Category: Nutrition

Brain food

Have you ever thought about how the food you eat directly affects your brain? As its Brain Awareness Week, it’s worth sparing a minute or two to do just that. Do you give your brain what it needs?

The brain is the hungriest organ in the body. Mind you that’s not surprising really as it’s always on the go, managing and controlling everything else in the body, even (and particularly) when we’re asleep. 25% of the body’s energy supply (in the form of glucose, its fuel of choice), is used in the brain Continue reading “Brain food” →

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Fabulous fibre

Have you noticed how fibre has suddenly appeared in the news again? That’s food-related fibre, not the high-speed broad band type! A large meta-analysis of research studies published in The Lancet last week concluded that a diet high in complex fibre and whole-foods could prevent the development of many chronic health problems. It concluded their study provided a ‘causal link’ between a low fibre diet and poor health (read more here).

The world of food and health is complex and fickle. The fact that fibre is good for health has been known for a long time, but gets conveniently forgotten when more popular diets come along, like low-carb/high fat, or ketogenic programmes. There’s a lot of confusion about the carbohydrate element of foods with many people automatically associating ‘carbs’ with sugar. And it’s true, refined sugar isn’t good for us, but complex, unadulterated carbohydrates are.

As anyone who has participated in my Eat Well Live Well course will know, I’m a big fan of fibre. And one of the benefits of eating a whole-food plant-based diet is that it is packed full of lovely complex fibres that the body just loves. And rather than worrying about how much you should consume, it’s just part and parcel of every meal – as long as you eat a wide range of whole plant foods that is.

So why might you not get enough fibre in your diet?

  1. Only food from plants contain fibre, so if you eat mainly meat, dairy and eggs you’ll be missing out on fibre.
  2. Refined cereals and grains loose their healthy complex fibre, so if you eat white bread, pasta or rice, processed breakfast cereals or ready meals, you’ll be losing all the lovely complex fibre.
  3. Fresh fruit and vegetables contain fibre too, so if you don’t hit your 5 portions a day (like 70% of the UK population), you’ll be missing out on fibre.

So what does fibre do for us? Lots, as it turns out. I go into more details in my new book Eat Well Live Well with The Sensitive Foodie (out next month!), but in a nutshell it:

  1. Improves gut motility – ie: make you poo!
  2. Removes excess bile, fats and toxic waste
  3. Fills you up
  4. Releases nutrients slowly
  5. Looks after the friendly bacteria living in your gut.

As more is learnt about the importance of gut health, this last one is really key. Bacteria living deep down in the large intestine dine out on the insoluble fibre found in complex carbohydrates that we can’t digest ourselves, and then puts it to good use, carrying out functions we have outsourced and can no longer do ourselves. Gut health is connected to many health challenges, including food sensitivities and autoimmune conditions, hence my personal love of all things fibre!

So how do you get more fibre in your diet? It’s easy – eat more plants! And a wide variety of them too. Add beans to soups and stews, more veggies to dishes. Ditch the processed breakfast cereals and opt for wholegrain or oats. Swap to wholegrain pasta, rice and bread. Or just focus on eating amazing plant foods throughout the day and then you don’t have to worry where your fibre is coming from.

A word of warning though, if you’re not used to eating lots of lovely fibre, or have IBS or something similar, take care! Fibre makes you fart. And if your gut is not happy, a sudden overload of high fibre foods could find you trumpeting at inappropriate moments or doubled up in pain. So think about gradually increasing the amount of whole foods over a few days rather than all at once – you, and anyone around you, will appreciate it!

If you’re not sure how to start eating more fibre, check out the recipes on my blog. Made with whole plant foods, they’re all packed with fibre in various forms. And if you’re interested in finding out more, my book is a good place to start. Look out for more information about publication date, or sign up to my book mailing list. You’ll get the lowdown before anyone else, plus special launch information and offers. Just click here.

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Getting the most from your greens plus a quick curry

I have a big pile of food-related books to read, each with a different focus and all fascinating. Currently, I’m working my way through ‘How Not To Die’ by the wonderful Dr Michael Gregor, who has a head full of knowledge, a bag-load of common sense and a fabulously dry sense of humour  (plus lots of bowel humour – it’s a nurse thing!).

Dr Gregor does an amazing job of examining all the latest research about food and health, questioning the validity of the conclusions and providing clarity for anyone interested in eating good food – that is, food that is good for you! His website – nutritionfacts.org – is packed full of 5 minute videos covering all sorts of topics, checking the facts behind the headlines and challenging spurious claims found in newspaper headlines and on-line. There is so much confusions out there, it’s hard to identify the ‘truth’!

