Zone Cookbook strikes the perfect balance between science and practice so that athletes will change the way they think about food, replacing highly processed food substitutes with real, nourishing foods that will satisfy every athlete’s cravings.

The Feed Zone Cookbook includes
  • 150 delicious recipes illustrated with full-color photographs
  • Breakfasts, lunches, recovery meals, dinners, snacks, desserts
  • Dr. Allen Lim’s take on the science and practice of food
  • Portable real food snacks, including Lim’s famous rice cakes
  • Dozens of quick-prep meals for before and after workouts
  • Shortcuts, substitutions, and techniques to save time in the kitchen
  • Over 100 gluten-free and vegetarian alternatives to favorite dishes

About The Authors

Biju Thomas is a professional chef known for light, simple dishes bursting with bold flavors. He has designed the menus of many successful restaurants in Denver and Boulder, Colorado and has launched his own restaurant, Biju’s Little Curry Shop, in Denver’s up-and-coming RiNo neighborhood.

In 2009, Chef Biju teamed up with sports physiologist Dr. Allen Lim to improve the everyday diets and performance nutrition of professional cyclists and their teams. In the years since, Chef Biju has cooked for dozens of elite professional cyclists, teaching them the craft of cooking. His Feed Zone series of books with Lim, The Feed Zone Cookbook and Feed Zone Portables, feature 225 easy, healthy recipes and snack ideas for an active lifestyle.

Biju has been a chef for pro cycling teams and coordinated food for one of the sport’s biggest races, the Tour of California. Biju has also been the chef for the Dempsey/Del Piero Racing, a Grand-Am and Le Mans motorsports team. He also contributes recipes to Skratch Labs, Omega Juicers, and Map My Fitness.

Allen Lim is a sports physiologist, cycling coach, and a founder of Skratch Labs, a manufacturer of performance hydration mixes and the world's first active nourishment company. Beginning his coaching career with Jonathan Vaughters' TIAA-CREF cycling development team, Lim developed a method of testing for biological markers of performance enhancing drugs that led to cycling's Biological Passport. Lim was director of sport science for Garmin and RadioShack professional cycling teams and is the only American scientist to have worked and cooked for teams at the Tour de France. Lim has worked with dozens of top American cyclists to improve their performance and nutrition.

Product Details

  • Publisher: VeloPress (November 1, 2011)
  • Length: 320 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781937716431

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Raves and Reviews

"Food for a faster you. The recipes are simple, with generally eight ingredients or fewer, and take little time to prepare."

– Outside

"A book like this is invaluable. Whether you're like me or just a casual Sunday cyclist, you're going to love Feed Zone Portables...Don't be surprised if you ride longer and harder than ever before."

– Taylor Phinney, professional cyclist for BMC Racing Team and 2-time Olympian

"Primarily designed for cyclists to eat while riding, [these recipes] work just as well for runners when they've stopped running for exercise and started running to get to where they need to go on time."

– Runner's World

"You won't look at on-the-bike fueling the same way again."

– Triathlete

"Exercise physiologist Allen Lim, Ph.D. and chef Biju Thomas, authors of The Feed Zone cookbooks, have spent decades working with endurance athletes to find the balance between taste, sport-specific nutrition, and portability. One of their greatest contributions is the rice bar, a real-food version of the snack bar."

– Men's Health

"Recipes from Feed Zone are my new, not-so-secret training tool. They deliver huge taste and even bigger performance benefits."

– Rebecca Rusch, professional cyclist and 4-time winner Leadville Trail 100, 3-time 24-Hour Solo Mountain Bike World Champion

"More than 50 of the recipes are gluten-free, and most are vegetarian. All are designed for making quickly, and eating on the bike."

– Bike Radar

"After being introduced to The Feed Zone, I began to realize there was another way to eat that actually nourished me as an athlete. I didn't have to live off of processed bars, which dehydrated me and upset my stomach."

– Matt Segal, professional rock climber for North Face Athlete Team

"This book, co-authored by chef-to-the-cycling-stars [Biju] Thomas, is packed with healthy, at-home recipes for natural goodies that both satisfy hunger and keep you pedaling. Best of all, they're designed to go with you on the trail."

– Dirt Rag

"I never bonk when I have rice cakes in my pocket."

– Evelyn Stevens, professional cyclist for Team Specialized-lululemon, 2-time U.S. national time trial champion

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More books in this series: The Feed Zone Series