One question that is often asked to us here at Team Wild is how to bulk and do it cheaply. Its not actually difficult and can be done for under £50 for most people, each and every week.
Where do you get your food from?
Firstly one needs to procure their protein source. We use two suppliers for supplements. For whey protein, we use Protein Works. This is our bulk supplier of whey protein. At £51.99 for 4kg of whey concentrate, they offer superb value for money, with no poor fillers or protein (eg rice protein/pea protein/soy etc).
All other supplements we get from Prozis, our sponsor and the best etailer in Europe of branded supplements.
For our meat and egg whites, we either use a local butchers (not a lot of use to most of you lot!) or a company online called MuscleFood. When using our code STEAK you’ll get free steak with your order!
For our carbs, we tend to use the major supermarkets – Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys. We don’t have a faviourate, we simply buy whoever is stocking the cheapest version of the food we want of the highest quality.
For carbs, we eat the following, oats, sweet potatoes, baby potatoes, rice (basmati or jasmine), quinoa and barely.
Again, for fats, we stick to the major supermarkets – Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys. We tend to use extra virgin coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil or rapeseed oil.
How do you cook your meat and eggs?
This is the easy part. Now there is a million and one ways you can cook your foods (www.youtube.com is a great inspiration for ideas) but usually we keep it simple. We will cover the basics here.
Chicken
Firstly, thoroughly wash your chicken (make sure fully defrosted if frozen) under running water. Now it won’t get rid of any bacteria however any dirt/grime/hair/globules of blood that has somehow found its way onto the chicken will be washed off.
Secondly, grab a large roasting dish. Put foil at the bottom. Put into the roasting dish 6-8 to eight large chicken breasts. Sprinkle with your preferred herbs (we use basil and parsley).
Cover the breasts with foil firmly and put in the oven at 180c (356f) for 50 minutes from cold. This will ensure the breast is cooked all the way through, and remain juicy and fresh.
Eat within 3 days of cooking (store in fridge) or freeze for longer keeping. Remember to allow time for the chicken breasts to cool.
Steak
Steak is a very easy one to do. Wash the steak, as per the chicken to ensure free from an grime/hair etc. Preheat frying pan.
Weigh allotted food out on scales – don’t eye it – people always get it wrong when guessing.
Throw onto preheated pan. Matt likes his steak blue so he keeps his steak on the pan until each side has brown and then takes it to eat, this requires a very hot pan, and we put it on the top setting. Yo prefers well done/medium rare so we turn the temperature down to just above medium heat to allow the steak to cook through without burning it.
Eggs
It depends if we are doing hardboiled eggs or using liquid egg whites.
For hardboiled simply boil water on stove. When water is boiling put eggs in boiling water on stove for 3 mins at full heat. Then turn off heat and cover with pan lid. Leave for about 20 minutes. You have perfectly cooked eggs. That simple!
For egg whites, it can be equally be simple. Preheat a pan on medium heat, weigh out required egg whites. Pour egg white into pan and cook until the egg white is firm all over the top (not running at all) and plate up.
Finally, with egg whites we also like to use some carbs with them.
Simply measure out the egg whites you need, and pour in precooked rice or raw eggs and have a preheated pan for mixture on medium heat. You may then wish to blend the mixture – it creates a pancake like mix.
Pour into preheated pan and cook until solidified.
What about cooking rice and potatoes, I struggle with that?
Again, very easy. Don’t cook one item at a time. Cook in batches. You can cook at least a couple of days worth of food simply by thinking ahead.
Rice
Rice is very easy. Put a day or two’s worth of dry weight rice into a mixing bowl. Pour in water to about 1-2cm above the level of rice. Put into the microwave and cook for 20 minutes. You can do the same on stove on medium heat. On a stove you do need to keep mixing to prevent the mixture sticking however.
When cooked, divide into meal boxes/batches for the number of meals you’ve cooked for. For example, Matt uses around 400g rice per day. This bulks up to around 1200g when cooked, so he will divide into the number of meals he is having – if he needs four meals at 100g uncooked weight, it would be around 300g cooked (1200g divided by 4 meals is 300g) and so into each tub he will put 300g into each tub.
Potatoes
Another easy one, that will take a little while to cook. Preheat oven to 180-190c.
So place the potatoes straight on to the centre shelf of the oven and let them bake for 1¾-2 hours depending on the size of the potatoes, or until the skins are really very crisp. Keep checking them to ensure they are not being over done.
Once cooked and cooled, chop into desired portion size and put in fridge (for upto 3 days) or freezer to store.
Fats – when do I use them?
We prefer to actually dry fry our foods allowing the natural moisture in the food to provide a degree of none stick and of course, high quality teflon pans.
To prevent any breakdown of the fat we eat, we tend to add it a the end of the cooking onto fully cooked rice/potatoes or blend it into a whey protein drink. It not only adds flavour, it means the fats can be fully utilized by our bodies and not damaged due to heat.
How do I keep my food fresh when travelling?
Again, this is very easy. Many companies sell food bags now. We recommend The Be Fit Bag from Prozis. Its one of the cheapest on the market and has outlasted more expensive bags we’ve owned. They come with ice packs that are zipped in place so the food can be kept cool, boxes to store your food for the day and compartments either end for shakers, whilst on top draws to place any capsule supplements you may need to use.
Any questions?
We hope this has been of use, but if you have any questions – please let us know!