You may have noticed that I’m a big fan of cruciferous vegetables, wonderful produce like broccoli, cabbage of all sorts, cauliflower, kale and watercress. Dr Gregor is too and regularly refers to research findings about how the sulphur-containing compounds found within these veggies can promote good health, particularly in preventing and even treating some types of cancer, supporting the immune system and liver function (there’s many others too). Broccoli has been researched the most, but all cruciferous veggies contain the beneficial phytonutrient sulforaphane. But there is a potential problem in accessing it – for sulforaphane to become available, it needs to be activated by another chemical reaction involving an enzyme (myrosinase). This occurs once the broccoli or other cruciferous veg is cut or bitten into. All ok so far. The problem is how we tend to eat this group of veggies – cooked. Heat kills myrosinase – and no myrosinase, no magical sulforaphane. But who really likes to eat lots of raw broccoli? I know I’m not keen!

Fortunately, there is something you can use to overcome this problem – patience! Sulforaphane is heat resistant, so cooking is not an issue, you just need time for it to form. So to get the most magic out of your broccoli, just chop it and leave for 30 minutes or so before you cook it. This gives plenty of time for all the enzymes to do their business and create lots of this wonderful phytonutrient that your body will just love. It does mean you have to plan ahead a little, but if you’re cooking other things as well, just remember to chop the broc first, then get on with the rest of it. Then you can cook it however you like, although please don’t boil the life out of it, especially if you are using food to manage a health problem, as there are other wonderful nutrients inside that will suffer. Also, if you’re trying to persuade your kids to eat veg, serving up soggy offerings is not going to help (remembering granny’s over-cooked Christmas sprouts!).

So try to remember to give your greens time to brew to get the most out of them – you won’t notice the benefit, but your body will. Here’s a quick curry recipe featuring brilliant broccoli to try out this weekend. Packed full of flavour and amazing nutrients, eating well never tasted so good!

Broccoli and squash curry (serves 4)

1 head of broccoli
1 medium onion
1 large clove garlic
2cm chunk ginger, peeled
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 small squash
½ teaspoon turmeric
½-1 teaspoon red chilli powder (depending on heat requirements)
salt and pepper
fresh coriander

First, rinse the broccoli and chop of the stems and dice. Chop the broccoli heads into small pieces and put to one side to allow the phytonutrients do their thing.

Roughly chop the onion, garlic and ginger then place in a small blender and blitz into a paste with a little water. Wash and peel the squash. Chop into small chunks/bite sized pieces.

Place a pan on a medium heat and add the mustard and cumin seeds. Dry toast them for a couple of minutes until they release a lovely aroma and start to pop. Take the pan off the heat for a moment and stir in the paste mix (if the pan is too hot it will burn). Pop the pan back on the heat, turning it down a bit, and sauté for a few minutes until the paste starts to lightly brown. Stir in the spices with a little water and continue to cook for another couple of minutes.

Add the chopped squash and broccoli stems along with some salt and pepper and stir well. Add about 50ml of water, bring to the boil, then pop on a lid and reduce the heat. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until the squash is soft. If the mix is dry, add a little more water along with the broccoli heads and simmer for 5 minutes or so until the broccoli is lightly cooked through (I still like it with a bit of bite). Turn off the heat and garnish with chopped fresh coriander. Serve with dairy-free yoghurt, rice or whole-wheat chapatti.

 

 

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Top tips for New Year eating

Yesterday I listed five questions to think about when your New Year resolution is eating better food.  If that made you think, and you want to make some positive but simple changes, here are five top tips that will help you eat ‘well’.

1) Eat more! That may seem like a strange thing to encourage! To be specific, eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. That doesn’t mean you should start munching your way through platefuls of lettuce, unless you’re into that kind of thing! If you have decided to ‘do the vegan thing’ this January, then you should naturally eat more each day, as long as you are not choosing lots of processed products. If you’re doing a more gradual transition, there’s lots of way to sneak extra veg into everyday foods. Soup is the perfect way to load up on the veggies. Add extra helpings to stews and curries. Sneak some fresh stuff into cakes (carrot and courgettes work well as does fresh fruit). Have a side salad with your main meal, or just increase your veg portion size. Plants can be very filling, so you feel less hungry plus give you a whole range of marvellous nutrients.

