Stop press . . . the Bell awards
Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work
I’ve just found out, not only have I been nominated for the Bell Awards . . . but I’ve actually received a Highly Commended in the category of Writer of the Year. This is for a series of articles I wrote for Wellbeing magazine.
I’m very excited (and slightly overwhelmed) to have received this recognition.
Of course I have to say a big thanks to the editors at Wellbeing – for commissioning me in the first place, for their support for my writing and also nominating me for the award.
But I also have to thank my super-sub-editor-extraordinaire . . . Sheila . . . THANKS mum.
Mixed berry & ricotta panettone cake
Posted by kathryn in Blogging, Antioxidants, Fruit and Pudding
Coming from the UK most of my family Christmas traditions revolve around turkey, roast potatoes, gravy, Christmas pudding, fruit cake, mince pies – heavy, heavy foods that we only eat once per year. A more recent tradition for me though, is panettone.Since moving out of home I’ve always lived in the inner west of Sydney, surrounded by a large proportion of Sydney’s Italian community, as well as Italian delis, cafes, foods, restaurants and so on. At this time of year my local shops start filling up with dozens and dozens of different, brightly coloured panettone boxes – plain ones, those with filling, others covered in chocolate, some soaked in liquer. To me, it’s become a sign that Christmas is on it’s way.
While the rest of my family might be eating ham and eggs, my Christmas morning breakfast is now orange juice, panettone and a cup of coffee and I look forward to it almost as much as the present opening (only almost though).
This year I’ve also developed a really simple and easy berry and panettone cake, as an alternative Christmas day dessert. It’s lighter and simpler to make than Christmas pudding, plus it only takes ten minutes to put together . You can use a mixture of berries, or make it all strawberry. I also think a mango filling might go really well. This cake is absolutely delicious.
The mixture of panettone (instead of sponge), ricotta (instead of cream) means that the cake is lower in fat and kilojoules than most other desserts, plus all those berries are PACKED full of antioxidants.
I first developed this recipe for the Life etc Christmas edition and the full Christmas menu can be downloaded from their website. Based on the theme of fake it, don’t make it , all the recipes are simple and easy and designed to keep the cook out of the kitchen.
Mixed berry&ricotta panettone cake
This cake doesn’t keep very well – it tends to go a bit soggy. You can prep the ingredients in advance, but I’d advise you to put it together just before serving, which is quite practical, given this takes less than 10 minutes. Serves 6.
- 1 punnet blueberries, washed and gently dried
- 1 punnet raspberries, washed and gently dried
- 2 tablespoon icing sugar
- 1 panettone (about 15cm in diameter)
- 2 tablespoon sherry
- 300g fresh ricotta
- 2 punnets strawberries, washed and green stalks removed
- extra icing sugar for dusting
Put the blueberries, raspberries and icing sugar into a bowl, mix together and put to one side.
Just before serving cut a thin slice off the bottom of the panettone and discard this. Cut two more slices, about 2cm thick, from the base of the panettone. Put one slice on a serving plate and drizzle over the sherry. Spread over half the ricotta and then cover with the blueberries and raspberries. Put the other slice of panettone on top and cover with the rest of the ricotta. Decorate with the strawberries and dust with icing sugar. Serve immediately.
This is also my contribution to Anna’s Festive Food Fair event.
Technorati tags: festive food fair , panettone , berries , strawberries , Blueberries , raspberries , antioxidant .
Choice calls for accurate labelling of GM crops
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket, Health News and Food Labelling
With domestic supplies of canola affected by the drought, Cargill (which imports, processes and markets agricultural and food products) will be receiving a consignment of genetically modified (GM) canola from Canada, within the next month. This is the first time GM canola has been imported into Australia and between 40,000 and 50,000 tonnes of canola is being imported.
Labelling laws in Australia mean that products containing highly processed GM foods do not need to be labelled. As Claire Hughes from Choice says :
“If we do start to see a large amount of genetically modified canola coming into Australia, if it’s going to be processed and used as oil, consumers wouldn’t necessarily know if a product they’re purchasing has been genetically modified, or does contain genetically modified canola oil,” she said.
“Our GM labelling laws don’t require a product that has been highly refined . . . to be labelled and canola oil is a good example of that.”
According to the Federal Agriculture Minister, Peter McGauran, the consignment has been independently tested and sampled and meets Australia’s quarantine standards.
Regardless of whether you’re pro or anti-GM foods, in the interests of consumer choice, I really think we have a right to know what foods contain GM crops and what don’t. I want to know what I’m eating, I want to be able to assess foods according to my own knowledge, beliefs and dietary requirements. I want to have the option of choosing whether to say yes or no to GM foods, not to have it sneak in there unremarked upon.
More information:
Stuffed onions with barley & lentil pilaf
Posted by kathryn in Antioxidants, Legumes, Vegetable recipes and Main courses
Onions are one of the staples of our diet – well they’re certainly one of the staples of mine. We always have garlic and onion in the house and I would say about 80% of the things I cook, are started by sauteeing together these two ingredients. Their rich intensity adds so much flavour to even the simplest of dishes.
