Winter wellness: tips to avoid colds & flus
Posted by kathryn in Seasonal Health
The NSW Health Department has released some tips on avoiding colds and flus.
It’s sensible, practical advice, including the important tip of washing your hands frequently and properly:
It’s very easy to pick up cold and flu germs from things other people have touched – telephones, door handles or money, for instance – or from shaking hands with someone who is infected. Reduce your risk of catching a cold or flu by washing hands frequently . . . It’s also important to avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth with your hands – these are all ways that germs can get into your system.”
It’s such a simple thing, but makes a significant impact on your exposure to those nasty little viruses.
Try to wash your hands properly and a bit more frequently this winter. Instead of a quick swoosh under the tap, use warm water and soap and wash your hands thoroughly for at least 20 seconds.
Obesity: the economist's perspective
Posted by kathryn in Food Labelling and A Balanced Diet
Ross Gittins, the economics writer, has an an interesting article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald , on the issue of obesity. The core issue is, living in a free market economy, do manufacturers have the right to load their foods up with fat and sugar, if we the consumers are still willing to buy those foods?
It’s normal business sense to make your product as enticing as possible. Frying it and filling it with sugar, salt and fat, is a very effective way of doing this. These products taste good, which is why most people buy them. However that much salt, fat and sugar is simply not good for your health and this kind of diet is largely responsible for the increase we’re seeing in diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity.
Up until the 1960s most food preparation was done at home. Since then, massive advances in food technology, has led to a rapid rise in the range and type of food products available to us and now cooking from scratch is becoming a rare event.
Ross Gittins talks about this as being a “market failure”:
“The capitalists are only doing what comes naturally and using all their wiles to flog their food and make a quid. But when the rest of us do what comes naturally and yield to their blandishments, the result is major social and economic dysfunction.”
And he puts the case for government intervention:
“When market failure is demonstrated, and is known to have serious consequences, the case for government intervention is established . . . after all, there’s ample precedent for such intervention to protect our health against the excesses of an unfettered market: tobacco control (pricing, advertising and promotion restrictions, smoke-free restrictions), road trauma minimisation (mandatory seat belts, speeding and alcohol restrictions) and injury prevention (restrictions on firearms, fireworks and safety regulations).”
This could include more effective food labelling (yes there’s that topic again ), restricting advertising that encourages over-consumption (especially to children), and so on.
How to use up a red cabbage
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket, The Micronutrients, Antioxidants, Salads, Vegetable recipes and Quick recipes
I have a complex relationship with red cabbage. On one hand, it’s so pretty with it’s pinky/purpley leaves and shiny exterior, but I find raw red cabbage boring, a little too “healthy” tasting and I never know quite what to do with it. Oh I’ve done the braised with apple thang and that’s okay, but I just don’t get excited about it.
About once a month, during the season, it appears in my organic vegie delivery. Surrounded by all the other beautiful and exciting stuff, it tends to be put in the bottom of the vegetable crisper, covered with everything else. I then forget about it, until a week later most of the other vegies have been used and the red cabbage is still sat there, rebuking me every time I open the door.
At the end of each fortnight I tell myself to cancel the red cabbage, but then I remember how good it is for me, it’s not the cabbages fault, maybe I ‘should’ be more adventurous. Red cabbage guilt, it’s a terrible thing.
And red cabbage is definitely very good for you. It’s a member of the brassica family, which also includes broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts. This family is packed full of antioxidants (which protect us from the nasties like cardiovascular disease) and red cabbage is high in betacarotene, lutein (which protects against macular degeneration) and . . . lycopene! Plus vitamin C, manganese and vitamin K. Red cabbage also contains virtually no kilojoules – about 95 kJ per 100g (about 2 cups full).
This weekend I was off to a BBQ and needed to take a salad. I found this easy-peasy and clever recipe at Chocolate & Zucchini which used red cabbage. Perfect! Of course, I had to change it just a little bit, it being entirely impossible for me to follow any recipe 100%. This is a great way to use red cabbage and it tasted even better an hour after making, when all the flavours had time to marinate together.
This is also a great bugger-I-have-20-mins-before-we-have-to-leave-and-the- house-is-a-rubbish tip-and-my-parents-are-staying-tonight, recipe – a category I find very useful.
