It's been really hot here in Perth. Like, the kind of hot that makes you want to move down south....did I say that out loud? Ahem...
There's one thing I've been craving in this diabolical weather - Soft Serve. That evil stuff made from superheated vegetable oils, powdered milk, high fructose corn syrup and thickeners made from refined grains. EW
I believe strongly in cravings, however. And I have a theory that they are our best guide to health. I think the problem is that we usually misinterpret our cravings. It's easy to do. If your body says "Hey! Running low on salt here!" its easy to think "chippies....", which wouldn't happen if they didn't exist. So if our ancestors were in the same situation, say they needed a spot of protein, they wouldn't think "KFC..." they'd probably think "I think I'll cook a beef and kidney stew tonight". Get my drift?
So back to the soft serve. I believe that craving ice or ice cream or anything cold on a hot day is a clue that you're dehydrated. I tried this, but I still wanted that rich, sweet, cold, gooey combo of disgusting, salad bar soft serve. So I decided to make some! Before sticking the churned ice cream into the freezer, I had a few mouthfuls of the gooey, creamy mixture, and boy did it kill the cravings dead!
Decidedly more expensive than the cheap non-foods that come out of the machine at maccas, but this recipe will actually nourish you and your family, and it's a great way of eating your essential fats and fat soluble vitamins. I never heat my ice cream ingredients, and this ensures that the vitamins in the cream and yolks stay intact. Therefore these recipes are high in vitamins A, E and D and K, plus loads of other fat based goodies that will keep you well.
Basic vanilla ice cream recipe
2 cups raw cream
1/2 cup organic maple syrup or raw honey
4 biodynamic egg yolks (I buy cackleberries eggs)
1 tsp real gelatine (made from animal ingredients) dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water
vanilla paste to taste (I like a whole tbsp)
Allow the gelatin to cool a bit, then blitz everything in a blender, pour it into an ice cream maker and churn until it almost doubles in volume. Then freeze overnight in an airtight container.
I think an ice cream maker is a great investment if you're interested in keeping processed foods out of your family's bodies. Any equipment that allows you to use real foods to create treats is worthwhile, because there's nothing more detrimental to the cause than feeling deprived.
Another word on ice cream makers, don't buy an industrial sized machine! Get a small one that makes just enough for the family to have a small but satisfying serve each. Our bodies aren't equipped to handle super-size portions. Blame your ancestors.
Rose water and strawberry ripple ice cream
200g fresh strawberries
1 tsp rose water
2 cups raw cream
1/2 cup maple or raw honey
4 biodynamic egg yolks
1 tsp gelatin dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water
Puree strawberries and set aside. Blend the rest of the ingredients plus half of the strawberry puree, then churn in an ice cream maker. As you pour the churned ice cream into a container to freeze, swirl the remaining puree through to create a ripple.
You can use any fruit you like in these recipes. I've made banana honey and added half a cup of chopped nuts, fresh apricots would work, you could even get really creative and do stewed apples and cinnamon! Totally up to you. So have fun!
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Friday, December 21, 2012
Whole Food Parties
As promised, this post is about catering a kids party using health foods and sugar substitutes. It's perfectly possible to do this. I did it recently; everyone asked for my honey ginger cake recipe, there were zero cookies left after 2 hours, and one Mum even discovered her 4 year old was mad for fresh blueberries.
In addition to the routine dips, rice crackers and veggie sticks, there was a zucchini slice made by Mum, cut into finger sized pieces, and little meatballs made by MIL. The sugar free sweets included a chocolate cheesecake slice, a ginger honey cake, chocolate chunk cookies and the birthday cake. There was also some cut up fruit.
The birthday cake was a butter cake recipe from taste.com.au, into which I substituted gluten free flour and rapadura sugar. I could also have used coconut sugar. I experimented with using my thermomix to turn the rapadura into icing sugar, which worked well texturally speaking, but didn't taste awesome! I'll keep experimenting and give a recipe when I'm satisfied.
The ginger honey cake was a variation of a wonderful recipe I found in Clean Eating magazine. Here's my version:
1.5 cups stone ground spelt flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1.5 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup unprocessed honey
1/2 cup egg whites (that was about 4)
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup organic cold pressed peanut oil
Preheat oven to 180
Sift dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
In a medium bowl, whisk wet ingredients until combined. Pour into dry ingredients and combine, then bake in a sandwich tin about 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You can also use it for cupcakes.
