Unorthodox Superfoods for BJJ

Hey Guys,

Here is an article that I wrote for the last issue of JiuJitsu Style Magazine. Make sure to have a nip over and look at my online articles for them (plus loads of great BJJ content). Also check out the latest issue, its got a great article on protein in there...

Here is the article,

Unknown Superfoods for BJJ

Food is good.

Whether you want to call it nutrition, a diet, fuel or some munch, we all love to eat a bit of food. And why wouldn’t we? We all train hard, taking care of business on and off the mat, we deserve a bit of nice, tasty nourishment right?

However it doesn’t stop there, many of us look at our food to give us better results. Whether it be a leaner body, more muscle or recovering quicker from the beatings that are handed out in tough sparring, BJJ athletes are starting to realise that their food is important to their success on the mat.

Unlike many other sports, health is often one of the top priorities of the BJJ athlete. Because of this, the term ‘superfoods’ often comes up. So what is a ‘superfood’? Well a superfood is a certain type (or types) of food that can dramatically increase our health, recovery or aid in our physique goals.

Many people know of the standard superfoods, but if you don’t here is a brief list of commonly known ones,

·      Broccoli

·      Grass fed beef

·      Wild caught Alaskan Salmon

·      Avocado

·      Extra Virgin Olive Oil

·      Natural Raw Honey

·      Blueberries

·      Turkey

·      Quinoa

There are many more (a quick Google will give you hundreds of lists), but often there are many great and slightly unusual ones that are left out from the list. With that in mind, here is a quick list of some of the lesser known, but amazing superfoods that you can add to your diet to help you stay healthy and recover quicker!

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is German for ‘sour cabbage’.

Sauerkraut is finely cut cabbage that has been fermented in lactic acid bacteria including Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. While the fancy names aren’t that important, it is the fact that it has been fermented in them that is.

As it has been fermented in these bacteria it has an amazing ability to improve your digestion and gut health because of the enzymes that it contains. This simply means that you can absorb more of the nutrients that you take in rather than it simply passing through your system.

It’s  low in calories, fat and carbs making it great for cutting weight.

Its is also incredibly high in vitamins C, B and K. It is also a good source of dietary fibre, folate, iron, potassium, copper and manganese. To top it all off, because of the fermentation process, it is also even more bioavailable (you digest it better and absorb more nutrients) than actual cabbage!

Kimchi

Kimchi is another fermented food.

It is made in Korea and is often a mix of vegetables that can contain tomatoes, chilli and garlic. Kimchi is often made in jars and left to ferment underground.

Just like Sauerkraut, it is very high in live bacteria (specifically lactobacillus kimchii) that to can aid digestion immensely. Just one serving of the superfood provides a person with over 50% of the daily requirement of vitamin C and carotene.

It is also highly rich in vitamin A, thiamine (vitamin B1 to me and you), riboflavin (vitamin B2), Calcium and iron!

Green Coffee Beans

I love coffee, you love coffee, everyone loves coffee. However this isn’t that type of coffee. The coffee that you are thinking of is a dark bean where these are green.

Green Coffee beans have been directly linked to help aid in fat burning (less fat helps you fit into your true weight class for competition).

Even though the beans are high in anti oxidants, it is the chlorogenic acid content that has been linked to their ability to help aid fat loss. The thing to note here are that the beans must be green.

When they are roasted the chlorogenic acid is broken down and therefore not present in normal coffee.

There have been a few concerns lately of whether it’s ok to take Green Coffee extract rather than using the bean. In a study done by the University of Scranton, they found that there was no detriment to using an extract instead of the actual bean.

Turmeric

Turmeric comes from the root of the Curcuma longa plant and has a tough brown skin and a deep orange flesh. Turmeric has long been used as a powerful anti-inflammatory in both the Chinese and Indian systems of medicine. Turmeric was traditionally called "Indian saffron" because of its deep yellow-orange color and has been used throughout history as a condiment and healing remedy.

While turmeric is a fairly well known spice found in most curries and mustard, many people still don’t seem to be using it in their dishes.

Not only will the spice make your food taste great (who doesn’t love a good curry) but it will also aid in helping reduce inflammation in the body. You know all those acting joints you get when you have a hard spar or someone viciously strips your grips? That’s inflammation. Less of this is good right?

The reason that it does this is down to the yellow, orangey colour of the spice. It contains curcumin.  Curcumin has also been linked to helping suffers of cancer, bowel disease and fibrosis suffers.

Horse

Right don’t all jump down my throats and start sending me hate E Mails because you loved My Little Pony as a kid and how dare I recommend you eat such a majestic beast etc, etc.

If we put aside the fact that most of us have great memories of riding ponies at the beach as children, and the recent scandal of horsemeat in supermarkets (which was about honesty, not what we were eating) and take a second to look at the nutritional profile of horse verses beef for a second.

Per 100g

Calories

Horse – 175g

Beef – 273g

Overall fat content

Horse – 2g

Beef - 18g

Protein

Horse – 28g

Beef – 25g.

As you can see, horsemeat is lower in calories and fat but higher in protein! This is probably due the animals diet. While most cows are fed grain to help plump them up for slaughter and sale, horses are free to roam and eat grass pretty much exclusively. Horse also contains double the amount of iron of beef and vitamins B6 and B12.

Now I’m not saying that you should run out and bump off black beauty, but if you can find horsemeat in a reputable butchers that has been slaughtered humanely and is prepared correctly (not processed) then you may want to take a look.

This is just a small list of slightly unknown superfoods that can help you recover better from training, improve your health, and add some new tastes to your food.

As with all nutrition, making sure you have a correctly balanced diet that contains everything you need is of the upmost importance. Take a few mins to see what you’re actually putting in your mouth, you may realise you can get more out of cheaper, less known food!

Stay healthy,

Mike