The Healthy Eating Guide

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We use lots of self-justification to explain why we are not eating a healthy diet, even though healthy eating guidelines are to be found everywhere. Perhaps the most common excuse is that we are just too busy and too stressed to think about choosing a whole pile of suitable foods to make one of those boring healthy eating recipes. Then we go and pick up a ready meal or fast-food as if to justify our lack of time abandoning all thoughts of healthier foods. This compounds the problem because these meals are generally full of saturated fats, sugar, salt and cholesterol. The good news is that even if you only have a very limited amount of time you can still eat healthily without spending all day in the kitchen. It just takes a bit of planning.

Food shopping is not the greatest of experiences, in fact most of us dash round the supermarket at break neck speed throwing all sorts into the trolley. To eat healthy you need good ingredients and that means shopping sensibly. Take a little time and plan your meals for the next couple of weeks, bearing in mind your work and social commitments. You need good quality ingredients to have a good diet so make sure you always buy the best you can afford and take advantage of Continue Reading »

I love going to the Farm Shops and local markets to buy food. It’s so much fresher and better for you than out of season foods that have traveled goodness knows how far. It is almost like going on a treasure hunt when you set off, armed with your shopping basket, to see what you can find that is good to eat today. One of my favourite foods is very seasonal, and I have to say, I am also very fussy about it. I love Asparagus, but I only like the local Asparagus grown here where I live. It has a flavour and texture all it’s own that nothing else quite matches. It is delicious served just on it’s own with absolutely nothing else. The season is short, only a few weeks so I always aim to make the most of it.

A good friend of mine has written the most fantastic book about the best Asparagus in the world, the ‘Gras’ that grows in the Vale of Evesham. A whole industry has grown up around this wonderful vegetable, sadly it has suffered from the cheap imports from as far away as Peru, but the season is still eagerly awaited by the local residents and we munch our way through tons of the stuff from mid April to early June. A Passion For Asparagus is a beautifully written and illustrated book that is a joy to read for anyone who has the remotest interest in food, it’s place in our lives and the joys of fresh, local produce.

Chris has spent a great deal of time researching his subject and his passion for asparagus really does show through. The lore and legend of asparagus as well as it’s history is all well covered and there are a raft of excellent recipes included as well, even tales of some visitors to the area who were obviously not initiated into the joys of asparagus eating and tucked into the woody end, leaving the tender and delicate buds on their plates! There are some wonderful photographs of the annual Asparagus Auction which is held at The Fleece Inn in Bretforton, the only pub owned by the National Trust (and worth a visit in it’s own right). This is the culmination of the Asparagus Festival which started this year with a ‘dash’ to London to take the first Asparagus to the Houses of Parliament.

If you are interested in Chris’s book you can find out more, or obtain a copy here - A Passion For Asparagus.

There has been a great deal in the newspapers, on TV and Radio this week about Vitamins and Supplements and the potential damage they can do. I am not a Doctor, however I like to think I am a woman of reasonable intelligence and common sense.

This is my ‘common sense’ view on the topic which is raging all around us at the moment. If you have a healthy, balanced diet - why do you need supplements? I fully accept that there are some times in life when, following illness or as a result of certain health conditions your body might need some support, but surely not all the time. The human body does not hold vast reserves of vitamins and you should get all you need if you ensure that you have a diet that includes all the food groups. Anthing else is a waste of money and a strain on your body to process it.
It strikes me that we often take the ‘pop a pill’ approach to good nutrition because we are aware that we eat too many junk foods that we know are not good - we use them as an antidote. To eat a healthy diet is not difficult - even if you are not the greatest cook in the world, or are pushed for time - there are plenty of healthy and nutritious ready prepared foods available now, and they are a lot less expensive than vast quantities of unnecessary pills

This is delicious for a light lunch or supper dish. You can make it in advance and heat it through.

