When your muscles are hungry for fuel, they don’t care where the energy comes from, says Brent Ruby, the University of Montana scientist who supervised the cyclists study, done by his then-graduate student Michael Cramer. The fast food in this experiment may not represent the healthiest everyday food choices, but neither are those engineered recovery foods, which are highly processed and laden with additives, he says. Regardless, any of these foods work. “The muscle could care less. If you’re dumping in carbohydrates, the muscle is going to be satisfied.”
