Here is the second part to this two part series. You can read the first part by clicking here.

6) Orange Juice – I use orange juice for pre- and post workout/ ride drinks. Sure, you can spend a lot of money on fancy recovery drinks but I’m not sure that you will get much more out of them than you will a cup of orange juice and a half scoop of whey protein. This gives you roughly 30 grams of carbs, 15 grams of protein and bunch of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. I get the pulp free kinds so I don’t have that sitting on my stomach while I ride or train.

7) Ground Flax Seed – While a lot of people have heard of and use flax seed oil, few people make use of ground flax seeds. Ground flax seeds have some unique properties that make it more valuable than the oil in my opinion. For starters it is a great source of fiber, something we all could use more of. Second, it binds to estrogenic compounds in the body and inhibits them from screwing with our hormonal system. FYI, estrogenic compounds are environmental things we ingest that mimic the female hormone estrogen in our body. Anything that helps me poop better and keeps my female hormone levels in check is pretty good in my book.

8) Avocados – Avos taste great and provide a lot of good fats for us. For those of us who have trouble maintaining weight when we ride a lot avocados provide a calorie and nutrient dense food that can help us keep our calorie levels high. For those looking to shed a few pounds you don’t want to eat a ton of avocados but eating some will provide you with the good fats your body needs to keep its metabolism high.

9) Quinoa – This is a “super grain” of sorts. It has a low glycemic index so it won’t screw with blood sugar levels like refined grain products will. Since a lot of people have allergies to wheat and gluten it provides a good carb source free of those two elements. It is also the only grain in the world with a complete protein, meaning that all of the essential amino acids are in there as well. Add it all up and it should be a staple food in any mountain biker’s kitchen.

10) Lean Red Meat – Yeah baby, I said it – red meat rocks! Seriously, we have canine teeth for a reason and that reason is because we were meant to eat meat. Lean red meat will provide you with protein as well as some CLA (a unique and powerful fatty acid) and some saturated fat (which is not as bad as you may think and is in fact needed by the body). Plus it just tastes good. What says summer more than a wrapping up a sweet ride with some burgers or steaks on the barbeque?

There you have it, my list of Mountain Biking Superfoods. Sure, there are lots of great foods I did include but the intention of this list was not to create an all encompassing food list. Rather, I just wanted to tell you about the foods I personally keep around and use a lot in my quest to keep nutrition as simple as possible.

The trick to making good nutritional decisions is to make sure that you have good stuff on hand so that when you get hungry you can just reach for something good rather than always reaching for the ice cream. Keeping these foods on hand will help you do just that.

-James Wilson-