To help you have a greener Hallowe’en, we’ve compiled a list of ideas to try. Whatever other scary footprints we may find on the garden path this October 31st, none of them need to be carbon ones!
Click through for tips on:
all designed to cut the plastic, the excess sugar and those Evil Emissions! (Mu-hah-hah-hah-hah-haahhhh!)
clean up those arteries!
Last Friday the British Heart Foundation shared the findings of research it had funded at Imperial College London. The research shows that treating high risk parts of arteries with the natural compound “sulforaphane” reduced inflammation by ’switching on’ a protein essential to protecting arteries from clogging.
Guess where this compound naturally occurs! Click here for the details, and for these recipes:
will you still?
“The health of man, beast, plant and soil is one indivisible whole”
Founder of the Soil Association, Lady Eve Balfour, The Living Soil, 1943
The findings of the FSA literature review are causing dismay and concern.
Is the organic food industry, which we at VegBox Recipes have long been supporters of, about to be crippled by consumers responding to the reports with their wallets?
Will the study mean, as the FSA seem to hope, that more people will eat their five a day if they no longer feel compelled to eat fruit and veg only if it’s organic, which they feel [accurately or otherwise] is too expensive?
Here is a bit more detail on the FSA findings, including some clarity on whether the study addressed pesticide contamination, our run down of reasons people eat organic, and an opportunity for you to tell us and each other what your reaction is to the report.
honey sauce stir-fry
Did you know that May 4th – May 10th is the UK’s National Honey Week? Used in beauty treatments, as an antiseptic, and by the Romans to pay their taxes (!) it is also delicious on bread, in yogurt, in cakes as a sugar substitute, and in sauces for savoury dishes, like this delicious pak choi, tofu and honey stir fry.
How do you like your honey?
Any apiarists out there?
And have you seen many bees yet this year?
would you grow this?
Thinning the spinach, successional sowing the lettuce for cut and come again, pinching out the broad beans, using manure for the squash, and planning for the brassicas …
All the things our mentors Tony, Ann and Red are telling us we need to be doing over the next couple of months…
But what ARE they?!
Join us over on our sister site, ooffoo.com, as we share what we’re learning on the journey to home-grown food.
sprouts away!
We just had to do it.
Like the roots we’re also saying goodbye to in March, it’s their last month with us before they pack their cases (like the picture?!) and migrate to cooler climes, not to return until December. And a little like this month’s other Veggie-in-the-Spotlight, they’re still misunderstood and they still haven’t made it to the sunglasses-sporting veggie A-list.
So, here’s some stuff that you may not have known about Brussels Sprouts:
1. They were cultivated in Belgium from cabbages. Hence the name.
2. They’re an excellent source of Vitamin C, with just 6 lightly cooked sprouts containing an adult’s recommended daily allowance. They’re also packed with Vitamin D and folic acid, which are both common deficiencies in our modern diet.
3. If cooked right, they should have a pleasant, nutty flavour.
4. Like cauliflower, it’s the sulphur released during cooking that gives Brussels Sprouts their infamous smell. So the less time you cook them for, the less they’ll stink!
5. They’re migratory*.
*OK, no they’re not. But it’s a funny thought.
How To Choose
How To Store
Our Favourite Brussels Recipes
Remember the annual “sprout peddling” competition?
Here are the winning recipes, past and present:
three sprouty winners
Sauteed Brussels and Apple – still our favourite, thanks to Nadja.
Garlic & Almond Sprouts - a creamy dish that has converted several friends…
Brussels Sprout & Pine Nut Salad – no chance of stink with this one, and the balsamic works perfectly!
So be honest, folks – will you be giving Brussels a sumptuous send off? Or are you determined to hand them their hats?
We suspect that you, dear reader, are NOT a statistic on a Government chart when it comes to cauliflowers.
Because apparently sales are declining, forcing production to fall. Which in turn has prompted the Brassica Growers’ Association to launch a campaign to Save Our Cauliflowers.
S0, to shamelessly steal a slogan, have YOU forgotten how good cauliflowers taste?
We can’t believe you have, but just in case … Let’s get recipe swapping.