See? Great recipe, nothing to it!! Also great because the cake actually improves with time in an airtight container, so I was able to bake it 2 days in advance. On the day I cut it in half and filled it with whipped cream. Yum. And low GI.
Gluten free honey sweetened cut out cookies: here. You can use some other flour if you like, I used a stone ground spelt and the recipe needed about a cup and a half rather than one cup. If you cut them into cool shapes, like the birthday kids' newly acquired age, as Nigella suggests in 'How to be a Domestic Goddess', they don't need fancy icing. For a christmassy feel, just add ginger, cloves and nutmeg, poke a hole in them before they go into the oven, then hang them from the tree by a ribbon when they cool. Nawww
The cheesecake slice was a matter of googling 'no bake chocolate cheesecake' and following the recipe for the filling, substituting rapadura for the sugar. I had also bought Well...Naturally's sugar free dark chocolate bars from the supermarket. I infused them into some cream by heating it on the stove and melting the chocolate into it. It chilled in the fridge, then I whipped it and used it in the cheesecake.
I have also had success making a honey cheesecake which is gaps friendly using this recipe by Sally Fallon-Morell. I usually halve it though, to fit a 22cm spring form pan. And it's amazing if you add 200g of pureed strawberries to the mixture! I put in some with the honey, some to swirl through the mixture, and the rest I drizzle over the top. Food of the gods.
The cheesecake crust, however, was 130g of pitted medjool dates, 130g of organic almonds, 20g of raw cacao (or more if you're game), 2 tbsp virgin coconut oil and a splash of vanilla extract. You can also throw in a handful of dessicated coconut. I blitzed this in the thermomix til the almonds were broken into small chunks, but not totally homogeneous with the rest of the mix. Then I pressed it into a biscuit tray and stuck it in the fridge.
The chocolate chunk cookies were easy too, just a matter of substituting rapadura and gluten free flour into this recipe from Joy of Baking.
At a recent brunch party, I served piklets made with stone ground spelt flour, eggs and milk. The topping options were lemon, honey, maple syrup, whipped cream and fresh berries.
I also made little yoghurt cups with mango or berries and maple syrup.
There are so many options and with a little imagination, the run-of-the-mill fairy bread starts to look pretty boring!
At the moment I'm experimenting with ice creams and Christmas cakes, all gaps friendly. I'll hopefully post about those delectable morsels before Christmas!
In addition to the routine dips, rice crackers and veggie sticks, there was a zucchini slice made by Mum, cut into finger sized pieces, and little meatballs made by MIL. The sugar free sweets included a chocolate cheesecake slice, a ginger honey cake, chocolate chunk cookies and the birthday cake. There was also some cut up fruit.
The birthday cake was a butter cake recipe from taste.com.au, into which I substituted gluten free flour and rapadura sugar. I could also have used coconut sugar. I experimented with using my thermomix to turn the rapadura into icing sugar, which worked well texturally speaking, but didn't taste awesome! I'll keep experimenting and give a recipe when I'm satisfied.
The ginger honey cake was a variation of a wonderful recipe I found in Clean Eating magazine. Here's my version:
1.5 cups stone ground spelt flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1.5 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup unprocessed honey
1/2 cup egg whites (that was about 4)
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup organic cold pressed peanut oil
Preheat oven to 180
Sift dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
In a medium bowl, whisk wet ingredients until combined. Pour into dry ingredients and combine, then bake in a sandwich tin about 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You can also use it for cupcakes.
See? Great recipe, nothing to it!! Also great because the cake actually improves with time in an airtight container, so I was able to bake it 2 days in advance. On the day I cut it in half and filled it with whipped cream. Yum. And low GI.
Gluten free honey sweetened cut out cookies: here. You can use some other flour if you like, I used a stone ground spelt and the recipe needed about a cup and a half rather than one cup. If you cut them into cool shapes, like the birthday kids' newly acquired age, as Nigella suggests in 'How to be a Domestic Goddess', they don't need fancy icing. For a christmassy feel, just add ginger, cloves and nutmeg, poke a hole in them before they go into the oven, then hang them from the tree by a ribbon when they cool. Nawww
The cheesecake slice was a matter of googling 'no bake chocolate cheesecake' and following the recipe for the filling, substituting rapadura for the sugar. I had also bought Well...Naturally's sugar free dark chocolate bars from the supermarket. I infused them into some cream by heating it on the stove and melting the chocolate into it. It chilled in the fridge, then I whipped it and used it in the cheesecake.