Red Cabbage, Dried Fig & Pepita Salad
Serves 6
- 3 tablespoons pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
- 1/2 head red cabbage
- 1 large handful bean sprouts (about 300g)
- 2 garlic shallots (or normal shallots), finely sliced
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 10 dried figs, finely sliced
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons shoyu
Toast the pepitas in a frying pan (no oil) over a medium heat. Toss frequently and watch them carefully as they tend to go from un-toasted to over-toasted very quickly.
Cut the hard stem / core thingy out of the cabbage and finely slice (this is the most tedious part of the recipe, so hang in there). Put into a large bowl with the bean sprouts, shallots, lemon zest and dried figs.
Mix together the rest of the ingredients in a seperate bowl or jam jar and pour over the vegetables. Toss through and if you can, leave for an hour before serving. It’s also very good the next day.
Beat winter colds with ginger, lemon and honey tea
Posted by kathryn in Seasonal Health
It’s cold and wet today. I’m working from home, but I’ve had to go out several times. I now have more pairs of wet shoes and socks then I care to think about.
Trilby is in her current favourite position – curled up asleep on Richard’s laptop.
And I’ve been making my way through a big pot of ginger, lemon and honey tea.
The many uses of ginger
In herbal medicine ginger is a really useful herb. It’s used in several different ways:
Ginger is really useful at this time of the year – as it guards against winter colds and chills. An easy and comforting way to use it, is to make this ginger, lemon and honey tea.
Ginger, lemon and honey tea
In a big plunger place:
- 1/2 lemon, sliced
- about 4cm of fresh ginger, finely sliced
- a heaped teaspoon of honey
Fill the plunger with hot water.
Leave to steep for 5 – 6 minutes and then drink the tea.
For this to be effective you need to drink a lot – at least 4 – 6 cups per day. However, if you do this at the first sign of a cold, it’s often enough to keep the lurgy at bay.
Further thoughts on food labelling
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Food Labelling
Aaah food marketers, you’ve gotta love ‘em. While I get frustrated at food labelling and the misleading information on most packaging, I do often slightly and quietly admire the gall – it makes me chuckle anyway.
One of my favourite things, are those selling points that imply a particular brand is different from all its competitors, when the selling point is actually a quality inherent in all of that type of foodstuff. An example, that seems to have disappeared in the last 12 months, is those little “Cholesterol Free” stickers you used to get on avocados. It implies that these avocados are different, and special, these ones don’t contain any of that nasty cholesterol. When no avocado contains cholesterol. When cholesterol is only found in animals and fish, because you need to have a liver to make cholesterol.
The same is also true of olive oil, canola oil, rice and breakfast cereals – not a jot of cholesterol in any of them.
Seth Godin gives some more examples of this on his blog.
Winter wellness
Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work and Seasonal Health
I’ve been at the ABC today, talking to staff about Keeping Well Over Winter. It’s bucketing down with rain and cold, so it’s a timely subject. I’ve done a few of these sessions with the ABC in the past couple of years and they’re always a lot of fun. Plus I always really enjoy the Q and A at the end, good questions, ranging over a wide variety of health topics – it keeps me on my toes!
During winter our health does tend to suffer. The combination of cold weather, shorter days and the fact that everyone around us is battling colds and viruses, means that we’re less active, not eating as well, feeling lethargic and generally not as well as we are in summer.
If you do want to avoid those winter colds then it is worthwhile being a bit mindful of your health. Through eating a bit better, moving a bit more, as well as managing stress levels, I firmly believe it’s possible for most people to get through winter with their health intact.
I’ve started a new category called “Seasonal Health”/blog/category/Seasonal+Health (see the sidebar) and I’m going to be regularly posting practical tips, strategies and suggestions for keeping well. I’ll be doing these at least every other day, so come back and take a look regularly. Of course I’d love feedback – what was useful, what was too hard, how have you found your health since making these changes?
Today’s tip . . . it’s to try and have three different sorts of vegetables:/blog/2007/01/07/what-actually-is-five-serves with your dinner tonight. A stirfry with carrot, broccoli and spinach; an omelette with steamed cauliflower, green beans and zucchini; pasta with tomato sauce and add a handful of baby spinach and some mushrooms. Go on, you can do it.
