The Healthiest Starch/Pre-Race Meal

This spud's for you.

Pasta is the traditional answer to the question of what's the best carb-loading, pre-race meal. But that's really not the best you can do. Remember, pre-race you want to build up vitamins and minerals - especially electrolytes like potassium.

If you were just after simple carbs, you could just eat candy and wash it down with full-sugar soda. That would add carbs just as easily as pasta. But it wouldn't be very long lasting carbs, and wouldn't add anything nutritionally.

For quality, complex carbs you need grains or other starches. Pasta certainly fills the bill as far as that's concerned, but as I said it's not as good as you can do.

Among grains, quinoa has more protein, but it's not about that either.

Rice is certainly the most popular grain in the world, and marathoners from Asia swear by it. But rice doesn't give the most nutrition for the bang, either.

The winner is potatoes. Don't believe me? Check this out. I'll even compare ENRICHED rice and pasta, and BEFORE cooking. Here's 200 calories worth of... (sorry about the crummy formatting - blogspot doesn't hold tables well).

................White Potato .....White Rice ....White Pasta

Calories .......... 198 .................201 ...........200
Carbs ................ 44 .................44 ..............40
Fiber ................ 4.4 ................0.7 ............ 1.7
Calcium ............ 21 .................15 .............. 11
Potassium ....... 1,142 .................63 ............120
Copper ........... 0.27 ..............0.12 ........... 0.16
Vit. C ................. 27 .............. 0 ................0
Pantothenic Acid.. 0.80 ....... 0.56 ............ 0.23
Vit. B-6 ............ 0.44 ......... 0.09 ........... 0.08

Oh, you want to compare sweet potatoes, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta? Like before, this is rice and pasta BEFORE cooking.

------------------------ Sweet Potato --- Brown Rice -- Whole Wheat Pasta

Calories .........................198 ................. 200 ............... 198
Carbs ............................ 46 ................... 42 .................. 43
Fiber ............................. 7.3 .................. 1.9 ................. 5.0
Calcium ........................ 84 ...................12 .................... 23
Potassium .................. 1,045 .................120 ................. 123
Copper ........................ 0.35 ................. 0.15 ................ 0.26
Vit. C ............................ 43 ....................0 .....................0
Pantothenic Acid .......... 1.95 ..................0.81 ................ 0.56
Vit. B-6 ....................... 0.63 ................. 0.27 ............... 0.13

So the next time you're thinking night-before-race meal, don't think pasta. Think potatoes, especially sweet potatoes.

Tempeh Shepherdess Pie

And hey, speaking of comfort foods, which I was in my last post a couple of weeks ago...

Note - sorry about the delay in posting, but meals have been really routine lately - beans and rice, stir-fry with store-bought stir-fry sauce featuring a tofu attempt that didn't work out right, and baked potatoes with peas and carrots cooked in a ginger-sesame sauce (oops - I suppose I should have blogged and photo'd that last one).

... here's a veganized old favorite that I found when looking up tempeh recipes in my favorite cookbook - Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's Veganomicon.

Who doesn't like Shepherd's Pie - mashed potatoes with good fillings? And who doesn't like one-dish casseroles? I don't see any hands raised, so I must be right.

Put those two ideas together and you've got an oldie, but a goodie. Veganize it and the fillings include cremini mushrooms, tempeh simmered in a soy sauce, peas, corn and spices.

Being a casserole, the recipe makes its own mushroom gravy. I used yellow mashed taters - my favorite being Klondike Gold. Talk about a creamy tater - even when just baked plain - wow!

This one was another creative winner from Veganomicon. I'll definitely be making it again.

TEMPEH SHEPHERDESS PIE RATING - 8