I have also had success making a honey cheesecake which is gaps friendly using this recipe by Sally Fallon-Morell. I usually halve it though, to fit a 22cm spring form pan. And it's amazing if you add 200g of pureed strawberries to the mixture! I put in some with the honey, some to swirl through the mixture, and the rest I drizzle over the top. Food of the gods.
The cheesecake crust, however, was 130g of pitted medjool dates, 130g of organic almonds, 20g of raw cacao (or more if you're game), 2 tbsp virgin coconut oil and a splash of vanilla extract. You can also throw in a handful of dessicated coconut. I blitzed this in the thermomix til the almonds were broken into small chunks, but not totally homogeneous with the rest of the mix. Then I pressed it into a biscuit tray and stuck it in the fridge.
The chocolate chunk cookies were easy too, just a matter of substituting rapadura and gluten free flour into this recipe from Joy of Baking.
At a recent brunch party, I served piklets made with stone ground spelt flour, eggs and milk. The topping options were lemon, honey, maple syrup, whipped cream and fresh berries.
I also made little yoghurt cups with mango or berries and maple syrup.
There are so many options and with a little imagination, the run-of-the-mill fairy bread starts to look pretty boring!
At the moment I'm experimenting with ice creams and Christmas cakes, all gaps friendly. I'll hopefully post about those delectable morsels before Christmas!
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Junk Food Jungle; how do we protect our kids?
Lately I've noticed an issue repeating itself to me; how do we control the quality of the food our little ones eat? Other mothers have asked about it, I've faced it with my son, and it's been in the media (again). It's a real issue. Those of us trying to maintain health are often faced with opposition from other parents. Those other parents themselves suffer from nutritional confusion and lack of reliable information. How do we do the right thing?
My wise old herbal medicine teacher used to say; "if I could wave a magic wand I'd get rid of sugar. Then I'd be out of a job." She meant that most of the unwell people who sought her help probably wouldn't have become unwell if their gut flora had not been damaged by the refined foods in their diet. She was underscoring the point that if whole foods were the only foods available, we would all be well, without having to make the choice to eat well.
The unfortunate reality is that many of the things available to eat in this world are not food. They're slow acting poisons. They are often the easiest edible options. They're certainly the most tempting. Some even masquerade as health foods! So keeping them out of our kid's bodies becomes increasingly difficult as their ability to exercise free will increases. The aware parent ends up having to walk a tight-rope between health and sociality, a situation unique in human history.
Until the last century, the only thing available to eat was food. Food that we have eaten since we first became homo sapiens. Food that our bodies are familiar with and able to draw nutrition from. Foods in their whole form. These foods are specifically:
vegetables, meats, fish, eggs, legumes (beans, peas, lentils), fruits, nuts, whole grains, and in some areas, raw milk products like cheese, yoghurt, whole, milk and cream.
These are the ingredients for health, freedom from pain and disease, in both the short and long term. The diet we subsisted on since evolving from apes has been more or less the same for tens of thousands of years. All those years that we lived without chronic lifestyle illness. Without rampant childhood allergies and "intolerance's". Without dentists, podiatrists, nutritionists, psychologists... These foods are still available to us, but we don't choose them often. Instead we feed ourselves and our children:
boxed cereals, processed milk, refined wheat products, processed salts, fizzy drinks, processed meats, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oils and a cocktail of added chemicals like colourings and shelf-life chemicals, given the friendly sounding name, preservatives.
This list of "food like substances" (to borrow a phrase from Michael Pollan) are the slow acting poisons. They provide no nutrition (fats, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants) whatsoever, but use up our body's stores in being ousted, they destroy our delicate gut flora, which is our defence against acute and chronic illness, and they age (oxidise) our bodies. Very few people really comprehend the extent to which they are damaging to us. Their very availability suggests their relative innocence. It's understandable that most parents, untrained in nutrition, fail to suspect them of systematically destroying their kids health, mentally, emotionally and physically. But we shouldn't require a degree in biochemistry to choose our foods, that's not fair. Food should be food. Unfortunately refined foods make too many people too much money. We can't expect them to vanish any time soon. We'll just have to be brave and make the choice to feed our families the way their bodies expect to be nourished.