2) Eat whole. We hear a lot about the perils of fat and/or sugar. We also hear about how they are an essential part of our daily diet. Confused? Most people are. The key to the fat/sugar issue is really about whether it’s refined or whole. Once fresh produce is processed, it loses much of its micronutrients and fibre, leaving higher amounts of fats and sugar in an altered molecular state. Think about oranges and orange juice. If you eat an orange you get the juice and sugar, plus essential oils, fibre and other nutrients. Unless it’s a very small one, or you have a huge appetite, most people can only manage to eat one orange at a time. For a start, it can take ages to peel it and by the time you’ve finished one there’s no desire left for another. Orange juice on the other hand is a different matter. An average glass of juice takes about 4 oranges. That’s four times the amount of sugar, no fibre and less of the essential oils and other phytonutrients. Sugar with no fibre gets rapidly absorbed into the blood stream, and it’s not long before you want more. So look at what you’re eating – if its whole then go for it, if it’s had the fibre removed, don’t.

3) Eat brown. This is connected to the point above. Wholegrain and wholemeal contain lots more nutrients and fibre than white. So brown pasta, rice and bread are all more beneficial than the plastic white stuff. You can even get brown rice pasta if you’re gluten free! It does take a few minutes more to cook, particularly rice, but if you leave it to soak whilst you’re out in the day, it cooks super quick when you want it.

4) Eat when you’re hungry and don’t feel deprived. This is most important. Making changes is hard and if you feel resentful about missing out then it makes it even harder, increasing the likelihood that your resolutions go by the wayside. If you’re out and about, don’t rely on being able to pick up a suitable snack; always have something with you to fall back on when hunger strikes. It could just be an apple or banana, or a small bag of nuts and dried fruit. When you eat a whole food plant-based diet, it’s not about calorie counting or limitations. It’s about eating great food, so if you want an extra helping of the gorgeous veggie meal you’ve prepared then do so. And if sweet stuff is your preference, make sure you learn how to make healthy cakes. There’s lots of recipes on the blog that will hit the spot.

5) Eat yourself happy. This is not me encouraging you to console yourself with a tub of ice cream!  As mentioned above, whole-foods are packed with fibre. As well as helping slow sugar release and keeping you ‘regular’, fibre also keeps the friendly bacteria that live in your gut happy. And happy bacteria can mean a happy you, as one of their many jobs is to keep the gut lining healthy and intact so that it can keep working to maximum capacity. This includes secreting optimum amounts of serotonin, the happy neurotransmitter that influences mood. Gut health is key to health and well-being, so feeding it with gorgeous tasting whole plant foods is a great way to get you feeling happy all over!

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8 reasons to enjoy sweet potatoes

There are some vegetables that are always on my shopping list; sweet potatoes is one of them. This amazingly versatile tuber appears in a meal at least twice a week, if not more, either as part of a dish or as the main star. Sweet potatoes can be baked, roasted, steamed or (if you really have to) boiled. I sneak them into all sorts of recipes, sweet as well as savoury.

Lots of foods get given the ‘super food’ label; sweet potato is one of them. Is it justified? Yes! Bright orange sweet potato is packed full of betacarotene, the precursor to vitamin A. A deficiency in this vitamin can lead to a number of health problems, including eyesight and skin disorders. This episode of Food Unwrapped headed off to Africa to investigate these superfood claims, and it is remarkable to see the effects of eat just one sweet potato a day can have. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/superfoods-the-real-story/videos/all/s1-ep2-sweet-potato/4340125985001

If you don’t have time for watching TV, then have a look at this infographic I’ve put together. I’ll be posting some new recipes using sweet potato soon.

Are you a fan? I’d love to hear your favourite ways of eating this tasty tuber!

If you want to make your own infographic but don’t know where to start, check out www.canva.com (this is the site I used!). It’s not as difficult as you might think!

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Incredible cruciferous part 2

My last post “Incredible Cruciferous” http://thesensitivefoodiekitchen.com/incredible-cruciferous/ looked at the range of veggies to try in this group and their amazing nutritional properties, as well a few suggested recipes to try out. This time, I want to share some top tips on how to get maximum benefit from these gorgeous vegetables – and a new recipe idea to try out too. Continue reading “Incredible cruciferous part 2” →

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Incredible cruciferous

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know by now that veggies are a main part of my daily diet. Packed full of super healthy vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, it’s really important to ensure a selection of vibrant veg are on the plate every day to keep healthy and strong.

