Healthy Eating

Healthy Eating Eating healthy food doesn’t mean you have to eat plain, boring, bland or bad food. The continuing interest in cooking, recipes and food shows on television, means that it is much easier to buy good quality produce now than it has ever been. There is also a huge range of products from all over the world availble right on your doorstep! There has been a resurgence in farmers’ markets, a whole new organic produce industry, a willingness for supermarkets to stock organic food, unusual products, and a mixing and melding of different cultures. Couple this with the ethnic food stores available in most large cities, and you have all the ingredients you need to eat delicious, healthy and exciting food. There are a few tips: buy the best looking and freshest produce you can find or afford. If using frozen produce, make sure it is snap frozen, has no holes or tears in the packaging and is well within the use-by date. Canned produce is also excellent and the extra flavour sometimes provides a unique ‘edge’. Lets face it, half the world eats baked beans, and believe it or not, they are very healthy - full of fibre! Buy lean cuts of meat, or either cut off the fat, or make sure it drains away in the cooking process. Try and avoid things like chicken skin, too much crackling with your roast pork, and most definitely stuff like unrecognisable turkey, chicken or pork products like “scratchings” or frozen battered bits that look as though they have been made out of something unmentionable. Sounds ‘offal’ I know, But TV Chef Jamie Oliver recently campaigned the British Government and the Education Department, for selling EXACTLY that sort of food in school dining rooms!!! No kidding. Burgers, Fried chicken ‘shapes’ and turkey unmentionables were the most popular food sold, simply because they were the cheapest.... OK off the soap box. We are regaled daily with the 5+ a day message about fruit and veg - for a very good reason. Fruit and vegetables give us natural vitamins, fibre, natural sugar and a host of other benefits. Green leafy vegetables naturally thin the blood, garlic chili and lemon juice are natural cleansers and antibiotics, and red vegetables are a natural source of beta carotene. What is astonishing is that we are bringing up a generation of children who have the lowest recognition and acceptance of fruit and vegetables (with a few notable exceptions like France, Italy, Greece etc.). What was they key word in that last tirade? Natural. Most western countries tend to reach for the pill bottle nowadays, and we happily gulp down handful's of vitamins and supplements whilst we plan our takeaway convenience diet. Why do Asians have such a low incidence of heart disease? Why do Mediterranean people have such low cholesterol and equally low heart disease rates, whilst maintaining what many consider to be an exotic diet? Both share a love of seafood, vegetables that have not been overcooked, a lot of good carbohydrate ( noodles, pasta, good bread,) a moderate alcohol intake and lots of fruit. What do we eat? Convenience food, ready to eat frozen meals and we have an obsession with takeouts. Despite the so-called re-branding of the takeaway food market, healthy eating choices account for less than 1% of McDonalds world wide sales. People prefer the biggest burger choices. People prefer to eat at “all you can eat for $10” eateries..... because they perceive that they are getting a good deal. What we need to do is take a few moments to think about what we are eating. Balance is the key; have Mickey Dees for breakfast if you want, but have a salad for lunch. Go out and have a big business lunch with all the trimmings, but when you get home, have a light, easy to digest snack with fruit juice instead of alcohol. If you are going out for a boozy evening, make sure you have a good breakfast and lunch. It’s not rocket science, and we MMers need to make extra sure we balance our food groups and get as good a diet as we can (or feel like:)) I’m not a fanatic, I will eat a Bacon’n’Egg McMuffin along with the best of you when I want; I was brought up in the post war years in Britain. My Mum used to cook (very well) the food of the day - suet puddings, roast dinners, cooked breakfasts - it didn’t do me any harm at all. Garlic was unheard of in our house, as were curries (unless they had sultanas in), anything ‘foreign’ like pasta or too much rice and every meal had to finish with a pudding of some sort - usually very rich :). But I have learnt to widen my tastes, and while my dear Mum who is 101 this July probably still doesn’t eat garlic (nasty foreign stuff dear, makes your breath smell) - I do and I’m happy to try anything once. I love French and Italian food, Greek, Turkish, Israeli, and especially Asian - from really hot Indian curries to delicate Japanese dishes, and literally blow the back of your head off Thai and Indonesian food. I’m lucky to live in a country that shares a love of east and west cuisine, and being somewhat sub-tropical we have a huge selection of seafood, fruits and vegetables. So join me, please in an on-line cookbook of my own, other peoples and just downright delicious recipes. Please feel free to send your recipes in, mostly healthy I hope, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of decadence:) Bon appetit, Chris