What I eat: Thursday
Posted by kathryn in Blogging
8.00: breakfast meeting at a cafe
- 2 poached eggs
- Grilled mushroom & asparagus
- Shaved parmesan
- Rye toast – I ate one piece
- 2 soy lattes
12.45: no time for lunch yet, so a snack
14.45:finally lunch – as usual a salad
- 1 red capsicum
- 0.5 tomato
- 2 cups of leaves (spinach and lettuce)
- 0.5 avocado
- 50g cottage cheese
- 50g tempeh
15.45: some fruit
17.00: meeting at a cafe
19.30: Dinner – pasta kind of “alla Norma”
Loosely based on this Jamie Oliver recipe. Although I didn’t pre-fry the eggplant – to cut down on the oil used. The picture’s pretty ugly, but it was delicious!
- 0.5 eggplants
- 4 cloves garlic
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 400g tinned tomatoes
- 0.5 tablespoons dried oregano
- 0.5 cups frozen peas
- 120g pasta
- 2 tablespoons ricotta
20.00 Dessert
- 1 orange
- 3 pieces of dried apple
- 2 pieces of crystallised ginger
What’s this?
This week on Limes & Lycopene I’m blogging about what I eat – a series of photos, showing what I’ve eaten the day before.
Let me know your reactions and comments – I’m intrigued to know what you think.
What I eat: Wednesday
Posted by kathryn in Blogging
7.30 Breakfast: muesli
- 0.5 cups muesli + combination rice milk and cow’s milk
10.30 Morning coffee
12.00 Lunch: tempeh & salad
- 1 cup lettuce
- 0.5 cups parsley
- 0.5 cups red capsicum
- 0.5 tomato
- 1 tablespoon pepitas
- 100g tempeh
Dressing
- 1 teaspoon capers
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon shoyu
- 1 teaspoon mustard
15.00 Coffee
17.00 Snack: apricots
19.00 Dinner: pumpkin & lentil stew
Loosely based on this recipe. But as per usual I changed the recipe to include more vegetable and I also added some wild rice. My portion contained:
- 0.25 cups red lentils
- 0.25 onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 130g pumpkin (about 0.75 cups)
- 0.25 tins tomato
- 0.5 tablespoons wild rice
- 1 cup gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
- spices
- Plus a piece of Afghan bread
- Plus 1 small glass of red wine
Dessert
What’s this?
This week on Limes & Lycopene I’m blogging about what I eat – a series of photos, showing what I’ve eaten the day before.
Let me know your reactions and comments – I’m intrigued to know what you think.
What I eat: Tuesday
Posted by kathryn in Blogging
7.00 Breakfast: wholegrain cracker with cottage cheese
- Wholegrain cracker with 2 tablespoons cottage cheese & tomato
- An orange
10.30 Snack: breakfast bar
13.30 Lunch: Tom yum soup
- Tom yum soup with tofu, extra vegetables and a half serve of noodles
15.00 Afternoon coffee
- Soy capuccino (no picture)
17.30 Afternoon snack
- Dried apple, red capsicum and pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
20.00 Dinner: Date Night – Italian restaurant
Richard and I have a weekly date night. We’ve been doing this for years. We go out to dinner and talk – about work, how we are and what’s been going on. In our otherwise busy life, it’s a time to re-connect and catch up.
- 0.5 Italian salad
- Gnocchi zagrese – with a tomato, mushroom, spinach and egg sauce
- 2 glasses of red wine
What’s this?
This week on Limes & Lycopene I’m blogging about what I eat – a series of photos, showing what I’ve eaten the day before.
Let me know your reactions and comments – I’m intrigued to know what you think.
What I eat: Monday
Posted by kathryn in Blogging
Breakfast: fruit, nut & tahini bar
Mid morning: coffee
Lunch: big salad with cottage cheese
- 1 packed cup mixed leaves & herbs
- 0.5 tomato
- 0.5 red capsicum
- 15cm piece of cucumber
- 0.5 avocado
- 30g fresh ricotta
- 120g cottage cheese
Dressing
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon seeded mustard
- 0.5 teaspoon shoyu
Dinner: Tofu, egg & vegetable stir fry with rice
- 0.5 cups dried shiitake mushrooms
- 3 shallots
- 3 cloves garlic
- 3 packed cups Asian greens
- 50g tofu
- 1.5 eggs
- 0.25 cups basmati rice
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 2 teaspoons shoyu
- 2 teaspoons vegetarian fish sauce
- 2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
- 1 peach
- 2 tablespoons yoghurt
- 2 teaspoons maple syrup
What’s this?
