What Goes into Feeding an NFL Team?

it's very different cooking for professional athletes than a normal person these guys are very hungry we go through a crazy amount of food my name is Connor McGuire I'm the executive chef for the Washington Redskins I feed the players and the staff at their practice facility in Ashburn Virginia when they first built this kitchen they wanted to make sure that it was state-of-the-art we have top-of-the-line ovens a wok station and a pasta extruder where we make our own pasta we have a brick up and that gets up to about 700 degrees it can cook a pizza in about two minutes we have a walk-in cooler where we can store proteins and vegetables and produce to make sure that we have enough food in here to feed these guys we want to cook with a high end of mindset but cook food that was very familiar to players every day we do multiple proteins high quality starches and vegetables we give them pasta a stir-fry very low calorie pizza we have salad bar where they can get fresh cut vegetables that we prepare every day they're getting a quality meal that's also helping them perform on the field hey Scott McCoy checking in from residents Park down here at Redskins cafeteria here look we've got mahi-mahi with a little greens a little sweet potato doesn't get better than that [Music] nutrition is really key throughout camp just keeping guys fueled and keeping them going throughout the day this time of year offseason program we're trying to change body composition we're trying to improve strength increase power improve conditioning it's a two hour really tough hot practice that we go through and then you're right in the recovery mode and these guys go through extreme amount of food we go through anywhere from 75 portions to 101 lunch period this morning we got in 45 pounds of Chilean seabass yesterday we got in about a hundred and twenty pounds of salmon every day it'll be about 40 pounds of chicken breast 45 pastas 30 stir fries 8 to 12 thin crust pizza as countless vegetables you know we're bringing in 25 pounds of carrots twice a week so it's definitely a large amount that we do every single day personally I don't like to drop anyone on a team below 3,000 calories when they're in a big training phase of the year so we have guys that are up over 5,000 calories that they take like a Ryan Kerrigan for example Ryan's roughly 260 pounds he's a very big strong muscular guy it's gonna cost his body at least 5,000 calories a day just to maintain that so this time of year in a 8 week period we'll go through about 150 200 cases of protein shakes some guys multiple shakes a day an incredible amount we have a lot of other products bars electrolyte drinks and there's a big responsibility for the players when they go downstairs not to just grab whatever they see out but to know what to grab and how much to grab and that's really where the art comes in with nutrition always you know run by everybody speed kills Jeff Connor has an extensive knowledge of food and how to prepare food he's really like the magician behind all this so I talked with Connor about what's best for our players from a performance aspect and then he puts it all into action ordering all the food that we need deciding how we're gonna plate food deciding the menus for the week some guys need high carbs some guys need low carbs some guys need higher protein than others some guys need higher healthier fats so when they go down there Connor knows exactly what to put on their plate hey this guy needs extra serving a protein this guy needs extra serving of carbs that's really the art of it every single thing that we do here is geared towards making them better as a football player got our own smoothie bar over here before we make in Jay Reid where you got what all you got in there are you lactose intolerance disgusting but hey whatever floats your boat all right as a chef I want to keep doing new things I want to keep providing different items for them to keep them interested one of the things that I love about this job is I get to introduce new foods to people almost weekly this is our Mediterranean style ball it has sauteed vegetables carrots peppers cucumber and tomato salad sauteed chicken roasted red pepper hummus and rice with physique II a lot of times when you think of healthy food it's very bland dry piece of chicken and steamed broccoli and like a baked potato so we wanted to make sure that the food was good here is our thrilled pork tenderloin dish it has quinoa and broccolini and the sauce is a roasted shallot reduction now the players have their certain favorite items like our beef bolognaise at the beginning a lot of rookies tend to go towards that and through that you can get them to open up and maybe they eventually end up trying a piece of fish this is our salmon dish it is seared Scottish salmon quinoa with mixed vegetables roasted broccolini and the sauce is a chipotle cilantro vinaigrette when I introduce a new dish that first they may be skittish about angle what is this and I go no no I just try it and I kind of explain or walk them through it and then they eat it and this was amazing I never had this before here we have a cilantro soubise it is a onion pureed sauce with roasted chicken carrots tomatoes a little bacon peas and corn especially when guys come from other teams I always make sure how's the food over there how's the food you know with that organization they go it's nothing compared to here we had all kinds of options over here yeah we healthy around here is this better than Stanford of course of course is better than chicken of the salad it's a typical alignment meal right here I don't see me from almost any pizza on there what about you another old limonene salad can you believe we got full pizza bar over there best pizza in Loudoun County in this building I mean looks look at this crowd we got that cooking lunch for us every day they've been here since 3:00 in the morning working hard for the best hey thanks for thanks for tuning in rescues cafeteria good day our chefs are great and I'm full [Music]

Channel: NFL

Views: 10,384,142

Keywords: nfl, nfl network, football, american football, food prep, nutrition, football nutrition, sports nutrition, what goes into feeding a football team, meal prep, healthy meal prep, healthy recipes, redskins, washington redskins, how to eat like an nfl player

Id: YjjLw4qypw0

Length: 6min 59sec (419 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2019