Gold Medal Olympian Hannah Teter (Halfpipe, 2006 Turin Winter Games) definitely had a secret weapon hidden in her breakfast arsenal.  She brought her family’s homemade Vermont maple syrup with her to Italy, and the competition didn’t stand a chance.  Sure, it was comfort food, sticky and sweet and made from her family’s own maple trees.  But maple syrup also has the health benefits of manganese and zinc, and is filled with antioxidants.  Could breakfast really play a role in an athlete’s competition results?

With everything we now know about nutrition, the effects of breakfast on an athlete’s big day are huge. When Olympians sit down at the table, they most likely refer to what they eat as their pre-competition meal.  The first time an athlete eats in the morning, he or she needs about 500 calories if there are two hours to go before the competition begins.  If the race or game is very early, they can get by with a 100-200 calorie snack.  Studies show that even a small carb with protein snack before a morning workout will give an athlete an endurance advantage.

While a good breakfast needs healthy fruits and vegetables, as well as some whole grain carbohydrates, an athlete has to balance all that fiber against his or her need to have a less active digestive system during competition.  Judges frown on toilet breaks during floor routines.

Athletes need more protein than sedentary people, and they need some of it at each of their meals.  A good steak and eggs, with a piece of fruit, could fuel someone to that elusive gold, especially if the meal contained grass-fed beef , which actually contains some Omega 3 acids.  Dr. Mercola suggests a crock-pot cooked protein meal of lesser expensive cuts of beef, timed to be ready and smelling delicious when the  athlete is lacing his or her training shoes.  And sometimes tradition is right on the money.  Whole eggs are newly (again) found to be perfect little foods, with the yolk and white combining ingeniously to provide excellent nutrition in a small caloric package:  boiled, scrambled, or sunny side up.

Olympic chef Jacque Hamilton is ready to feed our 600-athlete delegation to Beijing.  She is the executive chef of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, and will provide a full slate of Western meals for the athletes around the clock.  About 18 months ago, she began preparations for a performance-based menu for the U.S. team.  Athletes from various sports need grossly diverging calorie amounts in their diets, but all of them need balanced, nutritionally sound fare.  She’s banished cream and butter, and will be using Barilla plus pasta, which is made from whole grains and contains Omega 3s, in her recipes.

Some of the breakfast items Hamilton will be serving in Beijing will be oatmeal, whole wheat pancakes with sliced peaches, honey-glazed country ham, and sweet potato hash browns.  While Chinese food will abound, and fast food might be within the athletes’ grasp, she hopes to provide some of the comfort foods from home for the athletes, with recipes tweaked just subtly enough to be packed with nutrition for optimum performance for the day.

One item our athletes might not be adding to their muesli bowls is seal penis , but our host competitors might be tempted.  It’s one of the main ingredients in a popular Chinese athletic supplement, ‘Dalishen Oral Liquid.’  Chinese athletes have long relied on secret concoctions that are said to boost performance, and some well-known herbal ingredients have been adopted the world over as health supplements, such as ginseng and green tea.  Some of the others, such as turtle blood, have not caught on.  But what do Chinese athletes eat when they wake up?

The training diet in China is heavier on carbohydrates, about 70% of one’s caloric intake, than the Western version.  Yet Chinese nutritionists know that high-quality protein is still essential, and they tend to choose very nutrient-rich forms of protein to add to the rice and vegetables.  Marinated chicken, bits of fish, vegetables, and local varieties of dim sum constitute a full Chinese breakfast .  Tea is of course essential.  And for the finale, to rival our short stack drenched in maple syrup, they enjoy sticky rice pastries filled with red bean paste.  We at StickItMedia were introduced to them in China and found them addictively delicious.