Whilst all veggies are good, there is one particular group which are superbly good – cruciferous vegetables. This lovely bunch has been attracting a lot of research recently as they have been found to be particularly good in protecting against and even treating many chronic Western health problems.

So what’s in this diverse vegetable family? There’s a lot to choose from – if you’re not too keen on one, you can find another equally good one to add to your essentials list:

Cabbage – including Chinese cabbage such as bok choi and spring and summer greens

Kale – all types    

Brussel sprouts

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Swede and turnips

Watercress

Radish, include horseradish, wasabi and daikon

Rocket

Kohlrabi

Mustard greens and seeds.

What is it about this group that makes them so healthful? For a start, they have fabulous amounts of vitamin C, E and K, and folic acid, as well as contribute a high amount of fibre, which is essential for happy, healthy guts. Dietary fibre contributes to reducing a number of health problems, including high cholesterol and (the obvious) constipation. But on top of that, cruciferous vegetables contain amazing sulphur containing phytonutrient compounds that help the body to resist chronic health problems and stay healthy. The Linus Pauling Institute in America states that active biological compounds found in them can help reduce inflammation, protect cell DNA and can protect against some cancers, which makes eating a portion of cabbage worthwhile!

The great thing about this group of vegetables is that it’s pretty easy to include in the diet every day; all parts of the plants can be eaten (cauliflower is the flower part, turnip the root and leaves) and as many are traditionally found all round the world in different forms, there’s a whole host of different recipes and flavours to try out. So it’s not about having to force yourself to eat a school dinner’s special of soggy, overcooked cabbage every day, but rather start an exiting journey of discovery that’s great for the taste-buds as well as the body.

Here are a few ideas to try out:

One post is too short to share the glories of this wonderful group of veggies – next time I’ll give you some top tips on getting the most benefit out of these veg plus a new recipe to add to the list. In the meantime, why not try one or all of the above – and let me know how you get on!

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Fabulous flaxseeds

It's no surprise to anyone who follows my blog that cake features high on my list of favourite things! When I first went dairy free, I still used eggs in my recipes but this changed once I turned to eating a plant based diet. The question was, how to still make good cake when it was both dairy and egg free?

I soon discovered there are many different alternatives which yield awesomely delicious results. Many of my recipes actually don't need a direct egg replacement, but when required, a flax egg comes to the rescue.

A flax egg is very simple to make, so don't be put off if a recipe asks for one. Just mix one tablespoon of ground flaxseed with 3 tablespoons of water in a small bowl and leave to thicken for 5 minutes or so. You will end up with a thick, gloopy mix, similar to a whisked egg. It doesn't look that appetising, but you won't notice it once added to your recipe.

Flaxseed, otherwise known as linseed, is a tiny powerhouse of plant based nutrients; if you haven't yet discovered these seeds, then you really might want to! Packed full of super healthy essential omega 3 fatty acids, flaxseeds are also a fabulous source of complete plant protein, minerals like manganese and magnesium as well as some of the B vitamins and phytonutrients called lignans that act as anti-oxidants and help to balance hormones. On top of that is the fibre; packed with soluble and insoluble fibre, flaxseeds not only keep you regular but also feed friendly gut bacteria (a pre-biotic), so promoting gut health. All that fibre also helps to steady blood sugar levels and fills you up too. So much goodness in one little seed! But a word of warning - if you are not used to a high fibre diet, then go easy to start off with and have a little at a time, building up slowly otherwise your gut might get a bit overwhelmed!

To get the nutritional benefits, flaxseed need to be ground as the tough outer coating is too much for our digestive systems to crack into properly. You can buy it ready ground, but many products are quite expensive, and once ground the seeds start to lose some of their nutritional powers. So it's much better to grind your own in small batches, then keep them in the fridge ready for use. You will need a coffee grinder or high-speed blender for this - an average food processor just isn't up to the job! I do a small batch at a time in my NutriBlend and store them in an old jam jar.

So what else can you use flaxseed in apart from cake? Lots of things - here's a few suggestions:

  • in raw snacks and cakes
  • sprinkled on breakfast cereals
  • on yoghurt
  • added to a crumble topping
  • as a binder for pastry
  • added to smoothies
  • thicken soups or stews
  • in homemade bread or crackers

Flaxseed oil also has some amazing nutritional uses, but that's a blog post for another day! In the meantime, why not grab some flaxseed the next time you're shopping and add it into your daily diet. Let me know how you get on!

 

 

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