which oil should I use? The healthy use of fats in food preparation

I love watching cooking shows on TV. I'm a fiend for food porn! I love watching the culinary artistry, being inspired by the food. I find it relaxing, and satisfying, in a bizzare way!


But there's one thing that annoys me, and it's not George's many and varied cliches on Masterchef! When a TV chef offers advice on cooking fats, my blood boils.


Some chefs happen also to be knowledgable in nutrition, like Dominique Rizzo, and I think she's fabulous. She offers great advice when she cooks on TV. During a recent Masterclass, however, in a segment on which oils to cook with, some advice was given which I strongly disagreed with, and which I'd like to take the time to correct.


The presenters essentially offered a few types of oils to use. They offered "good" olive oil, "ordinary" olive oil, grapeseed oil and sesame oil. There are so many more options than this!!


Olive oil:

To my mind there is only one kind, the "good" stuff. Extra virgin, cold pressed and organic. But I wouldn't put it in a hot pan, it would quickly become a bad fat and damaging to health. I drizzle it on a plate after serving food, or use it in salads.


Grapeseed:

The brand shown on the show was in a clear glass bottle. Any oil in clear glass or clear plastic is HYDROGENATED. This is an industrially processed oil, one step before margerine, which has been superheated and mixed with petrochemicals to give shelf life. All the beneficial properties that oil had have been destroyed and replaced by health wrecking properties. Pretend these don't exist.


Sesame oil:

This is a great oil for flash frying or stir frying, as are peanut, virgin coconut and virgin palm oils.


The fats I use most in the kitchen are butter, ghee and coconut oil. These are high in saturated fats and therefore have the advantage of being stable to temperature. This means that when you stick them in a hot pan they don't become poison. Bonus! I use ghee for Indian style cooking (obviously), coconut for Thai and Malay style food, and butter for European food. When I'm making Italian food I just drizzle olive oil over the plate after I've served it, as Matt Moran described, to give the flavor and the full benefits of the oil. Easy.


Using fats correctly, and libberally, is integral to good health. A high fat diet is a good diet, another fact TV chefs seem ignorant to. Fats are a food group essential to vitality. If we minimise fats such as nuts, avocado, egg yolks, fish, meats, butter and oils, we will have imbalanced hormones, blood sugar imbalance leading to weight gain, poor concentration, skin problems and even cholesterol problems.


I'm often asked about the cholesterol paradox. It's simple; it's just biochemically impossible for a high fat diet to cause high cholesterol. I'm not talking about damaged fats, by all means avoid those! The overwhelming evidence today shows that a diet high in refined foods is the culprit for all chronic illness, including cholesterol.


So if this information is news to you, restock your pantry with the good oils, ignore the bad and live healthily ever after! And never take nutrition advice from people without formal training!

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!

Approaching Two Months and Sugar Free Icecream Recipe

I don't think I can think of a single person in my aquaintance who really, genuinely dislikes ice cream! Of course, since most ice cream contains things like sugar and processed milk, the stuff no longer enters this house. And yet I miss it, especially in Summer, and I'd like to be able to allow my kid(s) to partake someday.

This is a recipe for icecream that I won't mind offering my children in years to come, though very occasionally.

200ml raw milk
200ml organic cream
125g 100% organic maple syrup
yolks of 4 organic eggs

I used a stick blender to combine the yolks and maple syrup, then added this mixture to the milk and cream and blended some more, then poured it into the icecream maker to finish up.

The result was very light and fluffy. This time I added half a cup of sultanas I'd soaked in rum overnight, and a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon. My Man said he'd have preferred it without the sultanas, so I guess that was a miss!! However the container was empty within two days, so it can't have been all bad!

Next time I'll try using honey instead of maple syrup, and add more spices to get a sort of middle eastern flavour. Yum! Really looking forward to it! But I'll have to wait a while because maple syrup and honey aren't every day foods.

Meanwhile, it's almost two months since I quit sugar and I'm still losing weight, very slowly, and still feeling great. Increasingly I make it through the day to dinner time in one piece, and I'm even getting organised about things like our dinner, while previously it was all I could do to keep Antonio adequately fed! All up I'm really happy with how I feel. I don't crave sugar. I miss certain foods like cake and ice cream but I don't find them hard to turn down. In fact I even managed to avoid my favourite dessert of all time at a recent family birthday party; St Honore cake from Corica...oh my god that's good stuff. But I was unmovable. So proud!

In her fabulous ebook 'I Quit Sugar', Sarah Wilson describes how some folk meet the concept of quitting sugar with scorn or aggression. This hasn't happened for me as yet, everyone has been really supportive. I'm most grateful for this, because it's difficult enough at first without having to defend oneself.

It actually feels like this time I might just succeed in ridding my life of refined sugar for good.

Coconut oil - the beauty elixir!

While things are still going swimmingly on the sugarfree front, I'm going to undertake a couple of other committments. I'd really like to cut bread, pasta and pastry out too (though not as ruthlessly as I did with refined sugar, one has to be polite at others' houses, it's much easier to refuse dessert than mains!), and I'd also like to gradually increase my coconut oil intake.

According to the research I've found, particularly here at the coconut research centre, coconut oil is a veritable miracle worker. It's so antiviral that its capable of reducing the viral load to negligable levels in people suffering from the most debilitating viruses. It is also antibacterial and anti-fungal, and so a fantastic treatment for systemic candida. In case those credentials haven't impressed you, coconut oil is a FAT EATING OIL!!! That's right folks, you can consume this oil and it will munch away at your stored body fat! And just to be a total show off, it's anti-inflammatory too, therefore great for arthritis and autoimmune disorders. WOW.

