How to train like an Olympian – eat loads of peanut butter...

"Eat nothing but peanut butter.

Never mind the jostling between nations – peanut butter is winning these Olympics. The US gymnast Simone Biles eats it with a banana before her training sessions. “If you’re allergic to peanut butter, I feel sad for you,” she tweeted two years ago. Her compatriot, the swimmer Ryan Lochte, eats it in the form of Kind bars. Great Britain’s long jumper Greg Rutherford has spoonfuls straight from the jar. Last year, Rutherford even became a peanut butter salesman, promoting Sun-Pat. (Although the picture he tweeted last August doesn’t look like anything from the Sun-Pat range to me …)

Another Olympian to extol the benefits of PB is Biles’s team-mate Aly Raisman. Britain’s frequently winning triathlon team – led by the Brownlee brothers – doesn’t just like peanut butter, it has an “official nut butter supplier”, no less.

What is it about peanut butter that makes it appeal to the world’s top athletes? And will eating it turn you into one? Chris Cashin, a registered dietitian who lectures in sports nutrition at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, has witnessed the peanut butter craze firsthand. “I’ve even got two sons who use gallons of it,” she says. Athletes commonly spread it on carrot or celery sticks, add it to smoothies or eat it in its natural habitat: on toast."

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