This week on Limes & Lycopene I’m blogging about what I eat – a series of photos, showing what I’ve eaten the day before.
Let me know your reactions and comments – I’m intrigued to know what you think.
What I eat
Posted by kathryn in Blogging
For the next two weeks I’m going to do something different on Limes & Lycopene.
I frequently post about what you should eat. From how to balance your meals, which foods to choose, what’s healthy and what’s not.
But over the next two weeks I thought I’d post about what I eat.
Why?
I realise it’s easy for me to write about why you should:
Plus, looking at meals, recipes and foods in isolation, is much simpler than looking at a whole diet.
But how do I actually put all these ideas together in my own diet? And how successful am I at eating well?
What I eat
Over the next two weeks I plan to answer those questions. Starting tomorrow.
- Each day I’ll post a series of photographs showing what I ate on the previous day.
- I’ll post the pictures in the order I consumed the foods.
- I won’t be posting actual recipes – although I’ll include links if it’s something I’ve made from the web.
- However, I will post the list of ingredients, so you can see what went into the food.
- I’ll post fourteen days of food.
- I’m not going to comment on the way I eat, until the end. Because I want to know what you think.
- What’s your reaction to what I’m eating? Are you surprised, or is it what you expected? Do you think I eat well? How does the way I eat differ from what you do? I’m interested and intrigued to know your reactions and comments.
- At the end I’ll post a round-up, including my thoughts and explanation of what I eat. Plus I’ll answer any questions that come up along the way.
So . . . I’ll be back tomorrow, with the complete picture of what I’ve eaten today.
The picture diary
Week 1:
Week 2:
Photograph by noodlepie under the terms of a creative commons license
Fruit, nut and tahini breakfast bars
Posted by kathryn in Breakfast
Since Cassie posted two breakfast bar recipes over at Veggie Meal Plans, I knew I had to try them.
They’re full of nuts, dried fruit and wholegrains – no additional oil or sugar.
Which makes them a low GI, sustaining and easy breakfast.
I’ve tweaked the recipe slightly, to fit what I had in the pantry.
Plus, I thought they’d work well with tahini, so I used this to replace the flaxseeds.
Fruit, nut and tahini breakfast bars
The ingredients I used were:
Date Mixture:
- 1/2 cup diced dried dates
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup tahini
Dry Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup rolled oats
- 1/4 cup wholemeal spelt flour
- 1 teaspoon mixed spice
- 1/3 cup mixed nuts, chopped – I used almonds, pecans & brazils
- 1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds / pepitas
- 1 cup mixed dried fruit – I used sultanas, apricots and apple
I made these up, according to Cassie’s instructions – missing out the flaxseed stage and adding the tahini to the cooled date puree.
And they’re really good. Full of flavour, slighly chewy, plus they keep me going for most of the morning. Cassie’s other breafast bar recipe is here.
Update – in response to a couple of requests here’s the nutritional breakdown per bar:
- Energy: 650kJ
- Protein: 4g
- Fat: 9g
- Saturated Fat: 1g
- Carbohydrates: 14g
- Fibre: 3g
- Sodium: 14mg
All about tahini
For more information about tahini, take a look at these posts:
Quicklinks
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Dinner parties
- Yes more beetroot: How could I not link to Nora B’s beetroot-fest post: how do you beet it?. Look at the colour of that risotto!
- Eat more beans: Sophie from Mostly Eating believes tinned beans are the perfect convenience food: “quick, comforting, healthy, agriculturally sustainable and nutritionally multi-tasking”. I couldn’t agree with her more.
- Holiday survival: as an antidote to the holiday season craziness, Cranky Fitness has a holiday survival quiz. Take the quiz and test your holiday readiness!
- Eggplant curry: Wendy from a Wee Bit of Cooking has made an cinnamon and eggplant curry based on the new Jill Dupleix book. She roasts the eggplant, which cuts down on the amount of oil needed.
- No-stir risotto: I love this idea. Risotto can be a labour intensive dish. You add stock, stir, add more stock, continue stirring and repeat. However, this week Green Gourmet Giraffe posted a recipe for easy-peasy risotto. I made this for dinner earlier in the week and it’s brilliant.
- Is this a good idea?: Weighty Matters questions the UN’s decision to make 2008 the International Year of the Potato. Is this really the best food to be promoted around the world?
Which foods are high in soluble fibre?
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
The next question in Q & A Thursday is all about fibre – which foods are high in soluble fibre and low in insoluble fibre?