Onions are also extremely good for you. They contain the flavonoid quercetin , which has antiinflammatory action. It inhibits both the manufacture and release of histamine , one of the substances responsible for allergy reactions – just think of all those people taking anti-histamine tablets in spring for their hayfever. So if you get hayfever, hives, or even asthma and eczema, onions are a good food to include regularly in your diet.
Quercetin is also an antioxidant and can protect us from heart disease and many of the other chronic diseases that affect our society. Both onions and garlic have been linked to reduced cholesterol levels and they are just two of the foods the Heart Foundation recommends including regularly in your diet.
Onions also contain antimicrobial constituents. Along with garlic, they are a good food to eat if you have a cold or a cough. In fact in herbal medicine we often use a syrup that can be made at home by soaking onions overnight in honey. This is excellent for dealing with coughs and tastes surprisingly good (!).
In our large intestines there are whole colonies of bacteria and other organisims that help us to digest fibre and maintain good digestive and bowel health. These are called probiotics and include cultures likeacidophillus, bifidusandcasei. In order to flourish and do their good work these probiotics need food, in the form of fructooligosaccharides, which are starchy substances found in many foods, including onions .
Therefore, as well as being a core part of cooking in cultures from around the globe, onions also have many, many health benefits – so there really is a good reason to have an international onion day (and thanks to Zorra at Kochtopf for organising this!).
I based this recipe on one from Susan’s Fat Free Vegan blog , which is one of my favourite blogs. While her recipes aren’t completely fat free (as many ingredients inherently contain some fat), Susan adds very little fat during the cooking process. I’m continually impressed by her imaginative and creative vegan cooking – it’s simply one of the best vegan resources I’ve come across.
There are several steps to this recipe, so it’s probably not something you’d make after a long day at work. However it’s quite easy and definitely worth it – Richard and I really enjoyed this meal. The red onions get a silky smooth texture and their flavour softens and mellows with the cooking. This combines really well with the spiced barley and lentil pilaf. I’ve added more vegies than the original recipe and also used slightly different spices and barley instead of rice. Oh yes, I only used about a third of the pilaf for stuffing the onions and have put the rest in the freezer, for another day.
Stuffed onions with barley&lentil pilaf
Serves 2
- 4 red onions, peeled
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 400g Kent / Jap pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
- 1 dried chilli
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 2 teaspoons sumac (or lemon juice)
- 1/2 cup barley, washed
- 1/2 cup brown lentils, washed
- 1×400g tin tomatoes
- 1/2 bunch silverbeet, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup pine nuts
- 1 tablespoon shoyu (or soy sauce)
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Cut a slice off the bottom of the onions, so they stand upright and then cut a 1cm slice off the top. Place on aluminium foil on a baking tray and drizzle with half the olive oil. Put in the oven and cook for 20 – 30 minutes, until the onions are tender and slightly caramelised. Remove from the oven (but leave the oven on).
While the onions are cooking, prepare the pilaf.
Finely chop the leftover bits of onion. Heat the remaining olive oil in a large, heavy-based pan (with a lid). Add the onion and garlic and saute for 2 – 3 minutes. Add the pumpkin, stir, then turn the heat down low, cover with the lid and leave to sweat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the dried chilli, cinnamon, allspice and sumac and stir through to coat the onions with the spice mixture. Add the barley and lentils and continue cooking for about 2 minutes, stirring to coat with the onion and spices.
Add the tinned tomatoes plus 2.5 cups of water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down low, cover with the lid and cook for about 30 – 40 minutes, or until the lentils and barley are cooked. Stir through the silverbeet, pine nuts and shoyu.
Take the onions off the baking tray and pop the middle of each onion out. This should be easy to do, as they are quite soft at this stage (you want to leave about 3 layers of onion intact – with a hole in the middle, to be stuffed with pilaf). Place the onions in an oiled baking dish and spoon the pilaf mixture into the middle of each onion, pressing down to pack it in tightly as you go and putting a mound of pilaf on top. Chop up the onion centres and scatter around the stuffed onions and then cover with more of the pilaf mixture, so the onions are surrounded. Cover with aluminium foil and place in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until cooked through and bubbling.
This serves two people as is, or you could stretch to four, with a side salad and some couscous.
Nutritional information:
[I’ll add the nutritional information in later – I just haven’t had time to calculate yet!]
Technorati tags: zwiebeltag/onion day , onion , vegan , barley , lentils , quercetin , .
The Source of Wellness: newsletter
Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work
The latest Source of Wellness newsletter has just come out – it includes some good advice on staying healthy and sane during the holiday season, as well as the clinic’s Christmas and New Year opening times.
It also gives details of my pre-Christmas very special offer for new clients!