New nutrient reference values
Posted by kathryn in The Micronutrients, Health News, Folate, A Balanced Diet, Fruit, Vegetables, Carbohydrates, Kid's nutrition and Fat
We eat food for many reasons: to keep us alive; for energy; for comfort and reassurance; as part of interacting with friends and family; because we enjoy it. However we also eat food because it provides us with nutrients.
The old adage ‘we are what we eat’ is true, food supplies us with the building blocks that make up our bodies, as well as the fuel to run it and the ability to make the enzymes that catalyse the biochemical reactions constantly occurring inside us. It is from food that we get the protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that keep us going and (hopefully) healthy. Moreover the way we eat dramatically affects how well that body of ours runs – from struggling through, over-loaded with excess kilojoules, fat and salt, to running in peak condition, provided with EVERYTHING that it needs.
Even when we want to do the right thing however, it’s still hard to know exactly what is a healthy and balanced diet – how do I eat like that, what does it look like? How do I make sure I’m getting all the nutrients I need in amongst the busyness of my life? It can be a challenge.
New RDIs
In Australia we have dietary guidelines called Recommended Daily Intakes (RDIs), which are meant to answer a lot of these questions. They set specific amounts for each nutrient, showing how much protein, calcium, vitamin C, and so on, people need. The RDIs were first published in the 1950s and since then, with a few tweaks, have been the accepted level of each nutrient required to keep us healthy and prevent deficiency.
It’s really hard to calculate definitive nutrient levels, partly because there’s still a heck of a lot we just don’t know about what these nutrients get up to in our bodies.
However nutritional knowledge has definitely moved on since the 1950s and the past month has seen the release of new nutritional guidelines. They contain a number of differences to the old recommended levels:
- the RDI has changed, in some cases quite considerably, for a number of nutrients, including calcium, iron, folate and many of the Bs;
- for the first time an upper safe level of intake has been set for each nutrient;
- many nutrients now have a Suggested Dietary Target value, as well as an RDI.
Suggested dietary targets
It’s the last change which is the most significant. While the RDI is the amount you need to maintain current health and prevent deficiency, for the first time the guidelines have recognised that good health is more than that. A number of the most common chronic diseases, like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and macular degeneration have a strong link with the diet we eat. The Suggested Dietary Targets encourage us to eat more of those nutrients that help prevent these diseases and keep us healthy long-term.
However numbers and figures are confusing and pretty much meaningless when you’re standing in the supermarket trying to work out what’s for dinner. I’m still wading through the documentation and research and at the moment it’s hard to tell exactly what all these changes mean for you, me and our health. So this is the first in what’s going to be a series of posts about the new nutrient reference values and what they mean in terms of your weekly eating habits. I’ll be trying to come up with some simple, clear and useful suggestions for how to get all the RDIs and Suggested Dietary Targets from your weekly diet. These posts will be tagged under the ‘A Balanced Diet’ category, so you can follow the story.
And of course, I would love to know what you think and would really appreciate feedback. Are the suggestions I’m making useful, or do they fill you with horror? Is the information I’m giving interesting, or have you switched off already? What information do you need and in what format?
In the short-term, there is quite a good outline of the new changes in the Sydney Morning Herald and go here if you want to look at the National Health&Medical Research Council report itself.
Food labelling in the UK
Posted by kathryn in Food Labelling
Following the news that, from next month, Kellogg’s will be providing more information about the kilojoule content of their cereals, my aunt (thanks Bridget) sent me a booklet from the Tesco’s supermarket in the UK.
They are in the process of updating all the labels on their foodstuffs to include the following information:
- total amount per serve of calories, sugar, total fats, saturated fats and salt
- the percentage, per serving, of the average total daily intake those amounts represent
This information is on the front of the packet and colour coded, so it’s easy to spot and easy to read.
Obviously the percentage of total daily intake is that of a typical adult, and will vary from person to person, but it’s a reasonable guide and a good start.
There’s more information on the Kellogg’s changes at their website . If you want to know your personalised recommended daily intake of these nutrients, then have a look at their interactive daily intake (DI) counter.