Fibre is a HUGE topic and most people need to concentrate on getting more fibre in their diet. Most people simply don’t eat enough.
However there are some digestive complaints which can be exacerbated by the type of fibre you eat. This is true for many people who suffer irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Soluble vs insoluble fibre
There are two main types of fibre: insoluble and soluble fibre. Most foods contain a combination of both of these.
Insoluble fibre attracts water. This bulks up and softens your stool – making it easier to have a bowel movement and reducing the likelihood of constipation._
Soluble fibre on the other hand is fermented by bacteria in the large intestines. _This fermentation yields short chain fatty acids (SCFA) which have significant health benefits
Which foods contain insoluble fibre?
- Grain foods: wheat, rye, most bread, most breakfast cereals, pasta, corn
- Legumes: kidney beans, lentils, lima beans
- Fruit & vegetables: the skin of most fruit and vegetables contain insoluble fibre, peas
- Nuts and seeds
Which foods contain soluble fibre?
- Grain foods: oatmeal, rolled oats, rice and barley
- Legumes: lentils, dried peas and beans
- Fruit: apples, bananas, grapefruit, oranges, strawberries – peel your fruit as much as possible, as insoluble fibre is often found in the skin
- Vegetables: peel vegetables to reduce the insoluble fibre
What to eat if you’re trying to reduce insoluble fibre?
Breakfast:
- porridge with milk and berries
- cooked brown rice with yoghurt, banana and maple syrup
- Omelette with spinach and mushrooms
Lunch:
- Large salad with tinned fish, avocado and rice mixed through
- Stir fry with vegetables, meat or tofu and rice noodles
- Lentil and barley soup
Dinner:
- Grilled meat or fish with plenty of vegetables
- Roasted (peeled) vegetables with cooked chickpeas, barley and a dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice and mustard
- Stir fry with vegetables, meat or tofu and rice
Snacks:
- Fresh fruit (peel apples, pears, etc)
- Yoghurt
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a fortnightly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered, leave a comment below or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Is there a nutritional difference between UHT and normal milk?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Q & A Thursday
In this week’s Q & A Thursday, the first question is:
In our household we have both full cream fresh milk (for my cereal) and UHT skim milk (for my partner’s protein shakes). Can you advise if he would be better switching to fresh skim milk, or is there no discernable difference?
What is UHT?
UHT stands for ultra-high temperature processing. Milk is heated at a temperature of 135°C for 1 – 2 seconds. This is done to sterilise the milk and kills virtually all bacteria – meaning the milk can be kept for longer, without refrigeration.
Does it change the nutrient content of the milk?
If you compare the basic nutrient levels between UHT and normal milk, there’s very little difference between the two. There’s a really tiny difference in their potassium, calcium and levels – but not enough to be nutritionally significant. While almost every other nutrient is the same.
But.
When you compare how absorbable those nutrients are, there is a difference. The UHT process damages some of the proteins in milk, which makes them less digestible.
It’s possible the UHT process may also affect the availability of some of the calcium in UHT milk – although this is still being determined.
In short
Yes there is a nutritional difference between UHT and normal milk. You’re losing useful protein if you drink UHT milk, and possibly also some of the calcium. I’d advise making the switch to fresh skim milk.
References
Warning – brain exploding medical speak alert:
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a fortnightly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered, leave a comment below or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
UHT milk photograph courtesy of Leo Reynolds under the terms of a creative commons license
Q & A Thursday is today
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
It’s Q & A Thursday – a fortnightly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter.
But I won’t be posting any answers until this afternoon, as I’m talking to staff at the ABC at lunch-time today – about the best foods and diet for skin health.
So tune back later this afternoon for the normal Q & A Thursday blogging.
If you have a question you’d like answered, leave a comment below or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Tomorrow is Q & A Thursday
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
A reminder. Tomorrow is Q & A Thursday – a fortnightly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter.
If you have any questions about food and healthy eating, then let me know. Leave your question in the comments section below, or send me an email.
For more information, take a look at the original Q & A Thursday post. Alternatively you can browse the Q & A Thursday archives.
Chickpea, lima bean and tahini casserole
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet
Dinner tonight is a chickpea, lima bean and tahini casserole.
It’s a lovely mixture of beans, vegetables, herbs and a hint of creaminess from the tahini.
It’s based on a recipe from one of my oldest cookery books The Penniless Vegetarian by David Scott (details below). This is a funny little book, full of slightly old-fashioned, British vegetarian cooking.
Definitely not in vogue, but this is the food I grew up with.