Here’s our contribution for an early Spring lunch-box filler:
our recipe
Cauliflower and Chickpea Pitta Pockets
This is a lovely way of enjoying cauliflower. The chickpeas give the meal a nutty flavour and the watercress means it’s packed with nutrients. If you can get hold of tahini (sesame seed butter), it adds to the flavour and is also full of calcium and essential fatty acids.
What have you been doing with your cauliflowers then, cauliflower-eating comrades?
red chicory is common in italy
This month we interviewed Denise Tolson, who discovered chicory at the tender age of 18 whilst doing a grand tour of Europe. Years on, she’s still a fan with a rather tasty chicory recipe up her sleeve.
VBR: Hi Denise – thanks for spending some time with us talking about Chicory. Not everyone has eaten this veggie. When did you discover it?
Denise: I discovered chicory when I went to Italy aged 18 with my sister aged 17. We were doing one of those ‘take a flight and see what happens’ holidays with hardly any money and no sense to speak of. Anyway, we tended to eat in very cheap places where you ate what you were given. One day we got chicory in some sort of salad. It was a bit of a shock as it was quite bitter but we definitely developed a taste for it. In Italy you can get glorious red chicory as well as the beautiful pale green version you more commonly see in this country. I think Waitrose do it sometimes.
VBR: What was the first meal you ever cooked using it?
Denise: I started off just mixing in in with other salad stuff and putting french dressing on it which was very nice. I grew up on those round floppy lettuces with cucumber and tomato and plenty of salad cream when salad was on offer at home but after Italy I got a lot more adventurous.
VBR: What does Chicory taste like to you?
Denise: Chicory tastes quite bitter but much less so than it used to. I wonder whether English growers have bred some of the bitterness out to make it more palatable to the British market. Either that or my tastebuds are jiggered! I think it is a really pretty vegetable and it also has a good texture, especially at the white end so it gives a bit of crunch to your salad.
VBR: Do you know any strange facts about chicory?
Denise: I know that it is sometimes called Belgian endive which can be a bit muddling as to me that is a different type of lettuce.
VBR: Care to share your favourite Chicory recipe with us?
Denise: Sometimes I make a caesar salad with half little gem and half chicory and that is nice. I have two sorts of dressings that I use just with chicory and they are both Nigella Lawson ones: Mustard dressing and Anchovy dressing.
Here’s a full recipe for any fish eaters out there – it also uses beetroot, another veggie that’s currently in season.
use any white fish
Cod with Chicory and Baby Beetroot
VBR: So are you a vegetarian, Denise?
Denise: I am not a vegetarian myself although I was for about 20 years. I have eaten fish for about the last 10 years and I have managed to end up in a family of carnivores, don’t know how that happened, punishment for sins in a previous life probably.
I studied nutrition at university in the early 80’s and I think that made me very thoughtful and curious about the food I was putting in my mouth. One of the reasons I stopped eating meat was that at that time it was factory farmed meat or nothing and I couldn’t see that those intensive farming methods could be good for either us or the animals involved in the process. People used to laugh at me for that but they went surprisingly quiet after BSE.
VBR: Do you get a vegbox?
squash
Denise: I used to grow my own veg before organic became available. Now I am a mother and work full time I’ve become very lazy and use a box scheme. We grow tomatoes and squash in the summer for fun and because I am a food bore and want the sprogs to know where there food comes from. I will probably go back to grow your own at some point. I’m hoping to buy some chickens for my son’s birthday in the spring (really an indulgence for me thinly disguised as generosity).
I do use the supermarket for most of my shopping but I also like the local farmer’s market (only comes once a month sadly) and the local Saturday market. I try not to buy out of season stuff like strawberries in winter and I only ever buy English asparagus because it is the best and we are really lucky to have a farm down the road so we get it really fresh.
VBR: How did you first discover VegBox Recipes?
Denise: I get a bit bored with root veg in the winter. We started looking at the recipe site to get ideas about what to do with root veg as boiling and mashing or roasting can get very dull. There is also a great vegetarian cookery writer in the weekend Guardian magazine called Yotam Ottolenghi. He recently did a two potato curry using sweet potato (which I don’t like much) and ordinary potato, it was delicious and will become a favourite. We have also used organic meat boxes and they are very good.
VBR: Do you like the vegetables available at this time of year, or is there another time of year you prefer?