Kids are born with an inherent expectation that their diet will consist of the first list of foods. They don't, until they've already experienced them, want, much less need, anything from the second list. Not even on their birthday. The parent usually has a nostalgic attachment to the idea of treat food. But we have a responsibility to inform ourselves in this age of nutritional confusion, for our kid's sakes. Inform ourselves, but also listen to our intuition, because we know this stuff, deep down!
In recent decades it has become socially unacceptable to restrict our kids diets to the former list, the real foods. We who try hear the catch phrases "You can't control them", "You have to let them try it", "They'll be teased at school" and my favourite, "Balance in all things".
Lets talk about balance. Equilibrium. That feeling of centredness, in control of ones emotions, calm, contented. This sounds like a happy way to feel. Does it sound like most kids - people for that matter - that you know? Does it describe you? Studies show the startling difference in before and after MRI shots of subjects' nervous system from sugar alone. A normal, versus an inflamed, agitated nervous system, unable to contain itself. How does a three year old bear this? Hydrogenated fats attack the stuff our brains are made of. Low fibre high refined carb foods like bread stick to the wall of your bowel and become a festering mass of disease, destroying normal flora and leaking toxins into the body, clouding thought processes. There is ample evidence that colourings lead to hyperactivity. How can a little body facing this barrage of biologically unfamiliar substances feel balanced? It can only feel out of control. And that's a decidedly unpleasant way to feel. There is no balance when it comes to junk food. Nature created balance. She even gave us fruit and honey. Big business created junk foods, for profit. And that's the only reason it's still available.
So what can we do?
There are certain healing foods that we can feed our kids on a daily basis which protect them on that odd occasion when the only food available is refined junk. This happened to us recently at an event, where we thought good food would be available but were 'caught out'. As Antonio gets older he's just going to see it and grab it. Here's what I do.
1) The healing foods I include daily are bone broths, fermented foods (yoghurt), egg yolks and LOTS of fresh plant foods. This will protect little intestines when junk sneaks in. Yoghurt and yolks can be added to a fruity breakfast smoothie. Bone broths can be added to soups, stews, risotto, pilau/biryani...
2) Be a champion of healthy choices by refusing to cave in at social gatherings and parties. Until we actually start catering our gatherings with food we'd happily feed our kids every day, nothing will change! Kids don't go to parties for the food. They go because they're social. They want to play, not eat. Keep your emphasis on their true priorities.
3) When at a junk-foody social occasion, feed your kids loads of high fibre, high fat food first, like a good chicken and veggie stew, cheese and raw veggies, bean casserole, avocado and carrot sticks or some fish poached in coconut milk with steamed veg. These foods satisfy the body with the nutrition it wants, so it stops asking for more.
4) Be the change you want to see. Modeling good food habits to kids makes them believe it's the norm. Parents are always right to a little kid.
In my next post I'll give some ideas I've come up with for healthy party foods for kids. If you have some ideas please let me know and I'll add them to the list.
Healthy times!
XXX
My wise old herbal medicine teacher used to say; "if I could wave a magic wand I'd get rid of sugar. Then I'd be out of a job." She meant that most of the unwell people who sought her help probably wouldn't have become unwell if their gut flora had not been damaged by the refined foods in their diet. She was underscoring the point that if whole foods were the only foods available, we would all be well, without having to make the choice to eat well.
The unfortunate reality is that many of the things available to eat in this world are not food. They're slow acting poisons. They are often the easiest edible options. They're certainly the most tempting. Some even masquerade as health foods! So keeping them out of our kid's bodies becomes increasingly difficult as their ability to exercise free will increases. The aware parent ends up having to walk a tight-rope between health and sociality, a situation unique in human history.
Until the last century, the only thing available to eat was food. Food that we have eaten since we first became homo sapiens. Food that our bodies are familiar with and able to draw nutrition from. Foods in their whole form. These foods are specifically:
vegetables, meats, fish, eggs, legumes (beans, peas, lentils), fruits, nuts, whole grains, and in some areas, raw milk products like cheese, yoghurt, whole, milk and cream.