It’s simple to make, but does need 45 minutes in the oven. So easy, but not quick.
Chickpea, lima bean and tahini casserole
Serves 4
6 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 onions, roughly chopped (I do half moons)
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons tahini
1 tablspoon shoyu
1×450g tin chick peas
1×450g tin lima beans
1×450g tin tomatoes
2 handfuls of continental parsley, roughly chopped
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Saute the vegetables: Put the garlic and olive oil into an ovenproof casserole dish. Place on a medium – high flame. As the oil heats up, the garlic will start cooking and gently release it’s flavours into the oil. Once the garlic starts to sizzle, turn the flame down and add the onions and carrot. Saute gently for about 5 minutes.
Cook the casserole: Take off the heat. Add the rest of the ingredients to the casserole dish. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook in the oven for about 45 minutes.
All about tahini
For more information about tahini, take a look at these posts:
Ref: Scott D. The Penniless Vegetarian. Rider. London. 1992.
Tahini salad dressing
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Salads
This is the number one use of tahini in my house: tahini salad dressing.
I’ve been making this for years. I first made it for coleslaw, as a healthier alternative to mayonnaise. But now I eat it on all sorts of salads.
Notes on the recipe
- Vary the recipe: The nature of tahini means this is a very flexible recipe. Different tahini brands vary in both taste and consistency, so you might need to tweak the quantities below.
- Consistency: The dressing should be thick, but still pourable. You may need to add a bit of water to the mix, if you have a thick tahini.
- How long does it keep? I usually make this up as I go, so I’m not sure how long it lasts. However, I’ve put some in the fridge and I’ll report back in a few days.
- What’s shoyu? Shoyu is a Japanese soy sauce. You can buy it from health food shops and some supermarkets. It has a smoother, more complex flavour than straight soy. It costs more – but for use in dressings, it’s worth the extra money.
Tahini salad dressing
This dressing is super-easy to make. Just whisk together the following ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon of tahini
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons of shoyu
- 2 teaspoons mustard (I use a Dijon)
This makes enough for about two people.
All about tahini
For more information about tahini, take a look at these posts:
Quicklinks
Posted by kathryn in Food Labelling, A Balanced Diet, Weight loss and Main courses
- Food labelling: I’ve blogged about being wary of food marketers using the word natural before. This week Refrigerator Raid posted about discussions in the US of what is natural?. There’s also some good advice on choosing the best foods for you.
- Mediterranean lamb pizza recipe: Should You Eat That posted a simple Mediterranean lamb pizza recipe. Pitta bread bases, covered with pesto, lamb mince and a reasonable veg component. It’s then topped off with ricotta, a healthier option than mozzarella.
- Ordering take-away: Vital Juice Daily has some advice on ordering take-out Chinese food. Take-out makes an easy dinner, especially if you’re tired and busy. But it’s worthwhile being careful about what you buy. I do the soup and steamed dumplings option a lot.
- Weight loss: Earlier in the week I blogged about about changing your diet one week at a time – the small, achievable steps to eating well. The Fitness, Health & Diet Tips blog has posted on a similar theme, but this time about losing weight: setting short term weight loss goals.
- Pasta recipe: I like the pasta with grilled vegetables and goat’s cheese recipe on Bear Necessities. A small amount of pasta, with lots of veg, topped off with goat’s cheese and fresh basil.
- Soup: one for those of you in the Northern hemispere – Wendy from A Wee Bit of Cooking has posted an easy rosemary, lentil and tomato soup.
Photograph by jovike under the terms of a creative commons license.
How to buy and store tahini
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and A Balanced Diet
So you’ve decided to include more tahini in your diet: what should you look for when buying it and how do you store it?
Where to buy it
Tahini is available from supermarkets, health food shops, as well as Middle Eastern and Chinese grocers.
Hulled vs unhulled
Sesame seeds have a fibrous outer coating – the hull – and tahini can be made either with or without this outer layer.
Unhulled tahini is darker and has a more intense flavour. While hulled tahini is much lighter in colour and taste.
The hull does contain some nutrients. It has fibre, along with minerals, particularly calcium, magnesium and zinc. Therefore if you buy hulled tahini you’re losing some of these nutrients.
There is a question mark over the usefulness of the calcium in unhulled tahini. It’s stored in a form called calcium oxalate, which our bodies may find difficult to absorb.
What to choose
I have found the flavours of different tahinis to vary considerably. Some brands I really like, while I find others too bitter. If you’re new to tahini, try a few brands to find the one you like most.
