Complete Proteins and Recovery Food

To inaugurate my brand-new, so fresh and so clean fitness blog I thought I would talk about something that is a great passion of mine: Food.

More specifically, I want to share one of my favorite post-workout foods and tell you why it's so cool.

When you exercise, you put stress on and deplete the fuel supplies of, your muscles. There is a 60-minute recovery window immediately following exercise in which those muscles need to be fed properly to maximize the effectiveness of that recovery. And this is important because muscles don't build during exercise; they build during rest so you have to make sure they have what they need to rebuild themselves properly.

And what is it that these finicky muscles need to rebuild? Protein. And while any protein is better then none, we don't settle here at The Walking Encyclopedia. We accept only the best. We want complete proteins.

It may help if you think of proteins like a composite brick, made of a collection of smaller elements. We can make parts of a brick, like mud, but we can't really make straw or stones. We have to get them from outside sources.

Proteins are made of these little things called amino acids, strung together. Your body's a pretty talented brick maker.And your body can make most of the amino acids necessary to produce a protein but there a number that it cannot. Those that we cannot produce are called "essential amino acids." Biological tradition holds that there are 8 essential amino acids but various sources claim 9 or even 10. Regardless of how many there are, we need them and can only get them through our diet. Foods that provide us with all of the essential amino acids are "complete proteins."

Cheese and most meats, including fish and chicken, are complete proteins. The problem is that these animal sources also typically contain fats and other nutrients that we don't want to eat too much of. So, for most people, plant sources are ideal. And of the list of grains that are complete proteins, we're going to feature my favorite: Quinoa.

I love this stuff. In fact, folks round here call me the Quinoa Crusader. No... no one calls me that. Even when I ask them to.

So why is quinoa so great? For starters: it's tasty. It's a good source of protein (6g per 1/4 cup), low in fat, contains iron, calcium, magnesium, fiber and a B-complex. Also and most importantly: it's really easy to cook.

But most people aren't satisfied with a plain ol' bowl of grains. Thankfully quinoa is easily infused into other recipes and I like to combine it with a really typical workout food: muffins.

What? When you think "workout food," you don't think "muffins?" Well you haven't met these muffins. Click here for the nutritional info of quinoa muffins.

Ok enough talk. Here's the recipe:

1 cup quinoa (always rinse your quinoa before using it)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups flour (our gluten-free friends can use garbanzo bean flour, but use 1 3/4 cup instead)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup raisins
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

First cook the quinoa. Place it in a small pot with 1 cup of water and bring it to a boil. Lower the temperature to a simmer, cover and cook until the water is absorbed. This usually takes about 10 minutes. Allow the quinoa to cool before adding it to the rest of the ingredients.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, raisins and quinoa in a large bowl. Make a hole in the middle and add the oil, milk, egg and vanilla. Stir.

Divide it up into a greased muffin tin. Bake the muffins at 350 for 25 minutes. You can also freeze these which is extremely convenient.

So there you have it: A simple, delicious, cheap and convenient food that you can grab after a workout to give your body everything it needs.

Enjoy!