Sydney's urban agriculture
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Sustainablity
Did you know that in the outer suburbs of Sydney, around Liverpool, Leppington, Austral and Bringelly there are over 2,000 small farms? These farms grow 90% of Sydney’s perishable vegetables – all our Asian greens are grown there, as are 80% of mushrooms and most of the tomatoes, snowpeas, Lebanese cucumbers, herbs, spring onions and shallots that we consume. It all adds up to a farmgate crop that’s valued at about $250 million per year.
As Sydney grows more and more of these farms are being squeezed out and the land converted to housing. As this happens, these beautiful fresh, fresh ingredients are going to be harder to find – plus they’re going to be of poorer quality (if they’ve had to travel from further afield) and probably more expensive.
There’s an interesting article on the issue in today’s Good Living.
Pumpkin & cinnamon risotto
Posted by kathryn in Vegetable recipes and Main courses
We had risotto for dinner last night – this beautiful pumpkin and cinnamon risotto. I started with a recipe from Rose Gray&Ruth Rogers’ River Cafe Cook Book Green * and made a couple of tweaks. I’ve been quite intrigued by this recipe for a while and after my recent experiment with chermoula risotto , I decided to give it a go.
The combination of cinnamon, chilli and oregano gives the risotto a beautiful, rich flavour. It’s not super-hot, with the chilli and cinnamon combining to give just a slight warmth.
Cook’s confession time – while I’m sure the best risottos are made by stirring the rice and stock constantly, I rarely do that – my stirring tends to be much more sporadic. Each time I add stock, I let it cook for a couple of minutes before stirring. I suspect this is risotto heresy, but to be honest I find the results are still really good, without you having to be chained to the stovetop.
This month’s Hay Hay It’s Donna Day , hosted by Il Cavaletto di Bruxelles is based on risottos, so this dinner was good timing.
Pumpkin&cinnamon risotto
Serves 2
- 900g pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1.5cm cubes
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 red onions, peeled and finely sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 litre vegetable stock
- 1 dried chilli
- 1 cinnamon stick, broken into three
- 200g arborio rice
- 2 large handfuls of baby spinach leaves
- 4 tablespoons ricotta
Preheat the oven to 220°C.
Toss the pumpkin together with half the oregano and half the olive oil. Season with salt and paper, then place on a baking tray and cook in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until soft and slightly browned.
In the meantime, heat the other half of the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pan. Add the onions and garlic, stir, turn the heat down to low and place the lid on top. Leave the onions to gently sweat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Heat the stock in another pan and keep warm.
Add the rest of the oregano, the chilli and the cinnamon stick and continue cooking for another couple of minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat each grain with the oil. until the rice grains become opaque (about 2 – 3 minutes).
Start adding the stock, about a quarter of a cup at a time. Add the first amount and then cook until that liquid is absorbed, stirring sporadically. Once this is done, add another quarter cup of stock and continue cooking and stirring until it’s absorbed. Continue doing this until the rice is cooked (this will take about 20 minutes). Fish out the cinnamon stick pieces and then add in the pumpkin and stir through, slightly mashing as you do so. Finally, add the spinach leaves, stir through and serve immediately topped with the ricotta.
Nutritional information per serve:
Total kilojoules: 2885kJ; Protein: 23g; Total Fat: 16g; Saturated fat: 4.5g; Carbohydrate: 113g; Fibre: 10g; Sodium: 452mg (without adding any extra salt); Number of vegetable serves towards daily total: 4 serve; Additional nutrients: potassium, beta-carotene, calcium antioxidants.
*Gray R&Rogers R, River Cafe Cook Book Green , Ebury Press, London 2000.
Technorati tags: risotto , cinnamon , pumpkin , spinach , vegetarian , hay hay it’s donna day
Nutrition and herbal medicine
Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work
And if you want to know more about me, my approach to clients, or whether herbal medicine and nutrition can help you, then take a look at the info just uploaded onto the Source of Wellness website:
New clinic: the Source of Wellness
Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work
I’m very pleased to be letting you all know that I’m joining a new clinic – The Source of Wellness . This is a great natural therapies clinic in Gladesville (just off Victoria Rd, near the shops), which offers a variety of healing, relaxing and rejuvenating treatments. There are three other practitioners, covering a range of modalities: Ally is a remedial masseur and craniosacral therapist, Ani does kinesiology and breathwork, while Andrew is a counsellor , coach and runs workships on managing your money. They also have weekly meditation and pilates classes.
In the build up to Christmas I will be seeing clients one day per week (Thursdays), although in the new year that will increase and I’ll also be doing some Saturday morning sessions.
I’m really excited about joining the Source of Wellness, I like their attitude to health and healing, as well as the range of modalities and services they offer, all under one roof. I think being a part of their team is going to benefit my own professional development, while also providing a more holistic and well-rounded health service for my clients.
Contact Info:
There’s a map of how to get to the clinic here and info on buses, etc here . Appointments can be made directly with the centre on 9817 8766 / 0421 644 128 or via email: info@thesourceofwellness.com
Date & walnut muffins
Posted by kathryn in Breakfast
I’ve been slowly working away at this muffin recipe for about 6 weeks now, tweaking, testing then re-tweaking, until there was a huge eureka yesterday when I finally cracked it. There are a gazillion muffin recipes out there, so why all the bother? Well I had certain requirements for my muffins. I wanted each one to contain at least one serving of fruit, to contain walnuts, to taste really good and to have no added fat and very little added sugar. Basically I’m trying to make a more healthy muffin, the kind you can eat for breakfast, without feeling guilty.