My all-time favourite tahini is the one I buy from Alfalfa House – the food co-op in Enmore. It’s organic, unhulled, quite strongly flavoured and I love it. I also like the Mayvers brand.
When buying tahini, it’s common for there to be a layer of oil at the top of the jar. This is just the sesame oil, which has separated from the more fibrous solids. There’s nothing wrong with this, simply stir it back together before using.
How to store tahini
Tahini should always be stored in the fridge. It’s high in poly-unsaturated fats. These fats are sensitive to heat and light and can easily turn rancid. So keep it refrigerated and your tahini will last longer.
Photograph from Wikipedia.
A reminder - Q & A Thursday is now fortnightly
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
If you’ve tuned in today expecting Q & A Thursday, please note for the rest of the year it’s happening every fortnight.
Therefore the next Q & A will be Thursday 22nd November. If you have any questions you want answered on that day, then leave a comment below or send me an email.
For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
What is tahini and is it good for you?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet
Tahini is a paste made from sesame seeds. Sesame seeds are jam-packed full of good stuff. However, unless you’re super-diligent with your chewing, most of them are going to pass straight through you. Which means all their goodness passes straight through as well.
This is one of the reasons why tahini is so good. In grinding up the sesame seeds and making them into a paste, it’s easier for you to absorb the nutrients.
The nutrients in sesame seeds
- Protein: sesame seeds have about 20 percent protein. As with all vegetarian sources, their amino acid profile is not ideal. However, they can be very useful in a vegetarian diet.
- Fibre: sesame seeds are 10 percent fibre
- Fat: at 55 percent, they’re high in fat. However, the vast majority of this is mono- and poly- unsaturated. They contain a small amount of Omega 3s, but mostly have Omega 6 essential fatty acids.
- Carbohydrate: in amongst all that protein, fibre and fat there’s not a lot of room for carbs, only 0.9 percent.
- Minerals: potassium, magnesium, manganese, small amounts of calcium and they’re one of the few vegetarian sources of zinc.
- Vitamins: vitamin E, as well as small amounts of some B vitamins
- Antioxidants: sesame seeds contain a group of antioxidants called lignans. These have been shown to reduce cholesterol and improve heart health.
- A full nutrient breakdown is available here.
Should you include tahini in your diet?
Yes, yes, yes and YES. Tahini is a gorgeous, useful food for both vegetarians and carnivores alike.
Tahini is particularly useful because of the fats it contains, the minerals and also the antioxidants.
How to use tahini . . .
I’m going to post some ideas about how to use tahini over the next week.
Changing your diet one week at a time
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet
Changing your diet can be hard. Changing your diet means you have to:
- research what foods are healthy
- work out which of those you like
- find ways to cook and eat them
- remember to buy them when you go shopping
- prepare and cook them
- eat them, like them
- and then repeat
It probably seems a whole lot easier to carry on just the way you are.
But you know there’s a problem with that.
Most people I come into contact with want to eat well. They know having a healthy diet is going to benefit them. It’s the right thing to do. They just find it too hard and overwhelming to make the change.
Good intentions can spur you to revolutionise your diet for a couple of weeks. Then work gets busy and your social life picks up. Suddenly you’re back eating take-away and peanut butter jaffles for dinner.
I’m going to propose a new approach. Rather than going for total change. Rather than revolutionising your diet. Why not try changing it one week at a time?
Pick one thing you could do this week. Commit to it and try to do this every day, for seven days.
Once you’ve got this under your belt, pick something else. Make another change.
It’s nowhere near as dramatic as changing everything at once. But it’s much more do-able. You’re more likely to succeed and sustain the changes.
And six months from now your diet would be very different.
What’s the one change your going to make over the next seven days?
Quicklinks
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Weight loss and Breakfast
- Breakfast on the run: Did you know you can cook porridge oats in a thermos flask? This is one for the people who “don’t have time” for breakfast. According to Cassie from Veggie Meal Plans make it up in the evening, add your flavourings and then just grab the thermos as you run out the door in the morning.
- Cauliflower mash: one of the strategies for switching to low GI foods is to make your mash potato with half potato and half white beans. Alternatively, you could make a garlic cauliflower puree.
- Weight loss: over at Cranky Fitness, Crabby has the secret to keeping weight off forever. There’s a lot of truth and good advice in her post . . . as well as a few strange analogies.
- Meal planning for a family: Over at Almost Vegetarian there’s an interesting post called how a single family with two carnivores, one vegetarian, and one almost vegetarian manage day-to-day. There’s some interesting stuff here about how to organise healthy daily menus and meals. The number one point is to make vegetables the base of your diet (and the bulk), something I wholeheartedly agree with.