The approximate dose required for inflammation and candidiasis, is 3 tablespoons a day. It's advisable to slowly advance to that amount if you'd like to try it, it is after all an oil and many of us who have particularly 'toxed up' livers may feel a little ill otherwise. I'd reccommend starting with a teaspoon and working up.

For particularly virulent viruses up to 6 tablespoons can be taken daily. If you like you can have your viral load tested before you start taking coconut oil, then again after, say, 3 months on the full dose. It would be interesting to make the comparison.

So far I'm up to one tablespoon a day. I notice I eat less of other foods for a few hours after I take it. My body feels nourished enough and doesn't ask for more, which could be a great weight management tool.

The other thing I noticed immediatelly is that it's really hard to swallow pure oil!!! So I've been experimenting with finding other ways to take it. This morining I put it in my smoothie which seemed to work well. Another option is to incorporate it into warm foods like coconut oil based curries, over some warm rice or, my personal preference, warm coconut and chai spiced rice pudding made with xylitol! I'll post the recipe as soon as I've got it down pat.

Coconut oil can be found at health shops, make sure you always buy cold pressed. If you have a great coconut oil story or recipe, please share it in comments!

Surprise Surprise!

Today I really surprised myself! I said I'd try to avoid lone shopping trips, but today it was necessary. Bubby was a bit tired and bored of my face, so instead of acting as my straight-and-narrow, he stayed at Grandma's.

Once the groceries were finished my mind turned to food, as usual. But this time my first thought was "is there any sugar free treat food around?" This seemed like a nice idea, but it was the next thought that really surprised me; "don't get food! Get a pair of shorts instead! It'll make you happy for longer." Oh Lordy, that sounds like reasonable thinking!! WOW! So I am capable of it! But only when unclouded by sugar addiction. So I took off in search of my shorts, lest the newfound rationality pass!

As I mentioned, I've cut sugar loose at least once a year for 20 years now. Only I've changed tack this time. Usually I group refined wheat products (bread, pasta, couscous etc) with sugar because, well, it is sugar. Refined wheat is only a little bit less toxic than refined sugar, and as far as our bodies are concerned, it's almost the same thing. So I avoid it. Only this time I decided that since it's really sugar that I want to kick forever, I'd tackle that first, and it's turned out to be successful. Funny thing is, now I find myself naturally avoiding bread and pasta! This has been another fabulous surprise. I noticed it just tonight; I'd spent the day thinking about how I'd 'reward' myself for getting through (most of) the housework with a big plate of pasta. But when I came to start, I made myself tuna coleslaw with organic mustard instead!

I'm really thrilled by this progress. It has honestly never been this easy before. From now on I'll use this tactic for clients when I prescribe diet changes. It's much gentler and more effective.

Speaking of housework, I found yet another wonderful surprise this week. Sugar freedom related? Not on the surface, but who knows? It might have been a karmic reward! I'll get to the point. This week I discovered the concept of the 'Kitchen Witch'. A Kitchen Witch is a woman whose spiritual practice centres around her kitchen, the hearth of the home. She is a solitary practitioner; her magic is in her food preparation and her worship is her time spent cleaning, both of which are performed with intention. Well, I'll tell you, my kitchen has never been so clean! I've been worshiping away, baby on hip! In fact, even he seems to like the kitchen more!!

Here comes the Sun

It's day 6 of sugar freedom (but who's counting??), and I'm beginning to feel serene. My face and tummy are a little less bloated and my skin feels clearer. My brain isn't screaming at me, the cravings have just evaporated! Jolly timely too, the shortbread biscuits I made with xylitol were a dismal failure!! Turns out sugar is what makes them crunchy. Oh well! I won't give up on the xylitol just yet!

So back to mental clarity! When I was reading for my research project during my naturopathic studies, I found many studies describing how sugar inflames the nervous system. There was one in particular that has stayed with me; the subjects in the study were scanned under MRI, then fed some sugar, then scanned again. The 'after' shots showed bright, glowing nervous systems, denoting aggitation, irritation. This translates physically to poor coordination and emotionally to stress and anxiety. I usually didn't notice I was feeling this way because it felt normal, this is obviously because it takes most of a week to calm down! Now I can feel the difference, and I highly recommend it! I kind of feel like I'm floating, rather than fighting through life. I feel successful! So far my mastery project is on track!

Even more encouraging is that I think sugar and I have finally called a truce. I feel now that I can maintain a sugarless diet, although the real test will be going to the shopping centre alone. Thats when I usually find myself scanning the cakes at Miss Mauds. Maybe I'll take Antonio shopping with me until I'm a little more sure of my resolve! I can't eat rubbish in front of him because he always wants some. The later he's exposed to that stuff the healthier he will be. For more info on that one check out Dr Robert Lustig, this video is worth the time. I think his presentation was a large part of my decision to swear off the sugar for good.

Sweet obsessions

It's nap time, but instead of doing some breathing exercises or meditating, I'm lying here googling xylitol biscuit recipes on my phone! I've found some good ones which I'll share once I've tested them.

Part of me doesn't really want to eat sweets. But it's obviously not the louder part! My brain is screaming at me to devour the last of the Christmas chocolate. My man dutifully hides it from me, since he's one of those weird, self regulating types! I've tried all my life to be like that, but it's just not in me. For me it's feast or famine, at least for now.

I've bought some supplies to help prevent cravings: Organic crunchy peanut butter is a favourite; high in protein and fats, both of which fill up quickly. It can also be combined with veggie sticks for fibre, also very filling.

Yoghurt is brilliant, and transportable too. Antonio and I often share a tub of Chris's Greek yoghurt. It's the sourest yoghurt I've tasted, but creamy too. We love it!

Ok, 10 minutes left of nap time, I'll dutifully spend them focusing on my third chakra