Food energy is the energy that we get from eating food. And different types of foods give us different levels of energy.
My name is Mayur Ranchordas, and I’m a sports nutritionist. We help professional athletes and elite athletes eat better to perform better and recover better.
So when we talk about food, not all foods are the same. So some foods are what we call carbohydrates, like rice, pasta, potato, cereal, and they give us energy. Then you’ve got protein, meat and fish, they help in repairing muscle. Then you have fats, and fats are very energy-dense, so things like butter, avocados, and they give us a lot of energy. And depending on what you’re doing, what training you’re doing, what sport you compete in, the demand changes.
If I was a marathon runner, I would be covering 80-100 miles a week, and that means I have a much greater reliance on fats and carbohydrates. As a sprinter, you might use carbohydrate only because you need to access that energy very quickly.
The most surprising food that you would not think gives you energy is actually milk. So milk contains protein, it contains carbohydrate, it also contains electrolytes like sodium, potassium that are great for hydration. Milk is a bit of a superfood really.
If you’re interested in sport and if you’re interested in food and you’re interested in how they both interact with each other, then sports nutritionist is definitely the job for you.