- Lamb meat balls: this is an old recipe from Mostly Eating. However it’s perfect for this time of year:Middle Eastern style polpettine. These are crunchy, tasty lamb meatballs. Sophie serves them with hummous, rocket and flat tortilla bread.
Does algae oil contain Omega 3s?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Q & A Thursday
Jocelyn from She Spills the Beans asked me ages ago about algae oil:
I wondered what algae oil was extracted from (algea, obviously, but there must be a more complete answer than that). Might an algae-containing product be a good addition to my diet? Where do the seaweeds rate on omega-3s?
What algae is the oil extracted from?
There are a number of algaes that are cultivated for oil extraction. They’re mostly micro-algae, which are tiny, single-cell species.
Algae oil is used commercially and industrially – as well as in food. It can be used as a biodiesel, in dyes and made into plastic.
For nutritionals, the two main species used are: spirulina and chlorella.
What about the Omega 3s?
Algaes do contain Omega 3 essential fatty acids. Spirulina has 8 percent fat in total. About 10 percent of this is Omega 3. There are several different types of Omega 3s. Algae oil contains a variety of these, including GLA, ALA, EPA and DHA.
While other vegetarian foods do contain Omega 3s, it’s the ALA version which is more prevalent. However, most of the studies into the benefit of Omega 3s use fish – which are high in EPA and DHA.
So algae oil is interesting as a supplement, because it contains these EPA and DHAs. These are believed to be the most useful to our bodies.
You can get this by taking spirulina or chlorella supplements. or using algae oil.
What about seaweed?
Seaweed does contain Omega 3s, including DHA and EPA. However, none of them are quite as rich sources as spirulina. You need to eat quite a lot of seaweed to get adequate Omega 3 – more than you would in a normal diet.
More information
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a fortnightly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered, leave a comment below or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
Avoiding soy sauce when you have thyroid problems
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Q & A Thursday
Next on Q & A Thursday we’re into soy sauce substitutes:
My GP has advised me to avoid soy sauce as I have Hashimoto’s thyroidism (hypothyroidism). Do you know of a substitute for soy sauce? I love to cook stirfries and want to try the Spicy Noodles recipe, but it includes soy sauce. Any recommendations for substitutes?
Why avoid soy?
If you have an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) there are a number of foods you should be careful with.
Soy beans, broccoli, cabbage, millet, spinach are all healthy foods. However, they contain substances called goitrogens, which can suppress thyroid function. They interfere with the uptake of iodine, a mineral vital for thyroid function.
There’s a full list of goitrogen containing foods on wikipedia.
Goitrogens can be deactivated through cooking. So you don’t have to avoid these foods. But you do need to cook them before eating.
What about soy sauce?
At the moment it’s unclear if goitrogens survive the soy-sauce-making process and the stir-fry-cooking process. As far as I can tell, nobody has done that research. So it’s probably wise to avoid, or at least limit how much you eat.
Soy sauce alternatives
One of the best soy sauce alternatives is fish sauce. It adds a complex, salty flavour to the dish – much as soy sauce does.
If you’re vegetarian, most Asian grocers also stock a vegetarian “fish” sauce.
I use vegie fish sauce a lot. One of my favourite stir-fry flavourings is:
- 1 tablespoon “fish” sauce
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon tahini
It makes a rich, thick sauce. I add this in the last minute of cooking, stir it through the vegies and then serve immediately. We have this at least once a week in my house.
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a fortnightly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered, leave a comment below or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
What to do if your hair starts falling out
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
It’s Q & A Thursday. We’re starting off this week with a question about hair loss:
I was hoping you could help my brother who is only 24 years old and who is losing hair! I know he has been stressed out. Searching the internet shows that stress and lack of sleep is a big contributing factor for hair loss.
1. Find out why it’s happening
We usually associate hair loss with older people going bald. However, it can also happen in younger people. It’s a symptom that can be caused by all sorts of health issues. From trivial through to more problemmatic.
If your hair is falling out, the number one step to take is to see your doctor. Get the problem checked out. It’s probably nothing serious, but you need a diagnosis.
2. Can stress induce hair loss?
Telogen effluvium is the gorgeous name given to hair loss caused by severe stress.
Trauma, surgery, severe illness and extended periods of considerable stress take a huge toll. Add into this a poor diet and you have the two most common causes of telogen effluvium.
Stress and dietary deficiences cause some hair follicles to temporarily go dormant. There’s a great explanation of this at Web MD.