Denise: I’m more of a leafy / green veg / salad kind of gal. Though I am rather fond of the old jerusalem artichokes as our friends know to their cost…
VBR: Denise, thanks so much for helping us get to know February’s first Veggie-in-the-Spotlight.
Denise: You’re very welcome. I hope the recipe goes down well. I’m off out now for a spot of snowball throwing!
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Over to you! Tell us what you love (or loathe!) about chicory by using the comments box below.
The VegBox Team
It’s been an incredibly significant week in the history of the world.
And at first it seemed slightly surreal to blog about vegetable recipes in the midst of it all!
Yet strangely, how to feed ourselves is one of the most critical topics on the current political agenda. And not just in the USA.
In this month’s “Dis-Patch from the Veg-Patch” section of our newsletter, we talked not only about our own efforts to grow food in the back garden, but also spoke for a second time about the Eat the View campaign to persuade the new President to convert the White House lawn into a “Victory Garden” designed to inspire others to do the same. Less food miles so less petrol (oil) and less carbon emissions, less pesticides (oil again), less global warming, improved health, lower healthcare costs …
The resounding message right now is not just that “we are what we eat”, but that “we are how we grow and buy what we eat”.
Over on AboutMyPlanet, there is a timely reminder from Craig Baird that if we are going to change how we grow, we’d better do it soon. A reminder that the way we grow – and shop for – food now will have a direct impact on whether we’ll be able to grow food at all in the future. According to some estimates, in only 91 years, one in two people will be going hungry because of the effects of rising temperatures both on crop yields and on how much water falls to fill supplies.
Barack Obama invited Americans to “seize gladly” the opportunities to meet our duties to the planet and the people on it. Whether or not you’re American, if you’re already committed to personal changes designed to preserve and sustain our life on earth, keep going! Is there any more can you do? Who else can you inspire?
zero waste week
And if you’re at the beginning of this journey and are not sure where to start … how about starting your own Victory Garden? Or reducing your household waste just like Mrs Green and so many of the residents of Gloucestershire this week?
And (of course!) how about moving away from eating oil disguised as asparagus flown in from Peru, and moving toward simply buying, cooking and savouring the flavours of what’s in season where you are?
negative calories??
We thought it was appropriate to feature this much-maligned veggie in January, in the spirit of all those new health regimes and diets that get started at the beginning of a new year.
For those of you who, like us, are feeling a bit scales-shy after SO much cake, some celery in your veg box might be the very thing. We’re talking, of course, about that oft-cited “factoid” that celery actually contains “negative” calories. That is, we supposedly burn more calories crunching it than we gain digesting it! Now we have no idea if this is actually true, but it certainly is a pretty low calorie snacking option.
Historically, celery was also valued for its sedative powers, and it’s ability to reduce hypertension. This may be due to the “phthalide” compounds celery contains. And one last strange celery fact before we get down to business: After Top Gear’s Richard Hammond recovered from his horrific motor crash, he discovered that he liked celery, having previously hated it!
SPOTLIGHT ONE: Celery is in good condition when the sticks have a solid, rigid feel, and the leaves are at the most only slightly wilted. It can be stored in the salad drawer for up to two weeks, and it can be eaten raw or cooked in stir-frys, stews, bakes and soups.
SPOTLIGHT TWO: Here’s a new celery recipe from us.
tuna, sweetcorn and celery
Tuna, Sweetcorn and Celery Salad Mix
This recipe is brilliant for that moment when you (or the kids!) are starving and need something NOW… The texture and combination of flavours are hugely satisfying for munching at lunchtime.
And if it’s closer to dinner time, how about serving it stirred into freshly cooked pasta!
Ingredients: Serves 2 as a main course
1 can of tuna in brine or spring water, drained and broken up into chunks;
4 or 5 sticks of celery, diagonally sliced into 1cm pieces;
200g tin of sweetcorn, drained;
For the dressing:
5tbsps sunflower or grapeseed oil;
the juice & zest of half a lemon;
1 tsp Dijon mustard;
1 tsp sugar;
salt & fresh ground black pepper
Method:
Put the celery, tuna and sweetcorn in a bowl.
Mix the dressing ingredients together and pour over the salad.
Mix well and serve.
Cupboard-To-Table: 10 minutes
And now over to you… Are you working to eat more healthily? And will celery be featuring in your lunches or dinners this month?
get voting!