These are the ingredients for health, freedom from pain and disease, in both the short and long term. The diet we subsisted on since evolving from apes has been more or less the same for tens of thousands of years. All those years that we lived without chronic lifestyle illness. Without rampant childhood allergies and "intolerance's". Without dentists, podiatrists, nutritionists, psychologists... These foods are still available to us, but we don't choose them often. Instead we feed ourselves and our children:
boxed cereals, processed milk, refined wheat products, processed salts, fizzy drinks, processed meats, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oils and a cocktail of added chemicals like colourings and shelf-life chemicals, given the friendly sounding name, preservatives.
This list of "food like substances" (to borrow a phrase from Michael Pollan) are the slow acting poisons. They provide no nutrition (fats, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants) whatsoever, but use up our body's stores in being ousted, they destroy our delicate gut flora, which is our defence against acute and chronic illness, and they age (oxidise) our bodies. Very few people really comprehend the extent to which they are damaging to us. Their very availability suggests their relative innocence. It's understandable that most parents, untrained in nutrition, fail to suspect them of systematically destroying their kids health, mentally, emotionally and physically. But we shouldn't require a degree in biochemistry to choose our foods, that's not fair. Food should be food. Unfortunately refined foods make too many people too much money. We can't expect them to vanish any time soon. We'll just have to be brave and make the choice to feed our families the way their bodies expect to be nourished.
Kids are born with an inherent expectation that their diet will consist of the first list of foods. They don't, until they've already experienced them, want, much less need, anything from the second list. Not even on their birthday. The parent usually has a nostalgic attachment to the idea of treat food. But we have a responsibility to inform ourselves in this age of nutritional confusion, for our kid's sakes. Inform ourselves, but also listen to our intuition, because we know this stuff, deep down!
In recent decades it has become socially unacceptable to restrict our kids diets to the former list, the real foods. We who try hear the catch phrases "You can't control them", "You have to let them try it", "They'll be teased at school" and my favourite, "Balance in all things".
Lets talk about balance. Equilibrium. That feeling of centredness, in control of ones emotions, calm, contented. This sounds like a happy way to feel. Does it sound like most kids - people for that matter - that you know? Does it describe you? Studies show the startling difference in before and after MRI shots of subjects' nervous system from sugar alone. A normal, versus an inflamed, agitated nervous system, unable to contain itself. How does a three year old bear this? Hydrogenated fats attack the stuff our brains are made of. Low fibre high refined carb foods like bread stick to the wall of your bowel and become a festering mass of disease, destroying normal flora and leaking toxins into the body, clouding thought processes. There is ample evidence that colourings lead to hyperactivity. How can a little body facing this barrage of biologically unfamiliar substances feel balanced? It can only feel out of control. And that's a decidedly unpleasant way to feel. There is no balance when it comes to junk food. Nature created balance. She even gave us fruit and honey. Big business created junk foods, for profit. And that's the only reason it's still available.
So what can we do?
There are certain healing foods that we can feed our kids on a daily basis which protect them on that odd occasion when the only food available is refined junk. This happened to us recently at an event, where we thought good food would be available but were 'caught out'. As Antonio gets older he's just going to see it and grab it. Here's what I do.
1) The healing foods I include daily are bone broths, fermented foods (yoghurt), egg yolks and LOTS of fresh plant foods. This will protect little intestines when junk sneaks in. Yoghurt and yolks can be added to a fruity breakfast smoothie. Bone broths can be added to soups, stews, risotto, pilau/biryani...
2) Be a champion of healthy choices by refusing to cave in at social gatherings and parties. Until we actually start catering our gatherings with food we'd happily feed our kids every day, nothing will change! Kids don't go to parties for the food. They go because they're social. They want to play, not eat. Keep your emphasis on their true priorities.
3) When at a junk-foody social occasion, feed your kids loads of high fibre, high fat food first, like a good chicken and veggie stew, cheese and raw veggies, bean casserole, avocado and carrot sticks or some fish poached in coconut milk with steamed veg. These foods satisfy the body with the nutrition it wants, so it stops asking for more.
