Turkey take off

I get an interesting array of press releases each day and I thought snippets of this one was worth sharing. It stated that, according to scientists, eating turkey could enhance an athlete’s performance by up to 20%. Turkey breast contains one of the highest concentrations of the muscle-building dipeptides, anserine & carnosine. (we all know what those are right? )

Researchers at the University of Chichester’s School of Sport, Exercise & Health Sciences carried out tests on the effect of consuming carnosine and beta-alanine on volunteers who underwent muscle biopsies and performance tests. The 800mg beta-alanine supplements they used, the equivalent to 145g portions of turkey breast meat, increased muscle concentrations by 40% and improved cycling performance by 13%.

It goes on to say that you must eat 250-300g of turkey a day for 6-12 months to see these increases. Turkey is low in fat and high in protein and tastes good but would you really want to eat it every day?

The research also discovered anserine & carnosine was high in certain muscle meats, including whale, prawns and turkey. The scientists chose to concentrate their research on turkey for practical reasons. Good thinking as we wouldn’t want to have plates of whale meat every day, wouldn’t that kill the species off and a plate of prawns every day could get expensive!

Sometimes I wonder about press releases – they could really be shorter and sweeter and with less useless information. Am I being a bit cynical today? Well I do think the British Turkey Federation sure got my attention but perhaps am a little grumpy today. I do like turkey and recommend it to all to eat as it is quite healthy.

Maybe you can get your muscle concentration up by lifting a few weights at the gym each week or bench pressing your little nephews, kids love that stuff!