Hot off the press! Voting is now open for the 2008 UK Veg Box Awards, this year being affectionately dubbed the “Golden Gourds”!
If you get a veg box, read more about the awards and get voting now on the VegBox-Recipes.co.uk homepage.
You can rate your veg box provider on quality of produce, locality of produce and value for money, as well as telling us what they’re doing well and what they could do to improve.
And if you run a veg box scheme, read more about the awards here, and don’t forget to let all your customers know where to vote. After all, you’ve got to be in it to win it!
Look out for the results in February’s newsletter*
The VegBox Team
*not signed up for the newsletter? Easily fixed! Just click here.
In these post-Jamie days, we’ve finally got the message that fizzy drinks, sugary snacks and bags of crisps are a bad idea, whether lunch is for us or the kids.
But how many of us realise the real impact of our packed lunch – on our bodies and the planet?
Clare Josa of Vegbox-Recipes.co.uk spills the beans on why the humble lunch box might not be as green as it seems.
Here are her 5 steps to a greener lunch box.
I’m not talking about sneaking courgettes into pasta sauces. I’m talking hidden nasties: hydrogenated fats in tortilla wraps, aspartame in “healthy” kids’ drinks, yoghurts and puddings and good old MSG in everything from premium brand crisps to gravies, as we demand lower salt content in food.
Alternatives: either read the labels and make your choices or go organic – there are good reasons why all these ingredients are banned from certified organic foods.
They are likely to contain less nutrients than you’d expect, being picked before they’re ripe and then stored for weeks or months, and have a similar carbon footprint to more guilt-inducing delights.
But this isn’t just about air freighting. And it’s not just about local – out of season UK tomatoes can have a higher carbon footprint than imported varieties, due to heating green houses. So it’s not always an easy decision.
Alternatives: go the whole hog and get yourself a veg box from a local farm, or become a more savvy consumer, check labels, and aim to eat more of what’s naturally in season, near you.
Alternatives: refill a water bottle from home, use paper bags for sandwiches, make the most of eco-friendly tubs and pots, buy larger pots of yoghurt and decant each day into a reusable pot. Above all, it’s time for us, as consumers, to be telling the supermarkets we want less packaging on our food – and for it to be recyclable.
It turns out the pitta bread was “packaged in a protective environment”, as are most pre-packed salads and many other “fresh” products. Sounds harmless enough – maybe even a good idea.
Yet further research shows this claim means that chemicals are used in the packet to slow down the process of decay.
Your pre-packed salads will still look fresh and vibrant, long after the vitamins have gone. If the packaging actually said “has been marinating in a cocktail of chemicals for weeks”, we’d be less inclined to buy it.
Alternatives: luckily it has to be labelled, so you can do your best to avoid it. Even organic food can be subject to the “protective environment” gases. Your only option is to actively avoid it or buy products that aren’t pre-packaged.
At home, composting may be an option, but at school or in the office, your lunchtime leftovers are more likely to go into the general waste.
Alternatives: Put pressure on your local council to actively recycle food waste – and perhaps your employer could be persuaded to join in? Do we see a new trend in desk-top wormeries for the office?
Even if you implement just one of these steps, you’ll be going a long way towards a healthier packed lunch.
How about helping with the debate? What are your favourite packed lunch recipes?
What tricks and tips could you share with others to help them go greener on their lunch boxes?
I’d love to hear your views via the Comments Box!
Thanks,
Clare
We went to our local farm shop on Friday to top up on the weekly veg (we’re going back to the veg box once our chaotic summer finishes next week!).
Anyway, it was the usual fun of trying to persuade the 15 month old not to eat straw and convicing the 3 year old that I really didn’t need 17 kilos of potatoes. But that aside, as ever, it was an experience packed with the freshest organic vegetables, most of which had been picked in the last 24 hours.
Kohl rabi
The farm shop is teeny weeny, but it’s always busy. And staffed with a friendly smile.
And this week I decided to occupy the 3 year old, while I browsed for inspiration, with a round of “I spy” for vegetables.
So Louis duly started doing the rounds of all the vegetables on display and proudly announcing what they were.
Some of his answers were to be expected – carrots, onions, potatoes are something I would hope most 3 year olds would be able to identify (though Jamie’s research would have us believe otherwise). But by the time my munchkin got round to leeks, broccoli, cauliflower and kohlrabi, I was feeling faintly impressed.