With telogen effluvium you don’t lose all your hair, but it can come out in large patches. It’s usually a temporary condition. But the longer the stress lasts, the more likely TE is to persist.
3. Deal with the stress
Stress is driving it, so that’s what you have to deal with first of all. Yes there are dietary changes you can make. But if you’re so stressed your hair is falling out, that’s something you have to deal with.
This can be hard. So seek out professional help. Go to see a counsellor or talk to your health professional. Relationships Australia and a lot of church groups, like Wesley Mission, offer low budget, independent counselling services. Call them up, make an appointment.
One of the best online resources is Moodgym. It’s a cognitive behavioural approach to stress and works really well for some.
Long-term: take up meditation, do some yoga, exercise regularly, work out what your stress triggers are and do something about them.
4. Get enough protein
People with telogen effluvium often don’t eat well – largely because they’re stressed. A lack of basic nutrients, makes it hard for your body to make hair.
Hair is mostly made of protein, so you need adequate amounts of this in your diet.
You don’t need whopping big steaks. Instead a couple of serves of protein foods per day is enough. The best protein sources are:
- lean meat
- chicken
- fish
- tofu
- eggs
- legumes, like chickpeas, lentils, red kidney beans
- nuts
- lower fat cheeses, like ricotta, fetta and cottage cheese
5. Eat plenty of fruit, vegetables and good oils
To grow hair you also need vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. These are found in fruit and vegetables, as well as nuts, and oily fish.
6. Take a supplement
If you’re stressed out and not eating well, changing your diet is hard. In the short-term, take a supplement. If the protein and vegies are too difficult, purchase a protein powder and a multivitamin. Take these every day.
Long-term you need to change your diet and eat well. But, while you’re sorting out the stress, take supplements as nutritional insurance.
7. Be patient
Remember, hair grows slowly. It’s going to be two or three months before you see a change.
What is Q & A Thursday?
This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a fortnightly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical answers to food and diet dilemmas sent in by readers.
If you have a question you’d like answered, leave a comment below or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
How I won the war on cake and other afternoon cravings
Posted by kathryn in Blogging and A Balanced Diet
Peter over at Great Circle is runnning a blogging carnival and my post is up today: how I won the war on cake and other afternoon cravings.
Welcome to Great Circle readers.
If this is your first time on Limes & Lycopene, then you can find out more about me here, including a link to some of my core articles.
Q & A Thursday is tomorrow.
I run a regular question and answer forum on Limes & Lycopene: Q & A Thursday. And it’s tomorrow.
For more information, take a look at the introduction to Q & A Thursday, or you can browse the archives to see the range of topics already covered.
Subscribing to Limes & Lycopene
You can also keep up to date with Limes & Lycopene by subscribing to my RSS feed, or to the free monthly newsletter. I’d love to know if you have any comments or questions about the site. Welcome.
Why I eat well
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet
My parents are both in their 70s 65 plus. They’re fit, active and independent.
They’re still able to play my nephews’ favourite game – running races. We speak regularly about the current affairs and latest political shenanigans. They argue over the crossword every day and are planning a big trip to Europe next year. My parents live a full and active life.
For a while they cooked and delivered meals-on-wheels on a regular basis. Until they decided this regular commitment was “cramping their style”.
They often told me about “the poor old dears” they delivered to. People who, through ill-health and isolation, weren’t able to fully take care of themselves.
The things is, my parents were older than most of them.
I have clients who say life’s too short not to do what I want. Life’s too short to eat vegetables, exercise and stay off the grog. I want to eat and drink to excess now. I want to enjoy myself.
I agree life’s too short. But it’s precisely because of this that I eat well and look after myself.
When I’m in my 70s I want to be exactly like my parents.
I’m greedy. I want to live my life to the full. I want wellbeing and vitality NOW. But I also want to have the energy, health and stamina to enjoy life when I’m older.
It’s what you’re doing today, this month, year and decade that will dictate your health in the future. It’s how you eat now. It’s whether you exercise and have given up smoking NOW. This is the stuff you need to do to have a long and healthy life. You have control over this.
So I look after myself. I eat my five serves of vegetables and two of fruit. I watch my junk intake, move regularly and manage my stress.
Because I plan to continue laughing, travelling, enquiring, talking and writing for a long, long time.
Photograph courtesy of wanjonpok under the terms of a creative commons license
Update: SORRY mum, I added at least five years to your age. I’ve corrected it now
What's in season: Sydney in November
Posted by kathryn in What's in season
Despite the wind and rain outside we’re getting closer and closer to summer. The Northern Territory mango season is in full swing and other stone fruit are starting to come down in price. I’ve been buying asparagus at bargain prices. While the Asian greens are fantastic quality.
