Study shows potatoes can replace sports nutrition

Special nutrition has gained a strong foothold in professional and amateur sports. Depending on the type, it helps to repair muscles after a workout or to energize them during a high-intensity workout. Usually, athletes purchase such supplements for a decent price. However, in the last six months, two scientific studies have proven that the most common potato is on a par with sports drinks in terms of effectiveness.

Nutrition during a race: potatoes vs. carbohydrate gels

In December 2019, the American edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology published a study by scientists from the University of Illinois. Kinesiology and health experts selected 12 cyclists and divided them into three groups. The first group was supplemented with carbohydrate gels during a two-hour ride, the second with mashed potatoes, and the third group simply drank water. During the test, the athletes’ blood glucose and lactic acid concentrations were constantly checked.

As a result of the experiment, it was found that potatoes and special gels were equally good as compared to water for maintaining energy during an endurance race. Blood samples from the first two groups were also similar: glucose levels remained identical.

Still, there were disadvantages to consuming starchy foods. When eating potatoes intensively during sports load, the riders complained of abdominal bloating, flatulence and sometimes pain. But the scientists noted that on average there were fewer gastrointestinal problems this time than in previous tests, and both supplement options were tolerated well by the athletes.

The director of the study, Prof. Nicholas Brood, said that with their experience the experts wanted to prove the existence of worthy alternatives to commercial sports nutrition. And that carbohydrates can also be found in whole food sources.

Potatoes help restore muscle energy after exertion

Another fresh study, conducted at the University of Montana, was published by the authoritative scientific portal European Journal of Applied Physiology. Now eight men and the same number of women participated in the test. They had to ride a bicycle for an hour and a half, then rest and get recovery nutrition, and lastly to fix everything 20-kilometer race for time.

At the end of the experiment, the experts took blood tests and muscle biopsies from the participants. The results showed that the muscles of all the athletes replenished their glycogen stores after exertion equally well with both potato-based foods and sports supplements.

Brent Ruby, one of the authors of the study, said that athletes practicing endurance training often talk about the strictness of their diet. But now they can diversify their diet by looking at other carbohydrate-containing foods.

As long as you get enough carbohydrates, your diet can be as varied as you want it to be.

Expert opinion: how do you explain the research findings?

Comparing potatoes to specialty sports nutrition is probably surprising to many people. Therefore, to understand the results of the two scientific experiments in detail, we talked to sports doctor Ibraim Chibichev.

Ibraim: Of course, quite ordinary products can partially replace sports drinks, which entered the market in order to quickly and affordably meet the demand. But again – this is marketing, which requires a certain amount of offloading. If we dive into both the composition of gels and natural products, carbohydrates are present to a large extent, of course, both there and there. They are necessary not to restore muscles after an intense load, but to replenish the energy consumption that occurs in cyclic sports. Accordingly, the muscles will recover due to the protein component. The second study is about replenishing glycogen in the muscles. This is an energy resource that allows the muscle to work for a period of time. It’s a derivative of the carbohydrate component. And glycogen is synthesized in our liver, we need a source of carbohydrates for that. So the recovery of damaged fibers, namely myoglobin itself, is out of the question – it happens only at the expense of protein. And the resources of any carbohydrate character compensates exactly the energy of the muscle.

There are two types of athletes in cyclic sports. The first use sports supplements because it is fast, convenient and their bioavailability is quite good. And the second type of people are athletes who prefer balanced foods. For example, dried fruits or fruits, which can be either the same or similar in composition to sports supplements. Potatoes are rich in starch – a large amount of carbohydrates. And this includes B vitamins, which are also kind of antioxidants. If we take gels, there are mainly carbohydrates, vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and some additives so that absorption starts directly in the mouth and there is a high bioavailability. Therefore, it is possible to compare two ingredients, two substrates for nutrition. Both in terms of level and quality of bioavailability, gels will be slightly higher than potatoes: they are just more convenient in terms of nutrition. Can one be substituted for the other? Absolutely, yes. Here you just have to take into account the composition and see which product will show the highest efficiency. Therefore, carbohydrate loading can be done with almost anything. Potatoes are well suited for this function.

I have quite a large number of patients who dislike sports nutrition not for commercial reasons, but for taste criteria. Or it is not suitable for them by the load on the GI tract, and someone just wants to chew. After all, the era of sports nutrition came not so long ago, it is still more commercial in nature, promoted by all kinds of supplements. And some people manage to contaminate sports nutrition with banned drugs. Against this background, a large number of scandals arise. Therefore, athletes are wary of these nuances and use the usual recovery. A few decades ago, the same Olympic Games were held at a fairly high level. And athletes from cyclic sports quietly conducted recovery only thanks to natural foods.