He correctly identified courgettes, French beans, runner beans, kale and even broad beans (“Yuck, Mummy!”…). In fact the only 2 items he didn’t know were:
“What’s that black thing over there, Mummy?” – aubergine
and
Turban squash
“What’s that funny orange thing?” – turban squash.
Pretty good going.
Now you might think that, being a part-time food writer, I’ve been force feeding him vegetable facts before breakfast every morning. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, whenever I’m cooking, if he’s around, we talk about the ingredients. And when I go shopping, I get him to help me pick the vegetables, but that’s it. So it really hasn’t been difficult.
Contrast that to the experience of a dear friend of mine when running a recent children’s session as part of her programme on children’s health:
Of the 7-9 year olds in the room, hardly any knew that chips are made from potato and few could identify vegetables beyond carrots, peas and sweetcorn. And this wasn’t in an area that could be called in any way “deprived” – the excuse we all usually make.
So what’s going on?
How come my 3 year old knows his vegetables and these 9 year olds didn’t?
And does it matter?
Well, going back to basics, unless you know what vegetables are, you’re unlikely to know what to do with them and this makes you less likely to cook them.
And learning about food isn’t something that should be done via sterile text books in a classroom environment. You’re much more likely to really learn what it’s all about by cooking them at home.
So what can we do?
Well, it’s one of the reasons I created the Veg Box Recipes website – to provide a one-stop website where people could find out about seasonal food ingredients, what to do with them and discover (and share!) simple, tasty recipes, without the potential embarrassment of having to ask anyone!
What do you think about all this?
Are we, as a nation, making too much of a fuss about children knowing about fruit and veg? What could we be doing differently? In these days of readily available vitamin supplements, should we care anyway?
Let’s get some discussion going!
Clare
I have to say I never thought I’d enjoy this recipe, but needs must when your vegetable drawer has spare turnips lurking in its depths.
I wanted to make soup for dinner and decided to go for a real experiment, to use up some leftover veggies.
2 turnips (I’m not a mad fan), some cooked sweet potato, a couple of onions and…. wasn’t sure what to add to make the soup tasty…. an apple.
Saute, cook with a litre of water, add half a stock cube and some black pepper… and we all went back for seconds!
It was sweet, smooth, creamy and didn’t taste of turnip at all! So this recipe for turnip soup is likely to pass the test even with fussy eaters. So if you feel like a bit of experimenting, why not give it a go?!?
Enjoy!
Clare x
P.S. In the picture, the white & brown bits are halloumi cheese, fried in chilli oil. Deelish!
Theo has finally reached the age where I can’t stop him stealing food from my plate and shoving it in his mouth, so it’s time to start weaning.
Louis was a winter baby, so weaning started with summer fruit and veg. With Theo being a summer baby, he’ll start weaning on winter delights. So it’s time to invent a whole new set of weaning recipes – and to dig out the jumbo-sized ice cube trays and industrial-strength bibs!
I was wondering whether any of you are weaning babies at the moment?
How is it going? Are you going for it with root vegetables or sticking with pears and apples? What are you doing to make swede or turnip more palatable to a little one? Or are you avoiding the issue?
I’d love to hear your experiences and maybe share some recipes.
We’re still at the pear and apple stage, but will soon move on to squashes and more adventurous vegetables.
I have a friend of a friend whose baby loved butternut squash so much, she fed it to her baby every day for months. Allegedly the baby took on a worrying orange hue… 
Or is it… after all, it’s only scientific research, so can you really expect the experts to agree…???
Anyway, here’s the story:
Researchers at the University Of Newcastle have concluded, after 4 years and £12 million of EU-wide research, that organic food contains more nutrients than intensively-farmed food.
Some of the headline-grabbing statistics are:
The government watchdog, the Food Standards Agency, has stated, in response, that the balance of current scientific evidence does not support the view that organic food is safer and more nutritious than non-organic food.
The Soil Association has said that the findings of the EU project show the FSA should change its stance on this.
I know where I stand on the discussion – what are your views…???
11 months on and I’m still ploughing through last winter’s pickled beetroot.
I really love the pickled beetroot recipe we have on the main VegBox-Recipes.co.uk site. But why haven’t I eaten it all yet???
