Family and Food

Family First

The focus for Discreet and Delicious Performance Chefs is providing nutrition-packed food for elite athletes, mainly, but not exclusively top-level professional footballers (Premier League and Championship). However, not all elite athletes, including professional footballers, are single. Many have families, and, like all parents, they worry about the health and well-being of their children. Even if they don’t fully understand the detail, the players do appreciate that proper nutrition is important, for their families as well as themselves.

In most families, children just eat smaller amounts of what the adults eat, whether they like it or not and whether it is right for them or not. Having a Private Chef in the house preparing and cooking food for the family means that the very specific nutritional needs and tastes of children of all ages can be catered for, in addition to that of the athlete.

 

Happy at Home, Happy on the Pitch

Football is a subset of sport and sport is a subset of life. In just the same way as people from all walks of life have distractions outside of work which affect their performance at work, there is a reasonable assumption that issues at home affect a player’s performance on the pitch, so it makes sense to try and make their home lives as easy as possible, to try and minimise the distractions in order to maximise their performance.

This is the theory behind the rapid development of Player Liaison and Player Welfare departments within the top football clubs. Their role is to manage any aspects of the players’ lives which the player, or his family, needs or wants help with managing. Anything from booking holidays, to house-hunting, setting up utilities’ accounts, or indeed to sourcing staff such as cleaners, nannies and a private chef.

Players often move from club to club and a Discreet and Delicious Performance Chef can help stock and set up a new kitchen, making the move just a little bit easier. Another little ‘extra’ is that the chef can pick up any bits of household shopping while they are out buying the food… they are at the shops anyway and it saves someone else from making a special trip.

The players naturally want their families to have the best of everything, and that includes the food that they eat. The Private Chef can contribute to the performance of all members of the family, by providing the right food at the right time to support their individual lives.

 

Nutrition for Babies

Weaning babies is a critical time for their later relationship with food, as well as for their healthy development and growth. As there are for adults, there are ‘ready meals’ available for babies in the form of pouches and jars. Many contain preserving or ‘processing’ ingredients in addition to the actual food. Just like for adults, healthy home-cooked food using fresh organic ingredients is better for babies than ready meals. Preparing fresh baby food is a simple addition to the work of Discreet and Delicious Performance Chefs.

 

Nutrition for Children

As children grow, their appetites and tastes change considerably and the ability of their bodies to process food changes. In young children under 2 the kidneys are not well-enough developed to process salt, so giving them small portions of adult food may well not be the best thing for them. In addition, all children require a higher amount of dairy in their diets to provide the calcium needed for their rapidly growing bones.

As well as growing physically, children are developing mentally and need to acquire knowledge at a phenomenal rate, so it is important to eat foods which support healthy brain function. It is well-documented that children perform better at school if they are well nourished.

Having a Private Chef in the house can also encourage children to learn how to cook for themselves and to develop a healthy relationship with food from a very young age. Discreet and Delicious Performance Chefs are very happy to teach children of all ages how to cook and to encourage them to have fun making fresh, healthy food in the safe environment of their own home. The parents might learn a few things at the same time! In our experience, children who learn to love food and love working with food at an early age, consistently make better food choices as adults.

 

Child Athletes

Leicester City goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel is the son of Peter Schmeichel, former Manchester United goalkeeping legend. England Rugby captain Owen Farrell is the son of Andy Farrell OBE, dual code international in the 1990s and 2000s. 1997 Formula One World Champion Jacques Villeneuve is the son of Gilles Villeneuve, who was Runner Up in 1979. Everywhere you look in sport, children of elite athletes enjoy the same success as their parents, and sometimes even exceed it.

Of course, the most successful athletes from any sport work very hard to be the best, but some of what makes them great is luck… they win the genetic lottery and have natural abilities which make it easier for them to succeed. It makes sense, then, that these genetic advantages can be passed down from parent to child, and some children of elite athletes do follow in their parents’ footsteps and become successful in the same, or a different, sport. For these children in particular, having a Performance Chef can help both parent and child by providing appropriate sports nutrition.

 

Nutrition for Wives and Girlfriends

The wives and girlfriends of Premier League footballers (widely, and rather disrespectfully, known as ‘WAGS’) are very much their own people and often have their own priorities unrelated to the high-profile careers of their partner. They, therefore, have their own priorities for their diet and nutrition. Their lives are clearly very different to that of the player and a Private Chef is able to cook different meals for them, to support whatever their goals and aspirations are for themselves.

 

Special Occasions

“Jamie Vardy’s having a party!” All families have them. Birthdays, Weddings, Christenings, Bar Mitzvahs and many other special occasions happen throughout the year, throughout life. There is no need to spend time and effort sourcing catering for any event, and then worrying if it will be good enough or healthy enough.

By arrangement, the Private Chef can provide top quality catering for any event the family may be having. One of the many bonuses of having a regular Performance Chef from Discreet and Delicious is that, if needed, more chefs can be brought in from the company to help if the event is large.

 

Discreet and Delicious Performance Chefs for Elite Athletes

Our Performance Chefs already have a good understanding of performance nutrition, but we also like to work with the athlete’s personal or team’s nutritionists to ensure that we are providing exactly the food that they need and none of the food they shouldn’t have. We are also well-equipped to apply our nutrition expertise to the needs of young children and non-athletes.

A lot of the food recommended by nutritionists, whilst undoubtedly good for the athlete, can be rather dull and uninspiring. What we do is add the cheffy know-how to make those foods interesting and tasty without diluting the nutritional value.

They don’t need to worry about understanding the nutrition advice they are given and what food they are eating, they can trust us to feed them the right food and make it taste delicious. We work with them to make tweaks to flavour and texture until it is just as they like it… spicier, sweeter, thinner, crunchier.

Improve your performance, minimise injuries and prolong your career. Look after the health and well-being of your family by having them eat the very best food every day. Contact us for more information.