And yes, I’ve achieved all of those things, with this recipe. These muffins are not fat free: walnuts, flour, yoghurt, milk, all have fat in them, however there’s no added oil or butter, so they’re definitely lower in fat than most muffins. Plus 30% of the fat comes from the walnuts, which is primarily Omega 3 essential fatty acids, which are good for heart health and so on.
I’ve used dried fruit in these, in this case dates and raisins, although I’ve also made them with apricots and raisins. If bananas were a reasonable price , they would would work well too. The jam doesn’t add a lot of flavour, but it does give an intense sweetness, with less sugar.
I’ve been having these muffins for breakfast with a piece of fresh fruit and am really enjoying them. If you wanted to use them as a snack, or for kids, you could halve the recipe and make them in a mini-muffin tray. For little kids, I’d also leave out the walnuts.
This is my contribution to Saffron Trail’s Weekend Breakfast Blogging .
Date&walnut muffins
Serves 12
- 200g dried dates
- 1.5 cups plain wholemeal flour
- 2 teaspoons mixed spice
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1 cup walnuts, broken into large chunks
- 1 cup yoghurt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup milk
- 4 tablespoons apricot jam
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a 12 hole muffin tin.
Pour hot water over the dates, and put them to one side to soften.
Sieve together the flour, mixed spice and baking soda. Add in the raisins and walnuts and stir to combine.
In a separate bowl whisk together the yoghurt, egg and milk.
Drain the dates, reserving 2 tablespoons of the soaking liquid. Put them with the jam and soaking liquid, into a food processor and pulse together. You want them to be combined and for the dates to be slightly broken down, but there still to be some lumps. Stir this through the yoghurt mixture.
Add the yoghurt and dates to the flour and mix together until just combined – do not beat, or over-stir. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin and then place in the oven for 20 – 25 minutes, until golden brown on top.
Nutritional information per muffin:
Total kilojoules: 944kJ; Protein: 6g; Total Fat: 10g (mostly mono&poly-unsaturated); Saturated fat: 1g; Carbohydrate: 29g; Fibre: 5g; Sodium: 32mg (without adding any extra salt); Number of fruit serves towards daily total: 1 serve; Additional nutrients: potassium, iron, zinc, Omega 3 essential fatty acids, antioxidants.
Technorati tags: Muffins , breakfast , walnuts , Omega 3 , Fatty acids .
Food labels not giving the truth
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Food Labelling
There’s been a whole lot of stuff in the media about food labelling over the past month and I’ll be blogging about this more extensively next week. In the meantime, the herald reports today that food manufacturers may not be giving the correct information on their nutrition panels (story here ), plus the introduction of national standards for use of words and phrases like “organic” and “free range” (story here ).
Sustainability: how about fish?
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Sustainablity
Disturbing reports over the last few weeks have painted a bleak picture of the future of our marine environments. At the current rate, it’s estimated that by 2050 all fish and seafood species that are currently being fished, will have collapsed. As the perfectly named Professor Worm says:
“Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world’s oceans, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems,”
While we consider fish to be food, all marine creatures play an important role in maintaining the health of our oceans. They filter out pollutants, keep toxic algae blooms at bay, protect coastal regions from disease outbreaks and are part of the system that keeps climate change under control. Steve Palumbi, of Stanford University:
“The ocean is a great recycler. It takes sewage and recycles it into nutrients. It scrubs toxins out of water and it turns carbon dioxide into food and oxygen.”
To carry out this service for the people who lived along the coast, the waters needed their full complement of plants and animals”
Further research has shown there are only 10% of all large fish left in the sea. Open ocean species, including tuna, swordfish, marlin and the large groundfish, such as cod, halibut, skate and flounder are all in steady decline. The also beautifully named Ransom Myers from Dalhousie University states that:
“Where detailed data are available we see that the average size of these top predators is only one fifth to one half of what it used to be. The few blue marlin today reach one fifth of the weight they once had. In many cases, the fish caught today are under such intense fishing pressure, they never even have the chance to reproduce”.
The news isn’t all bad, as the research shows marine ecosystems still have the capacity to regenerate. Dr Worm again:
“We can turn this around. But less than one percent of the global ocean is effectively protected right now. We won’t see complete recovery in one year, but in many cases species come back more quickly than people anticipated — in three to five to ten years. And where this has been done we see immediate economic benefits.”
And this is part of the point, it’s in our personal and financial interest to do something about this now, not to leave it until it’s too late.
What to do?
