Endurance sports require endurance foods, quick energy; especially when you’re racking up the miles. From long-distance cycling to competing in an Ironman, a common thread in running is finding a reliable source to fuel their bodies. Some athletes carry honey packets, and others carry sugar-filled gel packets to provide a quick energy boost.
However, not all stamina supplements are created equal, at least according to Adam Melonaschef, winner of multiple Ironman podiums, founder and CEO of Chew, a Boston-based food innovation lab. While training for an Ironman, Melonas noticed a disturbing trend in the sports nutrition market. One, he says, forces athletes to consume artificial ingredients. This leads to compromising their higher food values and food restrictions.
This discovery set Melonas on the path to creating a line of cutting-edge endurance supplements and endurance foods. The goal: to use real ingredients designed to support the health and performance of endurance athletes of all levels around the world.
Lessons learned during endurance training
Melonas, a 20-year-old casual cyclist, during the COVID-19 pandemic decided to improve his fitness by training for an Ironman. From there, he hired a trainer and upped his training to around 20 hours a week.
During this time, he learned many lessons about life and endurance supplements that flooded the market.
“Running has provided me with some of the sharpest and most meaningful lessons,” Melonas says. “The first is the idea of ’one foot in front of the other’.
When you’re in your darkest moments, Melonas often says the solution is ahead of you. “By putting one foot in front of the other, you will eventually reach the finish line,” says Melonas. With this, the same lesson was applied to fast food creation. Eventually, Melonas and his team managed to bring to life what he feels is missing in the world of endurance supplements.
Is fast food the answer to endurance foods?
As a longtime food industry veteran, owner of restaurants in London, Shanghai, Dubai (two restaurants) and Madrid, Melonas says he knows a lot, maybe too much, about what goes into food. and how it affects your body and overall health. “I decided to start pushing my way through the flooded sports nutrition market,” he says. Most of the time, I would leave super irritated that they were mostly filled with artificial ingredients, failed performance, and broken promises.
From there, he tasked his innovation team with the challenge of creating the highest performing sports fuel possible. Made with nothing but real food.
SO how is the fast food the solution to endurance foods? “We’re building Fastfood on the simple premise of ‘scientific fact, not science fiction,'” Melonas says. fast-acting, as well as longer-acting fuels that reduce the cycle of peaks and crashes typically seen with sports fuels.”
Testing started first with himself, then with the extended Fastfood/Chew team. Then, over the past 12-18 months, the team has been testing and co-creating with some of the best athletes in the world. “We’ve heard from others and feel the huge difference when we eat fastfood and when we eat other people,” Melonas says.
Say goodbye to artificial ingredients
At Chew, the team has created over 4,500 consumer products that eliminate all artificial ingredients. But beyond what they eliminate, “we work hard to pack them with the most nutritional value possible,” says Melonas. With Fastfood, the rules were the same. But in this case, Melonas explains, it was an unwavering obsession with the highest performance possible.
“Right now, athletes are faced with a choice between fueling your efforts and maintaining strong nutritional values,” he says. “Many of the leading products contain ingredients that require sacrifice, and ‘natural’ products require you to sacrifice performance.”
And what athletes everywhere need are real ingredients to help them perform at their best.
The end goal?
Melonas and his team have launched performance fuels to use when you exercise. Over the past six months, they’ve also been testing real, whole foods that can be eaten anytime. “Like we believe races and competitions aren’t just won or lost by how you feed yourself while performing,” he says. “But the bulk of the impact, both positive and negative, is created by those hundreds of other choices you make day-to-day.”
Fastfood’s mission is to create a platform to help people live more dynamic and energetic lives. Through nutrition, they can be the best versions of themselves, increasing their lifespan, in a tastier way.
