Thousands of eggs and 100 kilos of berries: Inside England’s cutting-edge nutrition plan

Not that this will come as much of a surprise, but England’s players are good eaters. Part of the remit of being big enough to play Test rugby is that there needs to be plenty of intake, which is now carefully monitored by England’s performance nutritionist Dr James Morehen, who also works with Bristol Bears.

Morehen’s remit includes coming up with meal plans alongside England Rugby’s head chef, Thomas Kirby, to give England’s players what they need in order to perform. Kirby, through a number of informative videos released so far this year, has revealed just how much food England get through while in camp during one week; 100 kilos of berries and 200 kilos of bananas, up to 150 kilos of potatoes and 25 kilograms of pasta, with players able to build their own pasta dish using a variety of sauces the night before a game. Not forgetting 40 to 50 litres of milk a day, going into porridge, coffees, smoothies and shakes.

Across an entire Six Nations or summer tour window, between seven to eight weeks, England consume around 15,000 eggs, two-and-a-half tonnes of fruit, nearly a tonne of potatoes and 2,500 litres of milk.

There is also scope for a more inventive approach with food preparation, with Morehen’s Instagram showing a range of sushi dishes given to the squad building up to their departure for Japan.

When the nutritionist linked up with England in January for the first time, he revealed that given a poor uptake in a particular supplement among the players, a quick bit of planning led to it being added into a far more appetising dessert. “All smashed within 10 minutes and a sign that these bad boys can be done again,” read the accompanying caption. See for yourself – you can’t blame the players for getting stuck in.

More details provided by Morehen, who previously worked with the England football team, include the amount of protein England’s players take on per day – a litre of collagen protein, and half a kilo of clear whey protein – with both types being good for health and repair of the soft tissues and integrity of muscles. But the biggest shift with England appears to be a new approach towards body composition assessments; in other words, measuring body composition of players including lean mass and fat mass.

Dissatisfied with the skinfolds method – using a caliper to assess the skinfold thickness to then make a prediction of the total amount of body fat – Morehen wanted to use a better method more aligned to performance. That led to ‘Functional Mass’, aligning body composition data with performance data.

The body composition assessment is carried out with a dual-energy X-ray, or DEXA, which measures bone density and can determine whether a player’s body type makes them more prone to injury. Ideally, it may be able to predict future injury risk by identifying where each player’s body is asymmetrical in their arms and legs.

Morehen carried out the same studies working as performance nutritionist with Bristol Bears, with Bristol’s players undergoing multiple DEXA scans during the season. Nor was that the only innovative project Bristol started during the last campaign, with the construction of a garden at Bristol’s training base, inspired by a similar project by Tottenham Hotspur, providing herbs, fruit and vegetables grown on site to be used as part of the team’s food preparation.

The plan is to now carry out a similar DEXA scans with England’s players, with members of the squad undergoing tests at Twickenham before they headed off on tour, first to Japan and then New Zealand. The information gained from the body assessments is then combined with performance metrics, including jump height and sprint times, highlighting each players’ functional mass change.

During their pre-season ahead of the 2023-24 campaign, Bristol lost around 100kg in fat mass and gained 100kg in muscle mass, according to Morehen, focusing on functional gains rather than skinfold measurements – losing dead weight and becoming more explosive. England will now be hoping for similarly impressive results.