3 Leeks, trimmed and cut into thick slices
3 Courgettes cut into thick slices
1 oz (25 gms) Polyunsaturated margarine
1 oz (25 gms) plain flour
15 fl oz (400 ml) skimmed milk
2 x 14 oz cans (400 gms) Butter Beans, drained and rinsed
6 tbsp (90 mls) chopped fresh parsley
1 oz (25 gms) wholemeal breadcrumbs
3 oz (75 gms) mature cheddar cheese, grated

Cook the leeks and courgettes in a little boiling water until just tender
Melt the margarine in a heavy bottomed saucepan, add the flour and cook for about one minute. Slowly add the milk, stirring all the time and heat until it begins to thicken. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and season if desired
Add the leeks, courgettes and beans to the sauce, then add about 4 tbsps of the parsley. Mix well and put into an oven proof dish
Mix the breadcrumbs, cheese and remaining parsley and spread evenly over the top of the vegetable mixture
Bake for about 30 minutes at 200C, 400F, Gas Mark 6

We are told that we should eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day to ensure our health and well being.  This is a minimum amount to help reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers and other serious illnesses.  However there is a great deal of confusion over just how much is a portion and whether frozen, dried or canned fruit and vegetables count.  The simple answer to that is that they do count, as do juiced fruits and vegetables and it doesn’t matter if they are cooked or raw.

So how much is a portion - the following list is just a guideline - and do remember five a day is a minimum amount!

• A whole medium-sized fruit - eg, an apple, banana or orange
•  A slice of a large fruit, such as melon, or pineapple
•  An adults handful of grapes or two handfuls of berries such as Blueberries or Raspberries
• A tablespoon of dried fruit such as sultanas or dried  cranberries
• Approx 100ml of fruit or vegetable juice
• A 200 gm tin of fruit - preferably not sweetened
• A small bowl of salad
• Approx 100 gms of vegetables - eg, peas, carrots or cabbage
• Approx 6 dried apricots  or a similar amount of other dried fruit such as apples, peasrs or peaches

The vegetables and fruits in a cooked dish generally work out at about one portion, so for example the onions, mushrooms, beans and tomatoes in a chili would equate to one of your daily portions.  A bowl of homemade vegetable soup would be about a portion as well.

Generally speaking you should only count one juice portion a day as you don’t get the dietary fibre that you would with the whole fruit.  Drink more by all means but only count it as one portion.

From time to time I like to share things I have found of benefit in my search for healthy eating guidelines and recipes that I have found beneficial. One of those is Najib Siddique’s book ‘The Complete Guide to Delicious Healthy Eating’. Like me, he believes that healthy eating doesn’t have to be all about bland, tasteless and boring food which you need to have the patience of a saint to both prepare and enjoy.

Whilst not a diet book by any means, this is a comprehensive guide to what is good and what is not good to eat. If you follow healthy eating guidelines you will find that your body weight naturally adjusts to it’s optimum. We were not all built to be stick insects! Healthy eating involves eating enough food to maintain an active and healthy body, not one that just exists.

As he quite rightly says, our food choices are limitless these days and it is often difficult to know where some of the more unusual things that are coming into our diet fit in terms of healthy eating. How many types of bread do we have now for example?

The Complete Guide to Delicious Healthy Eating covers a wide range of topics on choosing foods, what’s good, what’s not so good, sensible guidelines if you feel you must diet, and a comprehensive examination of our dietary habits and how to change them for the better. There is a wealth of information that is invaluable for anyone who is aiming to try and improve their health and wellbeing by looking at what they eat. Recommended reading in my view.

Healthy Eating Guides often stress the need to cut sown sugars in our diet – but offer little by way of alternatives.  There are chemical sweeteners but I don’t particularly like those so I have to find alternatives, and there are many that you can use for both sweet and savoury dishes.

One of my favourites is dried apricots, these are brilliant in crumbles and Fruity desserts or cakes, and are good in a stuffing for chicken or pork.  You can use dried peaches too but I don’t like the flavour quite so much.  If I want to cut down the sugar and fat in a cake recipe I make a date puree by warming some pitted dates in milk and then blitzing them, it does affect the colour of your cake a little but you can barely taste the dates and it can reduce the sugar and fat content by up to half.

Figs, Prunes and Vine fruits are also useful and can be used in both sweet and savoury without any problem.  Do remember to wash any dried fruits you use –they are often dusted in sulphur as a preservative and should be carefully cleaned.

For savoury dishes where you want a sweet flavour rather than actual sweetness you can use Allspice, Ginger, Cardamom, Nutmeg and Coriander  with equal success  Desiccated or shredded Coconut is also useful but be careful that it isn’t sweetened when you buy it, a mistake I made once.  Also useful are fruit juices, particularly Apple which can be used as part of the fluid in any recipe, sweet or savoury.

The best method is to experiment a little and you will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of sugar you can cut out of a recipe.  I also find that with most cake recipes, just cutting the sugar by up to one third causes no problems and fits well within healthy eating guidelines.