Posted by kathryn in Miscellanea

The NSW Health Department has released some tips on avoiding colds and flus. It’s sensible, practical advice, including the important tip of washing your hands frequently and properly: bq. It’s very easy to pick up cold and flu germs from things other people have touched – telephones, door handles or money, for instance – or from shaking hands with someone who is infected. Reduce your risk of catching a cold or flu by washing hands frequently . . . It’s …

Read more No comments 29 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Labels & advertising

Ross Gittins, the economics writer, has an an interesting article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, on the issue of obesity. The core issue is, living in a free market economy, do manufacturers have the right to load their foods up with fat and sugar, if we the consumers are still willing to buy those foods? It’s normal business sense to make your product as enticing as possible. Frying it and filling it with sugar, salt and fat, is a very …

Read more 2 comments 28 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Vegetables, Recipes, Salads and Winter

I have a complex relationship with red cabbage. On one hand, it’s so pretty with it’s pinky/purpley leaves and shiny exterior, but I find raw red cabbage boring, a little too “healthy” tasting and I never know quite what to do with it. Oh I’ve done the braised with apple thang and that’s okay, but I just don’t get excited about it. About once a month, during the season, it appears in my organic vegie delivery. Surrounded by all …

Read more 1 comment 26 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Miscellanea

It’s cold and wet today. I’m working from home, but I’ve had to go out several times. I now have more pairs of wet shoes and socks then I care to think about. Trilby is in her current favourite position – curled up asleep on Richard’s laptop. And I’ve been making my way through a big pot of ginger, lemon and honey tea. h3. The many uses of ginger In herbal medicine ginger is a really useful herb. It’s …

Read more 9 comments 22 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Labels & advertising

Aaah food marketers, you’ve gotta love ’em. While I get frustrated at food labelling and the misleading information on most packaging, I do often slightly and quietly admire the gall – it makes me chuckle anyway. One of my favourite things, are those selling points that imply a particular brand is different from all its competitors, when the selling point is actually a quality inherent in all of that type of foodstuff. An example, that seems to have disappeared in …

Read more 1 comment 21 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Miscellanea

I’ve been at the ABC today, talking to staff about Keeping Well Over Winter. It’s bucketing down with rain and cold, so it’s a timely subject. I’ve done a few of these sessions with the ABC in the past couple of years and they’re always a lot of fun. Plus I always really enjoy the Q and A at the end, good questions, ranging over a wide variety of health topics – it keeps me on my toes! During winter …

Read more No comments 21 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Nutrition, Fruit, Vegetables and Fats & oils

We eat food for many reasons: to keep us alive; for energy; for comfort and reassurance; as part of interacting with friends and family; because we enjoy it. However we also eat food because it provides us with nutrients. The old adage ‘we are what we eat’ is true, food supplies us with the building blocks that make up our bodies, as well as the fuel to run it and the ability to make the enzymes that catalyse the biochemical …

Read more No comments 17 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Labels & advertising

Following the news that, from next month, Kellogg’s will be providing more information about the kilojoule content of their cereals, my aunt (thanks Bridget) sent me a booklet from the Tesco’s supermarket in the UK. They are in the process of updating all the labels on their foodstuffs to include the following information: * total amount per serve of calories, sugar, total fats, saturated fats and salt * the percentage, per serving, of the average total daily intake those amounts …

Read more No comments 15 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Vegetables and Winter

I get organic fruit and veg delivered once a fortnight from Lettuce Deliver, and this is my latest box. This isn’t enough to cover all the fruit and veg Richard and I would eat in a fortnight, but it does mean we have a base level of ingredients to draw on. For the next week or so, there will be vegetables in the fridge, so when we are home late or tired there will still be something to make …

Read more 5 comments 15 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Fruit

I picked up some daisy mandarins this week. So far my local shops have been full of Imperials, but I loved the look of these – compact, tight skin and an intense red-orange colour. You can see the contrast in colour in this photo – an Imperial mandarin is top right-hand corner. They’re a new-ish hybrid mandarin, originally developed in the US and grown in Australia since the late 1990s. And, most importantly, they are delicious – easy to …

Read more 1 comment 14 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Fruit

Are bananas the new flowers, asks the Sydney Morning Herald Good Living section this week? Since tropical cyclone Larry flattened about 90% of Australia’s commercial banana crop, the price has been going up and up. In supermarkets they’re about $13.99 per kilo, which makes one individual banana about $3.15 – wow! Up until now bananas have been Australia’s favourite fruit and also in the top ten overall grocery items. The Good Living article also includes a banana price watch, showing …

Read more No comments 14 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Miscellanea

Look what I’ve been doing over the long weekend. Marmalade making is not part of my usual cooking routine, in fact it’s been at least three years since I last made some. However it was a cold and windy long weekend. Plus I’d recently acquired kaffir limes from one friend, a huuuuuge bag of oranges from another and some lemons from my parents. All of which equaled marmalade. So I now have four jars of intensely (and wonderfully) sharp …

Read more No comments 13 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Blogging and Nutrition

Lycopene and me, we go way back and I think it is my favourite antioxidant. Firstly it’s the word itself, I love the look of it, the sound of it, the way the word feels when you wrap your mouth around it, ly-co-pene. It’s one of the main reasons this blog is called “Limes and Lycopene”, I just love the word. But it’s not only that, lycopene is a strapping, robust, no nonsense, no faffing about antioxidant. No prissy, princess-like …

Read more 6 comments 09 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Labels & advertising

Many of the foods we buy come in packets and these packets are covered in information, pictures and words. Designed to entice you to buy, much of this “stuff” is marketing information – encouraging you to believe the product is healthier, tastier, simply better than everything else. Some useful information does exist, but it’s often hard to decode. As some of you will know, food labelling is one of my pet subjects. The words “Kathryn, what’s the difference between ‘light’ …

Read more 6 comments 06 June, 2006

Posted by kathryn in Blogging and Miscellanea

Hi there, I’m Kathryn and this is my blog, welcome. I live in the inner west of Sydney (with my partner, Richard, our cute-but-dumb cat Trilby and two pet ratties – Baguette and Espresso). And I’m a naturopath . I see clients privately at the beautiful Strand Arcade, and I also write and teach about all things food, health and naturopathy related. Ever since I can remember food and health have been central to my life. Snippets from childhood include: …

Read more 5 comments 04 June, 2006