If you haven’t heard of The Feed, you probably aren’t an endurance athlete or you train on another planet (The Feed doesn’t deliver to Mars yet, but soon, I’m sure!). But, since you’re asking, The Feed is your one-stop shop for all your endurance-sport nutritional needs (plus, they have a lot of cool gear and sports tech!). I partnered with The Feed early in 2024 after using them for my triathlon fueling needs for a while. I love supporting and spreading the word about products, companies, and, most importantly, people that I believe in.
I’ve been using the same fueling and hydration brand for almost 20 years. Yes, I’m a creature of habit, but I also liked how it worked and, very important to me, I liked the taste of its bars, chews, and drink mix (One of my favorite sayings, which I made up, is: “Even the best bars, chews, gels, and drink powder have zero nutritional value if you find their taste repulsive, and pretty much everything tastes bad deep into an Ironman.”).
But, toward the end of my 2024 race season, I noticed that I was getting tired of the taste of the brand that I had been using for so long. “Time for a change,” I said to myself. But how to choose from the 100s of brands out there? And this question led me to my 6 Reasons I Love The Feed.
My #1 priority for my training and race nutrition are chews. I’ve never liked the texture of gels; actually, they make me want to gag. And I never eat bars pre- or during a race; too dense and hard to chew. I only eat bars after workouts and when I’m traveling to avoid buying airport food.
Variety
If it’s any good, The Feed has it. Of course, they have all the big name brands that you hear the pros advertising on their kits, hats, shirts, and helmets. But The Feed has many brands that I had never heard of and yet make high-quality fuel and hydration. And, in fact, I chose a brand of chews that were entirely unfamiliar to me. Also, I will admit that, again, taste overrides everything else. As a long-course triathlete in recovery, meaning I did my share of Ironmans (2) and 70.3s (more than I can remember) back in the day, I’ve reformed myself and now focus on short-course triathlon. I assume that, for my purposes, every brand can fuel me adequately. So, again, it’s all about taste for me.
Reviews
I wasn’t going to order a ton of a particular product without knowing whether they were any good. To that end, another reason I love The Feed is their product reviews. I value feedback from mere mortals, meaning other age groupers, than I do from the pros because the pros have an incentive to say how great their nutritional products are. But age groupers don’t, so I trust them more. So, as I investigated chews, I read dozens of reviews on probably 20 different brands and slowly began to narrow my choices (you should see me reading the reviews when I buy something on amazon!).
Nutrition Coaching
This added value is probably my favorite reason why I love The Feed. I emailed The Feed and shared my history, my likes and dislikes, and my goals. Within a day, I got an email back from Ellie, who is a real person and a real endurance athlete (and a rock star!), offering recommendations based on my needs and her experience. We had several more email exchanges in which I provided more clarity on what I was looking for (taste!) and she helped me narrow down my options to five brands of chews. When it comes to my triathlon life, I rely on experts because I don’t know s&%# about anything outside of the mind. And clearly, Ellie knew what she was talking about.
Testing
Another great thing about The Feed is that you can order just one sample of a product, or they have samplers of different brands in a category or different flavors of one brand. So, I ordered five different brands of chews in a variety of flavors and tested them out on rides. The choice was obvious. I’ll do a reveal on which I chose at the end of this article.
All Online
I love being able to dial in my sports nutrition from the comfort of my office rather than driving to my local sports store. I realize that, by using The Feed, I’m not supporting my local sports stores. But the closest store is 20 minutes away, so that is burning a lot of time and energy (even if I do drive an EV) that could be better used elsewhere. A few clicks and a few days later, a box arrives from The Feed filled with goodies.
Cool Stuff
In addition to just about every type of sports nutrition under the sun, The Feed also has amazing training apparel. Their technical running shirts are the best and their branded running tights are super sporty. One other product that I absolutely love are the Mud Towel Transition and Seat Wraps for the car.
My Reveal
So, what brand of chews have I declared to be the best ever? Bonk Breakers! I had never heard of this brand either, but they truly rock. Their nutrition stats hit all the necessary marks and, as I noted above, for me taste is the dealmaker or breaker, and literally all BB’s flavors are amazing. My favorites are Rainbow Blast and, if I need some caffeine, cola and root beer are so tasty!
Bottom Line
Given the five reasons I discussed above, I don’t know why any serious endurance athlete wouldn’t make The Feed their one-stop shop for all their nutritional (and cool stuff) needs.