I’ve linked to this before, but it’s timely to do so again – the Australian Marine Conservation Society have a Sustainable Seafood Guide . It lists the species that are not being over-fished or are being managed sustainably and offers alternatives to the many at-risk seafood species. Good choices include:
- Oysters
- King George whiting
- Western or Eastern Australian wild caught salmon
- Blue swimmer crab
- Calamari, octopus and squid
You can also check with your local fishmonger or supermarket to find out if they stock MSC certified fish. The Marine Stewardship Council is an independent, global, non-profit organisation that monitors fish stocks and promotes the best environmental choices. They grade fisheries and certify products that have come from sustainable seafood stocks. In Australia only a couple of brands have MSC certification.
However, you can change this by telling your fishmonger and supermarket (Coles and Woolworths) that you want the choice of buying MSC certified fish. Consumer action in the US has led Wal-mart to setting a 100% sustainable fish target .
More information:
Bill Granger's holiday recipes
Posted by kathryn in Salads, Pudding, Quick recipes and Main courses
Great summer recipes from Bill Granger in yesterday’s Good Living. I particularly like the vietnamese style salad, which could be turned into a light meal by adding some cooked tofu, chicken or fish. The pork burgers are quick and easy, plus the watermelon granita is a summer dessert that’s lower in kilojoules than ice-cream.
Are banana prices coming down?
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Fruit
I’ve seen bananas selling for $9.99 in two different locations this week. While a year ago it would be madness to regard this as “cheap”, it’s significantly better than the $14.99 prices we’ve been seeing over the last few months.
Following the havoc caused by Tropical Cyclone Larry in March, early predictions were that banana supply would be restored by September of this year. However wet weather in north Queensland, particularly around Tully and Innisfail, delayed the planting of new crops and slowed down the development of suckers in the regrowth areas. It’s only really this month that significant enough quantities are getting to market to start driving the price down. Although, I think it will be well into the new year before we see bananas approaching their old prices.
Last week 160,056 cartons of bananas were shipped from Queensland, one month ago 75,363 cartons were shipped, whereas July / August that was down to between 15,000 and 20,000 per week.
Source: Australian Banana Growers’ Council .
Technorati tags: banana , tropical cyclone larry , cyclone larry
Folate fortification
Posted by kathryn in Health News and Folate
FSANZ (Food Standards Australia New Zealand) is currently considering the mandatory fortification of bread with folic acid (the artificial form of folate), aiming to reduce the number of babies born with neural tube defects . This article in The Australian covers the main points of the debate.
I’ve linked to this before, but there’s a handy dietary folate counter on the Choice website, so you can calculate the amount of folate in your diet.
Technorati tags: folate fortification , neural tube defects , food fortification .
Red meat and breast cancer
Posted by kathryn in Health News
While I am vegetarian, it’s not a viewpoint I impose upon clients. It’s my personal choice, but it remains that – my choice, plus you have to know what you’re doing to be a healthy vegetarian.
However, I do believe most people, certainly here in Australia, would benefit from a few more meatless meals. There are strong health benefits to going meatless 2 – 3 times a week, with legumes in particular, associated with decreased cardiovascular disease, improved glucose tolerance and reduced risk of a number of other chronic diseases.
Research published last week shows a link between a high red meat intake in your 20s through to 40s and a particular group of breast cancers. Women who consumed more than 1.5 serves of red meat every day had almost double the risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancers, compared to those who ate three or less serves per week. These cancers are stimulated by the levels of oestrogen and progesterone that circulate in the body.
“This study suggests that dietary factors may be related to a woman’s chance of developing this type of breast cancer, a disease that is on the rise in American women,” said lead author, Eunyoung Cho, Sc.D, researcher at BWH.
To date a number of studies have examined links between diet and breast cancer and so far results, for red meat, have been inconclusive. This study is interesting, however because it’s one of the first to look at womens’ diet in their 20s and onwards and possible associations with breast cancer. Previous studies into red meat intake and cancer risk have concentrated on diet in midlife or later. Moreover, most other studies have not differentiated between breast cancer types and relative diet risk.
So why not try going meatless two to three times per week? You could have some fish, or eggs or even try out some legumes. As reported on the ABC:
bq.
Although Dr Cho concedes more research is needed to replicate the findings, she says the study provides some grounds for reconsidering the amount of red meat consumed.
“[There are] several reasons for women to reduce red meat intake – [it’s] also associated with increased risk of colon cancer so I believe our findings provide another reason for women to reduce their red meat intake,”
If you’re not used to going meatless, why not start with a risotto , a pasta with a quickie sauce , or a hearty soup like corn chowder and lentil&barley . Fritters are a gentle introduction to meatless food, or you could go out on a limb and make a fast and tasty tofu, asparagus and bok choy salad .
Published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, this research is based on women who were part of the Nurses’ Health Study II. This large-scale study charted the health, diet and lifestyle of over 90,000 women between 1989 and 2003.
Further information:
The drought
Posted by kathryn in Sustainablity
The drought, here in Australia, is a complex issue – another perspective in today’s Herald.
menulog.com.au
Posted by kathryn in Gluten-free and Vegan
A reader has just told me about the website menulog.com.au , which covers restaurants in Australia. The really nifty thing is you can search on dietary needs, for example you can find restaurants with gluten-free options in Sydney, vegan restaurants in Melbourne, or kosher places in Newcastle&the Hunter Valley.