When shopping in Sydney this month, look at for the following in season produce:
Fruit
- Apricots
- Avocadoes
- Bananas
- Berries – mulberries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
- Cherries – the Australian cherry season has started, but prices are still expensive and quality isn’t the best
- Grapefruit
- Grapes
- Loquats
- Mangoes – from the Northern Territory, should be coming down in price this month
- Melons – particularly watermelon and honeydew
- Nectarines are coming down in price
- Oranges (valencias)
- Papaya and pawpaw
- Passionfruit
- Peaches – still expensive but they’re beautiful. Should come down in price this month.
- Pineapples – Bethonga pineapples are particularly good
- Rhubarb
Vegetable
- Asian greens
- Asparagus
- Beans, green
- Cucumber
- Chillies
- Fennel – although the season will be finishing up in the next few weeks
- Lettuce
- Onions – spring, green and shallot
- Peas
- Silverbeet
- Spinach
- Sweetcorn
- Tomatoes
- Watercress
- Zucchini
- Zucchini flowers
Photograph by Esther17 under the terms of a creative commons license
Quicklinks
Posted by kathryn in Sustainablity, Gluten-free, Breakfast, Vegan and Vegetable recipes
- Gluten-free cooking: I was asked a couple of weeks ago about guidelines for cooking without wheat flour. At the time I posted some links and then this week I saw Gluten-Free girl has written a guide to using gluten free flours.
- Ethical eating can be a minefield. Full of complex decisions about the value of food miles vs local eating vs fair trade vs organic. It’s hard to shop ethically and still stay within a budget. This week the Herald published an article covering the basics of ethical eating: moving up the food chain.
- How do you reward yourself? The Transparent Hypnotist has blogged about using reward systems when trying to lose weight. It’s sensible advice – weight loss shouldn’t all be about denial. It’s about finding things you enjoy and “treats” that aren’t based on food.
- Breakfast smoothie: Rather than offering her normal dinner menus, this week Cassie from Vegetarian Meal Plans has been blogging her breakfasts. And I love this smoothie: banana, date and walnuts smoothie. Fruit, plus protein, Omega 3s and sweetened with dates – what an excellent idea.
- Big vegie stirfry: Green Gourmet Giraffe has a beautiful noodle stirfry. It features lots of vegies and nuts – always something I approve of. Plus the sauce contains tahini, which gives it a rich, creaminess and some extra nutritional oomph.
- Vegetarian recipes: For the vegetarians out there, Cynthia from Tastes Like Home has gone a bit crazy this week. Her latest post features about a gazillion vegetarian recipes. They all look brilliant and you just need to email Cynthia to be sent copies.
Where's Q & A Thursday?
Posted by kathryn in Q & A Thursday
As you’ve probably realised, there’s no Q & A Thursday happening today.
I’ve decided to run it fortnightly, for the next couple of months.
I know this is a popular weekly segment, but I have some big deadlines looming. Plus I want time to throw myself into changes, new ideas and content for Limes & Lycopene.
All this means I can’t quite give Q & A Thursday the attention it deserves on a weekly basis. So I’m changing it to fortnightly, at least until the end of the year.
The next one will be Thursday 8th November. I’ll post reminders in the few days beforehand. As usual, if you have a question you’d like answered, leave a comment below or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.
On missing foods & why I love seasons
Posted by kathryn in Seasonal Health and Fruit
This week I’ve eaten my first peach and mango of the season. Stood over the sink, with sweet, luscious juices drizzling down my chin.
Two moments. Pure, meditative, pleasure.
And while I ate them I thought how wondrous the flavour of fruit could be.
I love seasons. Mangoes and lychees are my absolute favourite fruits, but I don’t want to eat them all year round. For me, that seems boring.
Instead I want to miss foods. I want to get to this time of year and be excited by what’s on offer.
I want to be so entranced by the first perfect peaches in my local shop, I’m willing to spend $2.00 on one small piece of fruit.
While there are health benefits to eating seasonally, for me it’s also about taste and enjoyment. By foods not being available all year round, I get moments like I’ve had this week. Biting into a peach, savouring the flavour. And thinking, yes, I remember, that’s what a peach tastes like.
What about you? What do you look for at this time of year?
Or do you want produce to be available all the time?
Photograph courtesy of benprk under the terms of a creative commons license.
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6 comments
30 November, 2007