Lettuce Deliver fortnightly box
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket
I get organic fruit and veg delivered once a fortnight from Lettuce Deliver, and this is my latest box.
This isn’t enough to cover all the fruit and veg Richard and I would eat in a fortnight, but it does mean we have a base level of ingredients to draw on. For the next week or so, there will be vegetables in the fridge, so when we are home late or tired there will still be something to make a healthy meal from.
I love the seasonal change in the delivery, plus the quality is always very high.
So these are the foods I’ll be eating and ingredients I’ll be cooking with over the next week or so: apples (golden delicious, granny smith, pink lady), avocado, grapefruit, kiwi fruit, mandarins (Imperials, no Daisies I’m afraid), navel oranges, passionfruit, green beans, broccoli, carrots, red cabbage, cauliflower, choy sum, cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, spring onions, potatoes, onions, sweet potato and a dozen beautiful biodynamic eggs.
Daisy mandarins
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket, Antioxidants and Fruit
I picked up some daisy mandarins this week. So far my local shops have been full of Imperials, but I loved the look of these – compact, tight skin and an intense red-orange colour. You can see the contrast in colour in this photo – an Imperial mandarin is top right-hand corner.
They’re a new-ish hybrid mandarin, originally developed in the US and grown in Australia since the late 1990s. And, most importantly, they are delicious – easy to peel, super-juicy, sweet, with just the slightest bit of acid. The Imperial seems bland and lifeless in comparison.
Like all citrus they’re packed full of vitamin C, fibre and bioflavonoids. Available from now until mid-August.
Banana update
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Fruit
Are bananas the new flowers, asks the Sydney Morning Herald Good Living section this week? Since tropical cyclone Larry flattened about 90% of Australia’s commercial banana crop, the price has been going up and up. In supermarkets they’re about $13.99 per kilo, which makes one individual banana about $3.15 – wow! Up until now bananas have been Australia’s favourite fruit and also in the top ten overall grocery items.
The Good Living article also includes a banana price watch, showing the cost at different shops around Sydney. The cheapest they find is Marrickville Fruitland at $7.99, although Lettuce Deliver, have them for $7.80 per kilo. Prices are expected to start coming down from September.
According to the Australian Banana Growers Council Australia produced over 260,000 tonnes of bananas in 2005.
Weekend marmalade making
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket
Look what I’ve been doing over the long weekend!
Marmalade making is not part of my usual cooking routine, in fact it’s been at least three years since I last made some. However it was a cold and windy long weekend. Plus I’d recently acquired kaffir limes from one friend, a huuuuuge bag of oranges from another and some lemons from my parents. All of which equalled marmalade.
So I now have four jars of intensely (and wonderfully) sharp kaffir lime marmalade, as well as eleven jars of orange marmalade.I used a hybrid of recipes from several sources including Stephanie Alexander’s Cook’s Companion and Tessa Kiros’ Falling Cloudberries, along with general stuff I knew from previous marmalade-making experiences.
For a good introduction to marmalade go to Delia Smith.
An antioxidant called Bob
Posted by kathryn in The Micronutrients, Blogging and Antioxidants
Lycopene and me, we go way back and I think it is my favourite antioxidant. Firstly it’s the word itself, I love the look of it, the sound of it, the way the word feels when you wrap your mouth around it, ly-co-pene. It’s one of the main reasons this blog is called “Limes and Lycopene”, I just love the word.
But it’s not only that, lycopene is a strapping, robust, no nonsense, no faffing about antioxidant. No prissy, princess-like behaviour for lycopene, instead you can expose it to sunlight, heat it up, subject it to full scale commercial manufacturing processes and lycopene just gets better and better.
Lycopene is a bright red carotenoid antioxidant that’s found in tomatoes and other red fruit. It’s the most common carotenoid in our bodies, and one of the most potent.
Antioxidants are really good for us and protect us from many degenerative diseases, so we want a lot of these in our diet. They are found in a number of different foods, so if you’re eating a varied diet with lots of fruit and vegetables, then there’s a good chance you’re getting plenty of these little critters.