Because I made a quadruple batch. At least.
I was pregnant with Theo at the time and remembered that, in my pre-veg-box-not-quite-so-organic days, when I was expecting Louis, I craved up to a kilo of supermarket pickled beetroot a week. Not having found a reliable organic source of what beetroot purists would consider a travesty to their favourite vegetable, I set about making my own.
Aside: Any idea how big a canvas shopping bag you need for 10 kilos of raw beetroot…?
Anyway, my pickling operation was highly productive and I proudly stowed my army of purple-filled jars in the designated cool, dark place, expecting them to fly off the shelves when the cravings returned.
But this time I craved ginger.
In fact, I couldn’t face pickled beetroot for most of the pregnancy and it’s only now that Theo is nearly four months old that I’m rediscovering the stuff.
So the moral of the story is… isn’t it great that pickled beetroot lasts so long!
Anyone for a pickled beetroot sandwich?!?
Bought some supermarket apples lately? Think they’re fresh? Think again…
Did you know that some of the fruit & veg in a supermarket is already weeks, if not months, old?
Recent research has confirmed that many seasonal items are stored for months, to extend their availability.
This might sound ok in theory, but what does this mean for the fruit and veg you’re buying?
Apples are stored for up to a year in cold store and then shipped around that world. That’s why apples bought out of season, say, in June, taste woolly and flavourless.
Salad crops such as lettuce and spinach may already be a few weeks old, yet they only last a few days when picked in your garden. The advent of “pre-washed, pre-packaged” salads was great for the food retailers, because it means they can seal the leaves in a bag, filled with chemicals, to make them stay looking fresh long after the nutritional value has gone.
“Packaged in a protective environment” doesn’t mean they were careful to keep the factory clean. It means that your “no need to wash” salad is probably washed in diluted chlorine and a mixture of preservative gases. Doesn’t sound quite as appealing…
Other fruits, such as grapes and plums, rot quickly. So they’re kept in cold stores and often sprayed with anti-fungal agents, to prevent them going mouldy. So it’s really essential to wash them well before eating, or you’ll be eating the fungicides, too.
Fact: there are very few nutrients left in old fruit & veg.
You think you’re being good by buying the stuff, but flavour and nutritional content deteriorate rapidly after picking, so the older the produce, the less value there is in eating it.
Even dried fruits can be at risk.
For example, dried apricots sound like a great idea, but how do you think they get them to stay looking so fresh and orange?
Sulphur dioxide…
The natural colour for dried apricots is dark brown, but this (apparently) looks less appetising. So sulphur dioxide is used to help them keep their colour. The only snag is that sulphur dioxide can produce asthma attacks and minor allergic reactions in susceptible people (there are a lot of them out there). So if you’ve ever eaten dried fruit and found your mouth and throat felt funny afterwards, or your breathing changed, now you know why.
Yet this is a perfectly legal, permissible chemical…
What can you do?
Unfortunately buying organic from a supermarket doesn’t mean you avoid all this. Out-of-season organic food can still be stored for months, though the chemicals used will be more strictly controlled.
The only real options are:
Only you can decide how important fresh food is to you and your family. I invite you to give it a go and notice the difference.
On Saturday, the National Trust is running its annual Coleshill Local Food Festival. (See the website for details of all the activities, including a mini beer festival and even bird box making with my hubby’s mate, Malcolm!).
Basically, they own the estate, which makes up most of the village (yes, you read right!) of Coleshill and open it once a year to the public for a big food festival.
Coleshill Organics runs a veg box and a farm shop from the village, where they grow most of their own produce on their 10 hectare site. They will be running tours all day and talking about what a box scheme is and how it works. Pop along to meet Sonia and Pete and find out all about what they do.
We’ve all heard the “5-a-day” message at some point.
But what’s it all about?
Do we really need 5 portions of fruit and veg each day? Is that actually enough?
Do vitamin tablets mean we can ignore this advice?
And what on earth is a “portion”? Does the cucumber in your sandwich count?
And what about potatoes?!? 
We’ve just added a new article to Veg Box Recipes to help answer these and many other questions about how much fruit and vegetables we should be eating.
So if you’d like to find out what the fuss is all about and get some great recipe ideas, to help you eat as much fruit and veg as you choose, read the article now: How Much Fruit And Veg Should I Eat?
