Tuna is a great food, but like anything, you get a little sick of it after awhile...
First off, for those of you who are new to bodybuilding or do not know much about nutrition might not realize how much protein is in tuna fish and how much it can benefit you.
Cans of tuna vary in their nutritional value, but you can find cans that contain up to about 30 grams protein, only 1 g carbs, and 0 fats per 100g. Look for tuna in brine or spring water, but stay away from tuna in oil because that is full of fat.
Also tuna is an inexpensive food. I live in Australia and for a 100g can it costs about $1.30, that would be about 70 cents U.S., so it's a cheap and easy way of increasing your daily protein intake by adding 1 or 2 cans a day.
Tuna Variations
My main purpose of this article is not to give information on tuna's benefits to bodybuilders because nearly all of us already know. In fact, we know tuna so well we all get very sick of eating it. So I am going to give you some ideas/recipes that make it easier and more enjoyable to eat day in and day out by creating a little variety in taste.
Some of you may have already thought up different ways of eating tuna to give yourself some variety, but for me at one stage I would just eat plain old tuna and got very sick of it even though I like the taste of it. So here are some ideas that you may want to consider next time you open that same old can of tuna.
- Plain. Just eat tuna on it's own in a container either cold or warmed up in the microwave.
- Tuna sandwiches. You can fit about 100g of tuna on a sandwich, add some shredded lettuce, tomato, whatever vegetables you like, and maybe a few shakes of pepper for a bit of spice. This is a good one if you are at school. Maybe eat quickly in between periods or at lunch.
- Tuna salad. Again very simple, just put whatever amount of tuna you wish to eat into a bowl, shred some lettuce, grate some carrots, dice up some tomato, and even add a little chopped-up pieces of low-fat cheese and add pepper (if desired). Mix all this around in the bowl and you will have a great tasting tuna salad!
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- Fish cakes. This is a great one for dinner or a weekend lunch. The amount of tuna you use depends on how many fish cakes you want.
Ingredients: To make about 8-10: 425g tuna (1 large tuna can), 2 eggs, roughly 80-100g cooked rice, and bread crumbs.
Method: Mix all ingredients into a bowl, and now it's very similar to making burgers. You need to make sure you have a good consistency then divide up mixture by getting small handfuls and rolling them into balls, making sure there are no cracks, then flatten them out like a burger. You have now successfully made fish cakes.
Cooking: They can either be cooked under a grill or in the oven.
- Toasted tuna sandwiches (my favorite). If you have a toasted sandwich maker it's a great quick snack or meal. Just put tuna and some grated, low-fat cheese inside, this melts onto the tuna and is a very tasty sandwich.
Conclusion
As you can see, you don't need to be a chef to make any of these meals. They are quick and simple and taste great.
I know this is a different article than most, but I thought people might benefit from these ideas because I'm sure all of you eat tuna. I personally think that there should be more articles on food, not necessarily recipes but just a bit of useful and different information other than the usual Big Biceps or an unresearched Supplement Review (not that there's too many of those).
Hopefully I have given each of you at least one new idea for preparing tuna that will keep you going, and stop the boredom of plain, old, tuna day after day.