The problem is many antioxidants, like vitamin C, are fragile, heat them up a bit, expose them to some sunlight and they start degenerating and reducing in efficacy. Whereas lycopene is not only undiminished by cooking and processing, it actually becomes more available to us. Cooked tomatoes are a better source than fresh tomatoes and manufactured tomato products, like tomato soup, sauce and juice are even better again: tomato sauce has four times more bioavailable lycopene, than fresh tomatoes.
My history with lycopene was cemented at the first cooking class I ever held. When asked if it was better to eat vegies raw, I launched into the story of lycopene, when suddenly I realised my mind was blank and the name of the antioxidant was nowhere to be found. I stood there with a kitchen knife in one hand, staring at the tomatoes in front of me and yet the word lycopene would not come back. My lovely, helpful friend Carolyn suggested the name Bob be used in the interim, so I spent the next few minutes discussing the wonders of Bob the antioxidant.
In terms of this blog, the name “Limes and Lycopene” also represents the subjects of this blog – it’s about food, about fresh ingredients, about cooking, but it’s also about why that food is good or bad for us and how to improve wellbeing and make better health choices.
Changes to food labelling
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket, Health News and Food Labelling
Many of the foods we buy come in packets and these packets are covered in information, pictures and words. Designed to entice you to buy, much of this “stuff” is marketing information – encouraging you to believe the product is healthier, tastier, simply better than everything else. Some useful information does exist, but it’s often hard to decode.
As some of you will know, food labelling is one of my pet subjects. The words “Kathryn, what’s the difference between ‘light’ and ‘reduced fat’?” should only be used with extreme caution, and only if you have the time and energy for a bit of fervent ranting. I’ve given talks on the subject written on the subject and even been on the radio on the subject.
So I’m very excited to read in today’s herald that, from next month, all Kellogg’s cereal packets will include the following information:
- number of kilojoules in one serve
- what proportion of the daily recommended kilojoule intake each of those serves represents
And most significantly, this information is going to be slap, bang on the front of the packet, not hidden away on the side panels or back.
There are quite a few problems with food labels, but one of the biggies is that the information is given in isolation. There is no context about what the number of kilojoules / protein / sugars, listed on the nutrition information panel, actually means. Is 614 kilojoules a lot, or a little for a serve of yoghurt? Is 0.3g of saturated fat good or bad? 449 kilojoules for a serve sounds a lot, but is it? Unless there are some parameters and boundaries, or unless you’re able to spend time researching and checking, this information is meaningless. Without context you simply can’t make good decisions about the food products you buy.
So from next month Kellogg’s will be giving you a little bit of that context, making things a little bit easier for the consumer. Of course, for this to really be useful and effective we need it extended across a whole range of products, but it is a start. At the moment it’s only Kellogg’s, but McDonald’s and Sanitarium will probably follow by the end of the year.
The very beginning . . .
Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work and Blogging
Hi there, I’m Kathryn and this is my blog, welcome.
I live in the inner west of Sydney (with my partner, Richard, our cute-but-dumb cat Trilby and two pet ratties – Baguette and Espresso).
And I’m a naturopath . I see clients privately at the beautiful Strand Arcade, and I also write and teach about all things food, health and naturopathy related.
Ever since I can remember food and health have been central to my life. Snippets from childhood include: a summer of sharing first nectarines with dad; mum making a rabbit cake for my ninth birthday; Turkish delight at Christmas; making creme caramel from a packet with mum; swapping sandwiches with friends. Big decisions have been made around these themes, from realising as a teenager how food affected my health, becoming a vegetarian, through to the decision to become a naturopath
And food and health dominate my relationships with my family, partner and friends: laughing with mum about our mutual habit of changing recipes in fundamental and bizarre ways (Hungarian Mushroom Pie anyone?); marking occasions with my family around a meal; fussing over friends’ diets; cooking and catching up with Richard at home.
Then I became a naturopath, and food, diet and health are now the foundations of my professional, as well as personal life.
And now blogging . . .
This blog will definitely be about food – about cooking, recipes, the joy and excitement I get from ingredients, but it will also be about health, cutting through the rubbish, contradictions, misinformation and downright silliness that is out there about health, diet and naturopathy.
So, thank you for reading, and if you enjoy or get something useful from my blog, I’d love to know.
See my About Me Page.
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29 June, 2006