What a useful tool and thanks to Rachel for pointing me in their direction.
Of course if you’re looking for vegetarian and vegan places, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, you can always check out Veggie Friendly .
And kid's nutrition is important because . . .
Posted by kathryn in Health News and Kid's nutrition
it’s not just adults that can have atherosclerosis, or fatty plaque building up in their arteries. As reported by the American Heart Association :
Children with risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol levels already show signs of fatty build-up in their arteries that could lead to heart attack in adulthood, researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2006.
This research shows the importance of addressing and minimising risk factors:
“Diet and exercise are especially important to curb the escalating problem of childhood obesity . . . obesity puts children at risk for high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol levels. Children’s diets have changed dramatically, influenced by television commercials and the convenience of fast foods. Children are eating too much fatty and processed foods. Parents need to involve their kids in regular exercise activities and cut down on fatty meals, emphasizing healthy foods such as vegetables.”
It’s a bit bossy, but they’re right. Of course, the next questions is how to do this and how to change things around.
Technorati tags: kid’s health , atherosclerosis , heart health , childhood obesity , Children’s health .
Kid's nutrition category
Posted by kathryn in Kid's nutrition
As I’m sporadically writing about children’s health and diet, I’ve added a kid’s nutrition category in the sidebar, so you can find these posts easily.
Toddlers and junk food
Posted by kathryn in Health News and Kid's nutrition
Research from the University of Sydney shows that toddlers are getting up to a quarter of their daily energy intake from junk foods: cordials, biscuits, lollies, chips and so on. Of the 429 children in the three day study (all aged between 6 and 24 months), only one child had no junk food.
- 41 percent of kids had cordial every day
- more than half had hot chips every 2 – 3 days
- a third ate chocolate every other day
For one in five kids, 37 percent of their total daily kilojoule intake was from junk. The kids who ate the most junk food didn’t have significantly more total kilojoules and they weren’t necessarily overweight, but the junk foods were replacing healthier foods in their diet.
What’s the problem?
Biscuits, chips, cordial, pastries are not great foods. Firstly they’re high in sugar, as well as saturated and trans fats – all the food areas we should be keeping to a minimum.
Moreover, all these foods, while being high in energy, are empty foods. If you compare a packet of chips with a punnet of strawberries, the chips have lots of fat, a small amount of carbohydrate, tiny amounts of fibre and probably quite a lot of sodium. They are energy dense, but have little else in them. Whereas the strawberries are low in overall kilojoules, but they’re packed full of nutrients: fibre, vitamin C, potassium, bioflavonoids, antioxidants, strawberries are loaded with goodness. Strawberries are nutrient dense.
The problem with lots of junk food is therefore two-fold
- they’re eating a lot of salt, sugar and bad fats
- plus, they’re missing out on other foods which have a higher nutritional value.
Every time kids eat biscuits and chips, they’re not eating fruit, yoghurt or a sandwich. The former provide energy, whereas the latter provides energy plus nutrients and these nutrients are important, not just for adults, but also for kids. They are needed to help little bodies to grow and be healthy.
Losing track
In this study parents had to weigh the food given to toddlers and then subtract the leftovers and I suspect many parents were shocked by the results. It’s easy to lose track of exactly what your little one is eating, particularly if food has become a battleground. If the healthy dinner is rejected by the toddler, it’s often backed up with something easy, that you know will be eaten and these are often the more junk style foods.
If this is happening on a regular basis, then while the initial meal may be healthy, that’s not what the child is actually eating, it’s not where they are getting their nutrition and kilojoules.
What to do?
I’ve blogged before about strategies for getting kid and adults to eat more vegies and fruit. Part of the problem is kids generally do love sweet and fatty foods. They’re also very quick to learn, that leaving their main meal can lead to them getting the foods they actually want. It sounds tough, but if your little one won’t eat their dinner, cover it with clingfilm, put it in the fridge and bring it out again later, when they’re hungry.
If that’s too extreme for you if your toddler won’t eat, rather than resorting to junk foods try to back the meal up with something better, for example:
- a yoghurt and a little box of sultanas gives calcium, iron, potassium, fibre and B vitamins
- a vegemite sandwich on wholemeal bread gives fibre, magnesium and lots of B vitamins
- a light cream cheese and jam sandwich also gives fibre, protein, calcium and the Bs
- vitaweats with hummous and tomato is full of protein, fibre, vitamin C, essential fatty acids, zinc
- beans on toast has loads of protein, potassium and fibre
All of these are nutrient-rich options and are giving your child more than just empty kilojoules.
The last thing you want is for food and meal-times to be a battle between you and your kids and in busy lives it’s hard to pay attention to everything. Food is important however, it’s how we get the protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that our body runs on and that keep us healthy.
