Breakfast Habits

Something as simple as changing your breakfast habit can have a profound effect on your health. When you have a great breakfast, you set your body up for the day. A high nutrition breakfast, with heaps of proteins and fats, will make you feel on top of it, and really full all morning. A breakfast high in carbohydrates will leave you hungry again soon. A breakfast high in refined carbs (anything out of a box or bread bag, or from the patisserie) will set up a sugar craving cycle for the day, with your blood sugars bouncing from too high to too low at an alarming rate, taking your concentration with it. Not to mention it's the quickest way to put on weight.

So, a breakfast habit high in proteins and fats. There are many ways to achieve this, you can use whatever combination suits you. The foods to focus on are:

Eggs: the perfect breakfast food! Scrambled, fried in butter, omelet... The yolks are wonderful sources of fat soluble nutrients, and you can pop them in breakfast smoothies. I buy Cackleberries eggs, they're biodynamic and nice and fresh.

Home made baked beans: Soak white beans overnight, then boil them up, preferably in some home made broth, then stir in a home made red sauce. Freeze into portions, defrost the previous evening and heat up in the morning. You could add cheese :) mmmm

Avocado and cheese on Rye toast: might pair well with the next one...

Nitrate free bacon: excellent protein source. Must be nitrate free, and free range if possible.

Oats: soak overnight, then cook with raw milk, nut milk or coconut milk for fats and protein. You can add some activated nuts too, and some raw honey. Usually I soak the oats in the thermomix, so in the morning all I have to do is add milk and turn it on. I only do this one in winter. Doesn't appeal to me in the hot weather.

Smoothies: These are indispensable when you're in a hurry. Here's the smoothie recipe I make for Antonio each morning

• Raw milk or nut milk, I have also used a combo of coconut milk and coconut water
• 2 raw yolks from high quality eggs
• Some berries, fresh or frozen (or any other fruit. Mango works with coconut)
• Half a banana, fresh or frozen
• large tsp mundella plain yoghurt, kefir or some of my probiotic powder

Other potential ingredients might be chia seeds or some other superfood supplement or a fibre supplement.

Green smoothies: This is a fabulous habit to get into. It's one that I'm trying to cultivate right now, so I wont carry on too much about it yet, I don't feel qualified! The basic premise is a fruit and veggie smoothie. Do google it, if you feel you're ready for a real health surge!


So you see that these are all really dense, nutrition filled breakfasts. They all contain enough protein and fats to keep you healthy and satisfied for hours. Contrasted with a bowl of bits of cardboard from a box, it doesn't take a nutrition expert to see which will serve you better! So change your habit to one of these! Pick the one that appeals the most, stock up on ingredients and give it a whirl!
                                           

Banana and honey moaves (muffin-loaves)

                                Banana and honey moaves

You know a cake recipe is a winner when Antonio is happy to eat it for breaky and I am happy to feed it to him! This recipe is a modified version of one I found on taste.com. I increased the honey, eliminated the granulated sugar, played around with the flours and baked it in mini loaf tins. I did this yesterday afternoon. They're all gone!

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 cup organic spelt flour
1 cup hazelnut meal
1 cup gluten free self raising flour
1/2 cup runny yoghurt
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp clove powder

A note on the flours; you'll notice this isn't gluten free but it can easily be made gluten free. Just use another cup of self raising (I always use white wings). I think I can make it gaps friendly too. My plan is to use more hazelnut meal and a little coconut flour. And of course use more yoghurt instead of milk.

Method

Pre heat oven to 180

Melt butter and honey in a small saucepan on a low heat.

In a processor, blitz bananas, eggs, yoghurt and milk.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, hazelnut meal, spices, bicarbonate and baking powder.

Combine wet and dry ingredients, spoon into little loaf tins or muffin tray and bake for about 25 mins

I'm yet to experiment with it, but a great icing for these would be made of cream cheese blended with honey, then some whipped cream folded through.

