Nutrition System Changes
While clearing out my old room at the Residencia, I found this handout my old (and much adored) trainer Javier Capitaine wrote re. nutrition guidelines for players at the Academy.
I don't think lay people (much less msg-loving Singaporeans) would be able to naturally adhere to much of what's in the list below--but it's still a great peek into high-performance eating.

1. Give everybody the option to choose oneself their own freedom to draw their diet.  Don't make dishes mandatory.
2. Provide brown rice and wholegrain oats EVERYDAY and in every meal (plus any kind of wholegrain as replacement).
3. 3. don't flavor food.  Give each one the option to choose it.
4. Olive oil, salt and natural lemon have to be ALWAYS available.
5. Avoid ANY type of artificial cereals or energetic snacks.
6. Several kinds of natural teas have to be ALWAYS available.
7. Wholemeal bread and biscuits should be available.
8. Fresh and dried fruit will be part of any meals, according to seasonal vegetables.
9. Proteins with high biological value (meat, fish, chicken, egg whites will be basic in any meal.  Avoid pork cuts, pickles and cooked pork products with high fat value.  Lean ham is allowed.
10. There should be a choice between skimmed or fat milk or yogurt products.
11. Cheese: lean cheese only.
12. Dinner has to be planned through a big limitation of carbohydrates, with only brown rice or pasta (no pizza, no potatoes).  Increase proteins with green leafy vegetables.
13. Provide ready meals with training cakes or chocolate oats for intensive trainings which require bigger contributions of nutritional elements.
14. The fitness bar should provide shakes of several juices or fruit combinations with extra proteins, maltodextrinas or any other contribution that may be necessary in varying quantities according to athlete requirements.  The same should be applied for sandwiches, where it's better to avoid any kind of pollutant, colouring, sweeteners or extra sugars.
15. Juice provided during any meal should be drunk at the end of the meal, and, in any case, in 1 unit only.

It would've been cool to see how Capi applies these guidelines to Asian cuisines.  All too often when we think about high-performance eating, the diet is naturally Western-centric simply because the bulk of sports science research has stemmed from Western fronts.  But what about Olympic winning Chinese, Japanese, or Korean athletes?  I'm sure they don't chug down juice or pasta or cheese as much as their Caucasian counterparts.  But they do well nonetheless.  What are the rules of those systems?