Then pop back here to post your comments.
Thanks,
Clare
Are your New Year’s resolutions to improve your diet flying out of the window?
Are you confused by all the healthy eating messages out there?
The problem is that we’re all different. There’s no such thing as a “one size fits all” diet.
Whether you’re trying to lose the Christmas pounds or just looking to improve your diet a bit, any changes you make can help you feel better.
We’re suggesting a really simple, 3-step approach, to make it easier for you to eat more healthily in 2007.
In addition, we’ve got some valuable advice on how keeping a food diary for a week or two could help you work out which foods you should be eating and which you should avoid.
Let us know what you think!
Thanks
Clare
Allegedly, Brussel Sprouts are the UK’s most hated vegetable. Our recent survey certainly confirmed they’re in the top 3 most boycotted veggies.
But at Christmas time, it can be hard to avoid them.
If you, like me, spent childhood Christmases dreading the arrival of noxious green balls on your Christmas Dinner plate, then chances are you need some persuading to try them again.
So here are 5 reasons why you should love Brussel Sprouts:
What do you think of Brussel sprouts?
If you like them, how do you get your kids to eat them?
Tell us in the comments!
Thanks
Clare
Would you add a potentially carcinogenic biochemical warfare agent to your children’s food?
Probably not, I’m guessing.
Yet the majority of children’s fruit squashes contain aspartame and saccharin.
Why should you care?
My toddler went to a Christmas party on Monday, with his child minder. He came home and spent most of the night awake, screaming. The next day, he had huge bright red patches all over his body that looked like burns. They were clearly causing him pain. I managed to treat them homeopathically and it’s been confirmed that it was probably a reaction to food.
All the food he ate at the party was stuff he’d normally eat, apart from one thing: orange squash.
A well known, respected brand; checks today with the child minder confirmed it contains both aspartame and saccharin. We may never prove it, but these are likely culprits for his discomfort over the last few days.
It’s illegal in the UK to market food containing aspartame at children under 3. But this doesn’t stop it being an ingredient in most squashes, fizzy drinks and even some children’s yoghurts.
Did you know…?
The Pentagon classifies aspartame as a biochemical warfare agent and recent research links it not just to behaviour problems, but also to leukaemia and lymphoma. But we feed it to our kids.
Here’s an excellent article by Pat Thomas on exactly why you should care about keeping aspartame out of your kids’ diet:
http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=457
Unfortunately, the UK Department Of Health is still preaching that aspartame is a safe food additive, with no serious side effects. Until they change their advice, we need to keep checking the ingredients on everything we buy.
What can you do?
Got an opinion? Let us know what you think, via the comments.
Our recent survey revealed shocking results on the nation’s fruit & veg habits. Find out how you score…
It can be tough to eat a “balanced diet” these days, when you’re always on the move and there’s little time available for cooking. So we thought we’d find out how much fruit and vegetables people are actually eating.
We surveyed a large group of “responsible adults” (!) this week to find out how they score on the “5-a-day” rule for fruit and veg.
We didn’t expect saintly dietary behaviour, but we were pretty shocked by the results.
Nearly 30% eat 2 or less portions per day.
That’s not good.
But then we got into the discussion over “what’s a portion?” and the results got even worse!
The problem is that even the govenment, World Health Organisation and medical bodies can’t agree on what a portion is. In the absence of guidance, it’s best to use common sense. So we’re talking a few tablespoons of cooked vegetables, a reasonably large apple, a large helping of lettuce…
When you factor this in, having a lettuce garnish with your lunch or 2 slices of tomato in your sandwich doesn’t make it into the “portion” category…
A lot of people were honest enough to confess to often eating no fruit or vegetables on a daily basis.
Whilst at the other end of the scale, 20% claim to eat 6+ portions daily.
But why should we care? Do you really need all those veggies, or is it just hype?
We’d like to know what you think.
How much fruit & veg do you eat each day?
What would have to happen to make you eat more?
Do you feel “vegged out”?
Or can’t you get enough of the stuff?!
Should potatoes count as vegetables…?
Just click the “comments” link below and tell us your views.
Thanks,
Clare
Extra Resources:
3-Step Plan Makes Healthy Eating Easier
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