  There's something wonderfully satisfying about baking something that tastes this good and yet contains no refined sugar. I love baking and I have a rampant sweet tooth! So to be able to continue to pursue my hobby and satisfy my sweet cravings without compromising my health is such a relief! I'm also really concious that kids birthday party fare is traditionally sugar laden. Now I'm sure I'll be able to bake great tasting food for Antonio's parties that I'm happy for him to eat. And that's a relief too!

Crunchy Nuts! How to make your own yummy nut milk and activated nut meal

I've been experimenting of late with nut milk. You may have seen nut milk in the supermarket, it comes in a tetra pack (ikch) and hangs out with the other milk substitues. But did you know you can make your own? Making your own comes with all the usual advantages of home made over prepackaged. The tetra pack is the obvious difference, this is something to avoid at all costs. Environmental plastics are bad enough without unwittingly imbibing them too. Home made nut milk is really high in vitamins, and also contains no hydrogenated (or any other) oils which might be added to a packaged version to give shelf life. In short, it's a whole food.

I was surprised by how quick it was to make too. The only special equipment required is a piece of muslin, so I cut up one I'd used to swaddle Antonio when he was a newborn. (I promise it was washed in the interim.) All I do is put about a cup of almonds or hazelnuts into a stainless steel milkshake cup and cover them with water. I do this in the evening, leave them overnight, then drain them, add more water, blitz with a stick blender and strain through the muslin. Done! I have used this milk in Antonio's smoothies, which he loves, but the mornings are chilly as winter approaches, so smoothies containing frozen blueberries aren't quite so appropriate for him. I will use the nut milk to make porridge for him, but the last couple of mornings I've added 2 egg yolks and half a banana to a cup of nut milk, whizzed it with the stick blender and cooked this over low heat, stirring with a whisk. Then I added a teaspoon of raw honey and about a tablespoon of flaked quinoa. This makes a delicious kind of custard porridge, which Bubby gobbles!

My personal favourite use for nut milk is hazelnut hot chocolate! When added to a cup of cocoa, hazelnut milk makes you wonder why you'd bother with disgustingly sweet, artificially flavoured syrup. Chocolate and hazelnuts really are a match made in heaven!

The secret of great nut milk is not to use too much water. The less water you use, the creamier the milk will be. You only need enough to be able to easily blend it. I find this is about 1:1.5, but I don't really measure. The wog in me likes to measure by eye!

The leftover nut meal is wonderfully nutritious too, high in bioavailable protein, vitamins, minerals...mmmm. What you do with this gorgeous stuff is spread it out on a biscuit tray and pop it into the oven at 50 degrees, leaving the door slightly open. When the meal is dry, let it cool and store it in an airtight container. I stick mine in the fridge, to err on the side of caution, but I've read there's no need to refrigerate. I use it in baking, just like pre-milled almond or hazelnut meal, only it's much more nutritious, and the protien is more easily absorbed. I'm currently working on a recipe for home made crunchy 'activated' nut cereal! And also activated nut protein bars, both of which I'll post as soon as I'm happy with them.

If you have any more great nut milk or nut meal recipes or ideas, please share them!

Kids Breakfast Choices

There has been some recent media attention on children’s breakfasts, which concluded that only 2 of the myriad cereals available were suitable for kids’ regular consumption. This conclusion revealed the comparative sugar and sodium levels of these cereals, showing that the majority of cereals available contained more than the daily allowance for both substances. Not to mention the common cocktail of artificial colours, flavours and preservatives.

While this is a grave finding in itself, it leads me to wonder at what point in history cereal and milk became the only breakfast option available to children. Most commercial cereals don’t fulfil the criteria for a balanced breakfast; on the contrary, they would appear to be rather on the detrimental side. As the first meal of the day, breakfast sets up the body’s blood sugar pattern. Sugar and refined carbohydrates at breakfast create an unstable blood sugar pattern, first raising the sugars too high, which may manifest as hyperactivity and agitation, then allowing them to crash, rendering the child unable to concentrate. This, of course, applies to adults as well. Refined sugars in general challenge immunity, which at this time of year is the last thing we need. Sugary breakfasts also mean that we’re missing out on an opportunity to increase our protein intake, as well as increase our consumption of minerals and vitamins. Protein is important for growth and repair, so it’s vital that growing kids get enough. Though some cereals add a little of a few nutrients like iron and calcium, the amounts are rather token compared to 'real' food.