Treats are part of a balanced diet, but they’re not every day foods. Make the chips, biscuits and cakes occasional foods, say once or twice a week. For every day meals for you and your kids choose from meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, dairy and cereals, these are the nutrient rich foods that will build healthy bodies.
More information
Getting faster
Posted by kathryn in Blogging
Over the weekend Richard and I did a little bit of housekeeping. You may notice my sidebar is now appearing on every page, rather than just the main blog page. This should make LImes&Lycopene a bit easier to navigate.
Richard also updated the machine this blog is running on and we’re now using lighttpd instead of apache. To be honest, I don’t know what that means, except that Limes&Lycopene is running a bit faster – which is a good thing.
I’m still playing with Google Coop and my specialised search engines, so just a few more days before that’s set up.
Chermoula risotto?
Posted by kathryn in Blogging and Main courses
This post is part of the Spice is Right, this month hosted by Habeas Brulee and it’s all about mixing up spices from one region, with recipes from another.
My recipe is a chermoula risotto, which seems like a bizarre combination, but works very well. Chermoula is a Moroccan spice mix, made up of cumin and paprika, along with garlic, lemon juice and fresh coriander. I’ve been thinking about making something with chermoula for a while. Then my organic vegie delivery today included some Kent (aka Jap) pumpkin, which works well with spices and the idea of risotto popped into my head. There are recipes for both the Chermoula and also the risotto below.
The final dish has a gentle lemon and spicy-ness to the dish, that blends beautifully with the arborio rice and pumpkin.
You can buy chermoula pre-made, but it’s quite easy to mix together yourself. While there are a few ingredients, you don’t have to do anything to them.
Chermoula
- 3 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
Mix together the chermoula ingredients.
Chermoula risotto
I had this for my lunch today, so the quantities are for one, but you could easily scale up for more people. As with my other risottos , I like to include plenty of vegetables, but you can vary them around. I also think asparagus and baby spinach would work well in this dish, instead of the beans and mushrooms. Serves 1.
- 240g pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1cm chunks
- Chermoula, made to the quantities above
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1/4 onion, finely chopped
- Small handful of green beans, cut into 2cm lengths
- 5 mushrooms (about 50g), quartered
- 1/3 cup arborio rice
- 40g fetta, crumbled
- 1 tablespoon fresh coriander, finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Roast the pumpkin: Toss the pumpkin in the chermoula spices, until fully coated. Empty onto a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 20 – 30 minutes, or until the pumpkin is cooked and quite soft.
Make a chermoula stock: Meanwhile put the kettle on and once boiling, pour about 2 cups of water into the bowl you used to mix the chermoula ingredients – so you have a chermoula flavoured “stock”.
Make the risotto: Heat the olive oil in a medium sized pan. Add the onions and saute for 3 minutes. Add the green beans and mushrooms and continue cooking for another 2 minutes, then add the rice and stir to coat the grains. Continue cooking for another couple of minutes, or until the rice goes slightly translucent.
Start adding the stock, about a quarter of a cup at a time. Add the first amount and then stir while the liquid is absorbed. Once this is done, add another quarter cup of stock and stir until it’s absorbed. Continue doing this until the rice is cooked.
Finish the risotto: By this time the pumpkin should be ready, so add this directly to the rice, mashing it slightly as you do so. Add the fetta, coriander and lemon juice, stir through and serve immediately.
Technorati tags: spice is right, chermoula, risotto, vegetarian.
Corn chowder
Posted by kathryn in Blogging, Antioxidants, Vegetables, Soups, Vegetable recipes and Main courses
When I lived in the UK I thought corn only came from a tin.
Sure it was a vegetable and it grew somewhere, but I didn’t know you could buy it in another form. Only when I came to Australia did I realise corn came on cobs and tasted really, really good.
Fresh corn is now one of my favourite vegies. As well as being a beautiful colour, it’s so juicy and sweet. I love it barbecued, cooked in the oven and made into fritters. Plus preparing it involves one of my favourite words – “shucking”. I still eat (and enjoy) tinned corn, but I also like getting my mitts on the fresh stuff.
While corn does have some starch in it, it’s still low in kilojoules and fat and high in fibre.
About lutein
Corn also contains the antioxidant lutein . I always think of lutein as a slightly bizarre antioxidant – because it occurs in such a diverse range of foods. It’s available in
- the generally antioxidant rich green leafy vegies
- sweetcorn
- egg yolks
- kiwifruits
- honeydew melon
- yellow flowers
- Brussela sprouts
- Green peas.
While green leafies are the best source, with 1/2 cup of cooked spinach giving 6mg of lutein, sweetcorn is also useful – 1 cup of sweetcorn provides 2.5mg of lutein.
Lutein is primarily important for the health of your eyes and _in preventing macular degeneration.
The macular is an area at the back of your eye, in the middle of the retina. It’s responsible for the central and detailed part of your eyesight. You’re reading this blog using your macular, you drive your car using your macular and it also helps you recognise faces. The macular is chockablock full of lutein and this needs to be constantly replenished, to protect the macular from free radical damage.
