From Hooters to quinoa: Inter Miami nutritionist reveals how MLS diets have evolved

When Inter Miami players walk into the cafeteria at the club’s training facility, they find a wide array of healthy options; from acai bowls to avocado toast to grilled fish to quinoa, all carefully planned and prepared by a team dietitian and executive chef.

When Inter Miami chief soccer officer Chris Henderson played for the Miami Fusion 20 years ago, he and his teammates ate wings and fries at Hooters after practice.

“We didn’t have a team chef, but every player had a discount card at Hooters because they were a team sponsor,” Henderson said, laughing, “We had some good team lunches at Hooters. We would pretty much come in, train, shower and go find lunch somewhere.

“It’s totally different now. There is a lot more focus on nutrition, hydration and recovery. It has really evolved in the last five years. Teams have the facilities and resources to offer in-house dining and nutrition support staff.”

This season, Inter Miami hired sports performance dietitian Lissette Cornejo to offer individualized advice to players and collaborate on nutritionally balanced meal plans with the trainers, sports science staff, and chef Elizabeth Barlow, who previously worked at The Delano and InterContinental hotels.

Players and coaches are provided with breakfast and lunch on-site every day. Each daily menu is specific to that day’s energy demand. Some days, players need more carbs to reach peak performance. Other days, they need more protein. Game days have special menus.

On average, soccer players run between seven to nine miles during a game, compared to three miles for a typical NBA player and 1.5 miles for an NFL running back or cornerback. There are no timeouts or huddles.

“The energy demands in soccer are absolutely daunting, so I’m here to improve their nutrition with performance measures,” Cornejo said. “I have to make sure the daily menu is fuel appropriate for that day’s energy demands. We have low-intensity days, moderate-intensity days, high-intensity days.

“Some players may need more carbohydrates because they have a higher sprint load. Or someone is maybe dealing with weight management, so we need to monitor their carb intake.”

Cornejo also keeps close tabs on the players’ hydration levels, which is especially critical in South Florida’s oppressive climate. Players who are not hydrated properly can be more prone to cramping. Two days before games, the players undergo a urinalysis and using a refractometer, the urine density level of each athlete is calculated.

Cornejo then advises each player on how much fluid intake they require to reach optimum hydration by kickoff.

Henderson said back when he played, hydration was a guessing game.

“We knew we had to drink, but we had no idea how much or what to drink,” Henderson said. “I remember (midfielder) Pablo Mastroeni used to drink pickle juice at halftime because of all the sodium in it, to get his body lots of sodium so he wouldn’t cramp. He swore by it.”

Inter Miami midfielder Lewis Morgan is among the players on the team who is a longtime believer in proper nutrition. It started when he was a teenager back in Scotland. He was slight for his age, so he focused on a diet that would help him build muscle mass.

He continues to be a careful eater.

“I try to make sure I’m looking after myself, and nutrition is one of the easiest things to control, so I tend to ask questions of Lissette,” Morgan said. “It’s important as athletes to fuel our bodies properly and it shows the professionalism of the club that it has someone looking after that.”

For breakfast, Morgan enjoys avocado toast or scrambled eggs and toast. For lunch, he eats chicken, fish, or steak, quinoa, and vegetables. He enjoys cooking dinner at home. Among his go-to dishes: homemade pesto, pasta dishes, gnocchi, cajun chicken, and fajitas.

Since he arrived in South Florida last season, he has become obsessive about hydration.

“It’s important you’re not just drinking water,” Morgan said. “You must also have sodium and electrolytes. Every morning I take on a litre [34 ounces] of water and something containing electrolytes or sugar, carbs. As we get closer to the game, I lean the ratio a little more towards BodyArmor electrolyte drinks and away from water.”

Cornejo said as a whole, Inter Miami players have been eager to learn, embrace her dietary advice, ask good questions, and are bigger fish eaters than athletes in other sports she worked with before.

Cornejo, 31, played basketball in high school and did competitive power lifting in college, which is when she got into sports nutrition. She majored in dietetics at FSU and got her masters at FIU.

She did a fellowship in 2018 with the Texas Rangers and then spent three months at St. Vincent Sports Performance in Indianapolis, where she worked with athletes from the Colts, Pacers, and Fever. From there she got a fellowship at the University of Miami, went on to work at University of Nevada-Reno, and landed the job with Inter Miami in March.

She has tried, during her short tenure, to earn the players’ trust and to incorporate food options that appeal to the team’s multi-cultural makeup. The roster includes players from Scotland, England, France, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Suriname, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago.

“I’m not here to be the food police or nagging mom and point out all the wrongs on your plate,” she said. “I want to know what they actually enjoy eating and try to make that as performance based as possible. I know nutritionally what they should be having, but can we incorporate what their culture enjoys prior to a practice or after a match when nutrition needs are not as stringent as before the match?”

Although players eat their fair share of chicken, fish, broccoli, brown rice and carrots, Cornejo and Barlow also offer empanadas, pizza, burgers, and a low-calorie Bang Bang Shrimp. Snacks include yogurt parfaits, berries, energy bites, and nuts. Before road trips, sucn as this Saturday’s game at Chicago, Cornejo calls the hotel chef and submits a menu.

“The goal is to maximize everything on the margins with players and make sure we supply that support,” said Henderson, who added that new coach Phil Neville is a big proponent of sports science and nutrition. “Lissette has been fantastic. She has experience, knows pro sports, can understand Spanish. She’s been able to gain the trust of players.

“There are so many things being monitored now with players that we didn’t have 20 years ago when the Fusion was here. Just having a place where the team can eat together, being able to monitor at least two of the three meals players eat and develop individual plans for each player...it’s a different world.”