Breakfast, therefore, should be a balance of nutritionally rich sources of protein, fats and carbohydrates from whole foods. This will give a balanced blood sugar pattern that lasts throughout the day, allowing the child (or adult) to concentrate effectively, as well as maintain health and fitness. If you’re switching kids from cereal to this type of breakfast, you may quickly notice increased attention spans, rapid growth spurts, better agility and coordination and increased immunity.
Below you will find a list of recommended breakfast foods, followed by some recipe ideas that will be a hit with kids and big people alike


Eggs
These are high in fats (yolk) and protein (whites). Make sure you support organic and free range, as the nutrient content will be higher. To get the best from an egg always cook the white but leave the yolk runny to preserve the essential fats.

Yoghurt
Keep those little intestines coated with friendly bacteria. Make sure you buy the pot set stuff, like Mundella and Jalna

Oats
Always check the packet to ensure there’s no sugar. There are natural sugars in oats, which give it that gelatinous texture, which are a wonderful source of fibre for a clean intestinal system.

Beans
Baked beans are back, high in fibre and minerals, particularly if you myo. These can be pre made on weekends and warmed up each morning.

Nuts and seeds
These are a great addition to breakfast as they’re high in fibre, protein, minerals and good fats. For example almond spread will provide you with as much calcium as milk, gram for gram, as well as many other essential nutrients.

Fruit
Fruits are a great addition to a breakfast. They’re high in vitamins, natural sugars, water and fibre, but low in protein, so always combine them which another protein source.

There are so many breakfast options that are just as quick as cereal, yet provide adequate nutrition, while cereals fall alarmingly short. Below are some recipes that will be loved by all kids, big and small.

Nut butter toasties
Using good quality sourdough rye or oat bread, or gluten free for coeliacs, make toasts and spread them with three stripes of different nut spreads like tahini, almond and peanut paste (a health aisle brand). Or, spread a mixture of tahini and honey, macadamia spread and 100% maple syrup, hazelnut spread and mashed banana, almond paste and avocado...

Omelette
An omelette is a great way to amplify breakfast nutrition while disposing of annoyingly small quantities of leftovers from last night’s dinner. Half a salmon steak you can’t bear to throw out? Throw it in an omelette with a little wilted spinach. Or crumble in some goat cheese with fresh basil, avocado omelette is another idea. Anything goes. For kids, a pizza omelette with cherry tomatoes, cheese and basil should appeal. Or let them choose the toppings.


Chocolate Hazelnut Porridge
This recipe is such a winner, and beats the heck out of cocoa pops. To make 2 serves, soak a cup of organic quick oats (health food aisle) in a cup and a half of cold water over night. Soaking will halve the cooking time in the morning, and activates the ‘good sugars’ called mucopolysacharides. To cook, place the oats and soak water into a small pot with a cup of thin coconut milk and stir over a medium heat until thick and creamy. Stir in a teaspoon of organic cocoa, 2 teaspoons of 100% maple syrup and serve, topped with some crushed hazelnuts.

Another form of porridge which is suitable for gluten intolerants is flaked quinoa. You can use exactly the same preparation method as for oats, only you don’t need to soak overnight. These little flakes are much quicker to absorb fluid. Just place the cup of quinoa flakes into the pot and cover with a cup and a half of hot water and the coconut milk and cook over a low heat.

Breakfast yoghurt smoothies
This is a brilliant healthy breakfast for those running late mornings, since they can be whizzed up while the kids get dressed, and drunk from a milkshake cup in the car. The greatest thing about them is that any supplements they may need such as flax oil, powdered magnesium or liquid iron can be effectively concealed within! Just throw the following into the blender; pot set yoghurt, some almond meal, a banana, milk or coconut milk, fresh or frozen berries, 100% maple syrup or honey.


Feel free to email me with more recipes, success stories or other feedback.