Corn chowder
I made corn chowder for the first time last week, using fresh corn and inspiration from two recipes, this one from Simply Recipes and one taken from Charmaine Solomon’s Complete Vegetarian Cookbook.
I also found out today about Sweetnicks ARF/5-a-day Tuesday, a weekly blogging event using antioxidant rich foods, so this is a good time to post my lutein containing corn chowder recipe.
This is a thick and rich soup: hearty and filling. I wanted my soup to have a smoky flavour and so I again used chipotle chillies, but this is not obligatory. It doesn’t freeze, but keeps well until the next day. Serves 3.
- 2 teaspoons unsalted butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
- 1 carrot, finely diced
- 3 cobs of corn, remove kernels and keep the cobs (or about 2 cups of tinned corn)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 chipotle chilli
- 1 potato, finely diced (I left the skin on)
- 1.5 cups skimmed milk
- 3/4 cup cottage cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Melt the butter in a large pan and saute the onion, celery and carrot, stirring occasionally, for about 4 – 5 minutes or until soft. Add the corn kernels, bay leaf and chilli and continue to saute, stirring occasionally for another 2 minutes.
Cut the leftover corn cobs into three and add to the pan, along with the potatoes and milk. Simmer gently for about 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Do not boil the milk.
Take out the corn cobs, chilli and bay leaf and discard. Add the cottage cheese and parsley and stir through.
- Solomon, Charmaine, Complete Vegetarian Cookbook , 2002, Harper Collins, Sydney.
Ethical & sustainable foods
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Sustainablity
The issue of ethical foods and sustainable farming seems to be gaining some momentum here in Australia. The recent Good Food Month included “ethical food” events , plus concern is being voiced over farming practices that may be exacerbating the drought in rural Australia. The release of Peter Singer&Jim Mason’s book The Ethics of What We Eat , along with The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Fast Food Nation , have encouraged many to think about the foods they are eating. More and more people are expressing their concerns to me over the sustainability and ethics of the food we eat.
Today’s Good Living includes an article, titled Think before you eat , covering the pros and cons of conventional vs organic production of some standard foods [it’s not on their website at the moment, but I’ll put the link up if it does become available].
It’s a difficult debate, because we’re talking about food, we’re talking about the stuff that we eat every day, the stuff that keeps us alive. Eating is not a luxury, or something we rarely do. It also affects people’s livelihood, their family history and their way of life. Plus this is a debate that people can be evangelical about – both sides convinced of their rightness and the other’s wrongness . Of course, as with all things, the way through this will involve consensus and compromises from both sides – the organic / ethical and the conventional food producers.
I often have people commenting to me that they wish it was easier to make good sustainable food choices. The will is there, but how do you make judgements and decisions when information is hard to come by and sometimes contradictory? How do you make ethical decisions, when there’s little right and wrong, but instead various permutations of grey. Even if we could all afford it, buying organic isn’t always better, not if the crop is grown a long way from consumers and uses large amounts of fossil fuel in its transport.
It’s impossible to be 100% perfect in this, because, unfortunately there’s no one answer, but somewhere along the line we all have to make choices – what’s important to you? How ethical and sustainable do you want to be? What’s the best way of utilising your shopping budget?
I’m really interested in this area and read quite widely about it. So where I can, I’m going to post about ethical food choices – what’s the best choice, but also, what are reasonable compromises? It’s not about making everyone eat the same way, it’s not about black and white moral prescriptions, but a more realistic and practical approach to ethical foods.
You can follow these posts through the Sustainability tag in my right hand sidebar. I’d also love some feedback – what areas are you most concerned about? How easy is it for you to find ethical foods? Is the advice I’m posting useful, or just adding to your confusion?
Technorati tags: sustainability , ethical food , organic .
Update: I’ve added the link to the Good Living article on the SMH website.
Drought to affect food prices?
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Sustainablity
Over the weekend it was announced that 93.6% of NSW has been declared a drought zone. This means that only 2.7% of the state is considered unaffected . The area has increased from last month, when 89.3% of the state was drought affected and is higher than Queensland, where 61% is considered to be in drought.
This has further increased the likelihood of food price increases, including meat, vegetables, bread and milk. The ABC reported :
The Queensland Farming Federation’s John Cherry says the drought will push up the price of dairy and poultry as grain production decreases.
“There’s an acute shortage right across the board,” he said.
“If you look at grains, in particular the New South Wales grains crop has been slashed but so has the Queensland grain crop, other than parts of central Queensland.
“So we’re looking at substantial increases in grains prices which will significantly impact on intensive animal industries such as dairy, such as poultry, such as pork production.”
The four-year drought is now one of the worst in history and given we’re rolling into a dry, hot summer there is little likelihood it will ease until the middle of next year.
Dam capacity across NSW currently stands at about 26%, compared to 54% at the same time last year.
For news reports check here , here and here .
Technorati tags: food prices , drought , Water , weather , rainfall , rain , australia .
5 comments
30 November, 2006