Someone who is seriously passionate about fitness has probably gone through a series of research about food, supplements, etc. Especially when you get older and need to keep yourself healthy, maintain your muscle retention, and keep your energy level and bone density in check.
The list of the beneficial nutritional present in different foods is quite impressive. We need to understand that to be effective a diet has to be variegated, sufficient, and adequate; where variegated means to meet the whole range of nutrients needed to support your healthy life especially if you are pushing your body on a fitness regime. Sufficient means that you meet your daily need for every macro and micronutrient. And adequate means to not exceed the recommended or needed nutrient, especially if they have some substance that can bio-accumulate on your organism and become toxic over time.
The food choice for fitness.
As the population of fitness people is quite diverse and spread across different socio-economic groups we can anyway find some common characteristics that food must have:
1) food must be as nutritionally dense as possible, covering an array of nutrients.
2) food must need to be budget-friendly.
3) Always real food instead of high-processed supplements when possible.
Again, every food consumed in large quantity ( or abused ) is the recipe for disaster, common sense is always your best friend. For example, Salmon is an amazing food rich in protein, creatine, and healthy fat. But also contains some mercury which is toxic and leads to bio accumulates on your adipose tissue. So, needs to be consumed wisely.
The cost of food
On my fitness journey, I have ( and I`m still ) done a lot of research on the matter, always trying to add that little step ahead to increase the performance of my aging body. One of the things to be taken into account if you need to take fitness seriously is also to be realistic in terms of the food you need to consume.
Especially when we are facing rising inflation and the cost of living, food cost is something that has become increasingly necessary to consider when you make your diet plan. Salmon and other oily fish, beef, and pork tenderloin are expensive. If you are someone blessed with a high level of income that`s probably something that doesn`t affect you. But for the vast majority of people who have a passion for fitness but still are on average or below average income, food cost is an important factor to care about as the nutritional present in the food. Even we need to take into consideration that supplements are convenient but also quite expensive in the long run. So a cheaper food ( like egg, milk, etc) can provide the average fitness population with all the nutrients they need for a price that is affordable and extremely competitive in terms of Cost/efficiency.
Sardines
I`m an enthusiastic consumer of this fish: Is rich in protein, healthy fat, vitamin, and creatine. And, that`s the best part, is quite cheap, is also possible to buy it canned, frozen, or fresh. As I have noticed in my research, fresh is not so easy to find especially in London, but is possible to order online where you can buy them in bulk and freeze them at home. Or you can buy directly frozen, for a price even cheaper. If you plan you can find the best cost for everything. But for this article, I`m considering a standard scenario, which is common for many people.
The investigation
For my standard scenario, I have considered some popular grocery stores present almost everywhere here in the UK, and I have chosen the average regarding prices and food quality. I have also chosen two popular kinds of meat, one popular kind of fish, and finally the sardines. The expensive and the cheaper of both categories.
For the meat I have taken Chicken breast and ground beef (80/20) For the fish, I have taken salmon fillet and canned sardines. I have also taken into account a brand supplement, one of my favorite. I have taken My Protein, a brand that is popular, with good quality and average price. The nutrient content I have taken into consideration are:
Protein content ( as all the food in question has high-quality protein content). D vitamin complex and B vitamin complex. Fat and creatine content.
Some vitamin complexes are better on some of the foods I have chosen. But I`m putting them on the list just for the sake of knowledge as the diet has to be varied and all the vitamins consumed are important.
What I`m more interested in is the content of Protein, omega 3 and 6, and creatin. ( For the creatine I have found discordant data online for the different foods of my investigation, so take them with a pinch of salt).
Food Analysis.
For this discussion, I considerate portion of 100g of each food, and I calculate the cost for a gram of proteins:
Ground Beef ( 80/20 ). average cost: 0.5£ for100g
Protein content: 17.2g
B3 26%DV, B6 19%DV, B12 89%DV
Om3 4%AI, Om6 2%AI
Creatin 0,25g
Chicken Brest, average cost 0.630£ for100g
Protein content: 22.5g
B3 60%DV, B5 30%DV, B6 48%DV
Om3 1%AI, Om6 2%AI
Creatin 0.22g
Salmon fillet, average cost 1.9£ for 100g
Protein content 20.4g
B3 54%DV, B5 31%DV, B6 37%DV, B12% 135%DV, D 55%DV
Om3 157%AI, Om6 5%AI
Creatin 0,45g
Sardines canned, average cost of 0.5£ for 100g
Protein 24.6g
B3 33%DV, B12 373%, D 24%DV
Om3 61%AI, Om6 21%AI
Creatin 0,34
Impact whey protein powder ( my protein ) = 4.9£ X 100g
Protein 23g per 30g serving = 76.7g of protein per 100g product
Cost for g of proteins
Grounded beff 80/20 = 0.029 £/g
Cicken Breast = 0.028 £/g
Salmon = 0.093 £/g
Sardines canned = 0.020£g
My protein = 0,054 £/g
Conclusion.
We need also to consider the so-called "bioavailability" of the proteins by source. That means the amount of total proteins that are effectively utilized by the body. On the bio-availability index, we have the whey protein powder at 104, fish at 83, beef at 80, and chicken at 79.
Whey protein powder has the highest cost in terms of a gram of proteins and has the best score in terms of bioavailability. But the other foods are still high in rank in terms of bioavailability and except for the salmon much less costly in terms of grams of proteins. We also have to see that a protein supplement like the one take into account doesn't provide any extra nutritional value to your diet. When all the food on the panel examined, provides a vast degree of nutrition content, such as vitamin B e D, creatin, and very important fats like omega 6 and 3. Plus several other vitamins and minerals, that I have excluded from this article.
Even if canned sardines are not the best food I suggest you eat for a long period (I suggest you order frozen, you can find them for an extremely cheaper price than canned), they confirm to be an extremely cheap source of quality proteins, with an extremely nutrient-dense profile. Is important to clarify that protein supplements are not supposed to be used as food, and I`m not advocating pro or against.
As I said at the beginning of this article, always use common sense.
Rasmussen, Christopher & Greenwood, Mike & Kalman, Douglas & Antonio, Jose. (2008). Nutritional Supplements for Endurance Athletes. 10.1007/978-1-59745-231-1_11.
Determination of creatine, creatinine, free amino acid and heterocyclic aromatic amine contents of plain beef and chicken juices - PMC (nih.gov)
Elbir Z, Oz F. Determination of creatine, creatinine, free amino acid and heterocyclic aromatic amine contents of plain beef and chicken juices. J Food Sci Technol. 2021 Sep;58(9):3293-3302. doi: 10.1007/s13197-020-04875-8. Epub 2020 Nov 18. PMID: 34366447; PMCID: PMC8292545.
Bioaccumulation of methylmercury within the marine food web of the outer Bay of Fundy, Gulf of Maine - PMC (nih.gov)
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