4) Be the change you want to see. Modeling good food habits to kids makes them believe it's the norm. Parents are always right to a little kid.
In my next post I'll give some ideas I've come up with for healthy party foods for kids. If you have some ideas please let me know and I'll add them to the list.
Healthy times!
XXX
Monday, July 23, 2012
Yummy Mummy's Super Snacks
"Get used to eating your meals cold" they all said when I was pregnant. But after Antonio was born I wondered, what meals? Who has time to make food for themselves? I was doing well to grab an apple most days. But of course we must eat properly, because mum's health is baby's health, and mum's food becomes baby's food. Not only that, but a well nourished mamma makes more milk, copes better with the inevitable sleep deprivation, feels less overwhelmed and more in control of herself. This was not me in the early baby days! So I have spent much time devising a system to ensure I have quick, easy health food on hand. In the process I've learned that being healthy has much in common with being a mum. Both require prioritisation, mindfulness, fore planning, flexibility and a lot of self love.
My answer to the issue has been to prepare large batches of snacks in advance, snacks which are very nutrient dense; high in fats, protein, vitamins and minerals. Here are my favourite superfood snacks.
Dip - not the supermarket sludge, but home-whizzed super dip! You can use avocado or home made cream cheese extracted from yoghurt. To this I add a huge handfull of fresh herbs, anything you like, they're all packed with their own respective goodies, half a clove of garlic, pine nuts and some sprouts. You can add any other flavours you like after that. I like a bit of home made roasted capsicum and some olive oil. You could put in some olives, sun dried tomatoes, feta cheese, roasted pumpkin...go crazy! And don't forget a good pinch of ground sea or rock salt.
Veggie sticks - with which to eat your dip. Chop them the night before and stick them in an airtight in the fridge. You can also use them for a quick half an avo.
Bliss balls - these sweet treat superfoods really fill you up! You can pack them full of awesomeness. Coconut oil, nut butters, activated nuts, tahini, raw honey, spices like cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, raw carob or cacao, orange zest, ginger root... Just blitz it all up in the processor. Dates make a great base but you can use any preservative free dried fruit. Mmmm....
Smoothies - they take a few seconds to whizz up and you can use them to really improve your health. You can use nut milks, raw milk, bananas, apricots, egg yolks, coconut oil, flax oil, fresh or frozen berries, yoghurt or kefir. You can also do green smoothies, with a fruit base and some green veg, for the most awesome energy kick you'll ever get in a glass.
Banana - for times that you're out of the house and need to pick up a power snack, have bananas. Yes, plural. You won't get the richness of good fats, but 'nanas are power packs of energy and electrolytes, while being low in fructose. And very filling! Also, bub can share it with you, and it's amazing how sweet their disposition becomes when they've had a healthy snack!
Chicken soup - this isn't a trick I do myself, but a girlfriend swears by a thermos flask full of chicken broth! She sips it whenever she feels her blood sugars slipping. See the post 'eating warm' for the recipe.
For me, the lack of time to do anything for myself puts a downer on my mummyhood. I found that keeping my tummy full of healthy food makes all the difference. So if you are feeling deprived as a Mamma, I highly recommend you try these ideas. A quick and easy superfood snack can transform your life! They'll keep you full and happy, and it's so very true that a contented Mamma means a contented baby. And its so empowering to know you can turn your own mood around so easily!
Happy power snacking!
My answer to the issue has been to prepare large batches of snacks in advance, snacks which are very nutrient dense; high in fats, protein, vitamins and minerals. Here are my favourite superfood snacks.
Dip - not the supermarket sludge, but home-whizzed super dip! You can use avocado or home made cream cheese extracted from yoghurt. To this I add a huge handfull of fresh herbs, anything you like, they're all packed with their own respective goodies, half a clove of garlic, pine nuts and some sprouts. You can add any other flavours you like after that. I like a bit of home made roasted capsicum and some olive oil. You could put in some olives, sun dried tomatoes, feta cheese, roasted pumpkin...go crazy! And don't forget a good pinch of ground sea or rock salt.
Veggie sticks - with which to eat your dip. Chop them the night before and stick them in an airtight in the fridge. You can also use them for a quick half an avo.
Bliss balls - these sweet treat superfoods really fill you up! You can pack them full of awesomeness. Coconut oil, nut butters, activated nuts, tahini, raw honey, spices like cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, raw carob or cacao, orange zest, ginger root... Just blitz it all up in the processor. Dates make a great base but you can use any preservative free dried fruit. Mmmm....
Smoothies - they take a few seconds to whizz up and you can use them to really improve your health. You can use nut milks, raw milk, bananas, apricots, egg yolks, coconut oil, flax oil, fresh or frozen berries, yoghurt or kefir. You can also do green smoothies, with a fruit base and some green veg, for the most awesome energy kick you'll ever get in a glass.
Banana - for times that you're out of the house and need to pick up a power snack, have bananas. Yes, plural. You won't get the richness of good fats, but 'nanas are power packs of energy and electrolytes, while being low in fructose. And very filling! Also, bub can share it with you, and it's amazing how sweet their disposition becomes when they've had a healthy snack!
Chicken soup - this isn't a trick I do myself, but a girlfriend swears by a thermos flask full of chicken broth! She sips it whenever she feels her blood sugars slipping. See the post 'eating warm' for the recipe.
For me, the lack of time to do anything for myself puts a downer on my mummyhood. I found that keeping my tummy full of healthy food makes all the difference. So if you are feeling deprived as a Mamma, I highly recommend you try these ideas. A quick and easy superfood snack can transform your life! They'll keep you full and happy, and it's so very true that a contented Mamma means a contented baby. And its so empowering to know you can turn your own mood around so easily!
Happy power snacking!
Friday, July 6, 2012
The predigestive power of raw honey
Good health is all about good digestion. In India there's a saying, "with strong digestion, one can withstand poison. With poor digestion, even nectar is poison". This is so very true and wise, and something every naturopath must remember when we treat. To heal the body, restore digestion.
There are loads of ways to improve your digestive strength, there's lemon juice, cider vinegar, probiotics, bitter herbs, raw foods, lacto-fermentation... The list goes on! But while reading my copy of 'Nourishing Traditions' today, I found a great little nugget of info I want to share. Raw honey. A favourite sweetener of mine for baking. But what I hadn't realised is that it's so high in amylase, the digestive enzyme for carbohydrate, that it will begin the digestive process in just 15 minutes of contact!! So this means if you spread raw honey on bread and leave it on the bench while you shower, the honey will begin to break down the carbohydrate in the grains, doing some of the digestive work for you.
You can also use raw honey when you pre-soak your organic rolled oats for breakfast. You can use it in biscuits or cake batter, and let it stand before baking. Whenever or however you use it, remember the 15 minute rule.
For those who haven't used raw honey before, don't go looking for it in the supermarket, it's in the health shop. Unfortunately the stuff in the supermarket is processed, not raw. Processing the honey at high temperature kills the enzymes and also the vitamins present in the raw honey. This renders the processed product plain old sugar. No natural buffers. To quote Marco Pierre White on masterchef this week, "The more you do to food, the more you take away from it".
There are loads of ways to improve your digestive strength, there's lemon juice, cider vinegar, probiotics, bitter herbs, raw foods, lacto-fermentation... The list goes on! But while reading my copy of 'Nourishing Traditions' today, I found a great little nugget of info I want to share. Raw honey. A favourite sweetener of mine for baking. But what I hadn't realised is that it's so high in amylase, the digestive enzyme for carbohydrate, that it will begin the digestive process in just 15 minutes of contact!! So this means if you spread raw honey on bread and leave it on the bench while you shower, the honey will begin to break down the carbohydrate in the grains, doing some of the digestive work for you.
You can also use raw honey when you pre-soak your organic rolled oats for breakfast. You can use it in biscuits or cake batter, and let it stand before baking. Whenever or however you use it, remember the 15 minute rule.
For those who haven't used raw honey before, don't go looking for it in the supermarket, it's in the health shop. Unfortunately the stuff in the supermarket is processed, not raw. Processing the honey at high temperature kills the enzymes and also the vitamins present in the raw honey. This renders the processed product plain old sugar. No natural buffers. To quote Marco Pierre White on masterchef this week, "The more you do to food, the more you take away from it".
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Banana and honey moaves (muffin-loaves)
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!
Friday, June 8, 2012
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!
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!
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