Five things you didn't know about me(me)

Posted by kathryn in Blogging

Kate from Veggie Friendly has tagged me for the meme – five things you didn’t know about me – so here goes.

The last time I ate meat, it was . . .

Reindeer, yup, I ate Rudolph. I gave up meat in 1992, haven’t eaten fish for the last ten years, but back in 1996 I was travelling around Europe. I spent some time in Norway, visiting the fjords and gazing on the spectacular landscape. My travelling companion knew a family there, who invited us for lunch, but my friend forgot to mention I was vegetarian. When we turned up the family had gone out of their way to prepare a Norwegian speciality for their Australian visitors – Reindeer Burgers. They were beautiful and kind people, who showed us around town, took us up to the mountains and had invited us into their home, so it would have been churlish and rude to say no, so I ate reindeer.

Ever since I was little, I’ve loved old Hollywood films

Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland, Fred and Ginger, Gregory Peck, James Stewart are all in my favourites category. I still love these old films now (in fact one of my Christmas presents was a copy of Notorious).

I’m originally from the UK

While I’ve lived in Australia for a long time and I’m a citizen, I was born just north of London in a place called Welwyn Garden City, but I grew up in Bournemouth, where my parents ran a small guest house. Back then it was quite a gentile place, full of elderly people, except in the summer when the town would fill up with foreign language students. Now Bournemouth is a big party town, full of pubs and clubs.

I hate making white sauces*

I find them fussy and annoying, so I never cook anything which requires a white sauce.

Eczema led me to natural therapies

I started getting eczema when I was about seven and at first I didn’t think twice about controlling it using cortisone creams. In my early 20s though, I started to get fed up with the irregular and unexplained flare-ups, with using creams of varying strength and of seemingly having no control over my skin. This gradually led me to natural therapies, as I tried out a tonne of things to treat it. For me, cleaning up my diet, balancing my life and managing my stress levels are the keys.

Now, I rarely get any eczema, but when I do, it’s my early warning system – a sign I’m doing too much and taking my life too seriously. It’s actually a good thing, because it reminds me to pull back, eat properly, have some early nights and sort out those things that are playing on my mind.

I tag:

Update : I’m changing the tagged blog links to the completed memes as they’re posted.

If only . . .

Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet

If only more staff cafeterias were like this one .

Source: The Ethicurean

Holding tofu responsible

Posted by kathryn in Health News

Following all the contradictions, confusions and misinformation about soy this week, here’s a lovely reality-check from Bon Appegeek .

Ethical eating

Posted by kathryn in Food Labelling and Sustainablity

An article on ethical eating in last week’s herald provides some useful information and resources. Making ethical food choices is tricky, there are few easy answers and, at the moment, there’s no centralised resource to help negotiate the issues.

For example, many shops label their chickens as “hormone-free”, however oestrogen has been banned from chicken feed since the 1960s, so this is a marketing ploy. There is a strong perception in the community that hormones are fed to chickens, which is perpetuated by this type of labelling. From the herald article:

The myth’s roots lie in a 1985 television documentary that linked hormonal abnormalities in young Puerto Rican women to their diet, which allegedly included hormone-fed chickens.

Whatever the opinion on the special nutritional value, or otherwise, of organic foods, there are definite benefits to our environment, soil quality and water supplies from organic farming practices. As Michael Buchanan (director of the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia) says:

“Farmers go organic because it’s better for their land and themselves not to work with chemicals, there’s no damaging run-off”

However, here in Australia, the demand for organics is growing faster than the supply, meaning that more organic foods are being imported from overseas and transported over long distances by plane and boat.

The Humane Society International have recently launched a certification label: Humane Choice. Initially covering beef, pork, lamb, chicken and eggs, the label guarantees that the animal has been treated humanely from birth through to death.

There have been many reports recently about declining fish stocks and some fishing practices. The Bureau of Rural Sciences website has a list of the species that are overfished and therefore to be avoided, this includes orange roughy. silver travelly, warehou, redfish, swordfish and several types of tuna. You can also get a copy of the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Sustainable Seafood Guide for this information.

Technorati tags: : fish , overfishing , seafood , fish stocks , sustainability , ethical food , organic , chicken , ethical eating , hormones in food , food marketing

Is 8 seconds the key to weight loss?

Posted by kathryn in Weight loss

Quite startling news yesterday about a specific type of interval training that may encourage a higher degree of fat burning. A study conducted by the University of NSW and the Garvan Institute over 15 weeks, split 45 overweight women into two groups. One group cycled at a steady pace for 40 minutes, while the other group did a 20 minute regime including eight seconds of sprinting, followed by 12 seconds of cycling lightly. Neither group made any changes to their diet, however the interval training group lost three times more weight than the regularly paced group.

According to the researchers:

Their success was due to higher amounts of chemical compounds called catecholamines that are produced in increasing amounts when linked to interval sprinting; the resulting chemical reaction drives greater weight loss.

The scientists believe this regime can also be applied to walking, swimming, running and rowing. In the next phase of the study, the group is going to combine the interval training with a reduced kilojoule diet.

This is really interesting research and quite a profound result. I would advise caution, as this is only one study and they only followed 45 women, which is not a large group. I haven’t yet seen the original paper, so I’m unsure of some details (how often the groups exercised, what their starting weights were, exactly how much was lost, what the existing diets of the women looked like, etc).

However, all exercise, provided it’s at an appropriate level for you, is going to improve your health and assist in maintaining a healthy weight. You still need to get out, for at least 20 minutes, on a regular basis and be doing some physical activity. However, next time, why not try some quick, short intervals.

Kids' snacks

Posted by kathryn in Snacking and Kid's nutrition

Reports on the news and in the papers yesterday about the latest Choice report – this time into kids’ snacks. The foods listed in the Choice study are all targeted and marketed to kids and their parents and most of them are also promoted as being healthy, however they’re shockers.

I’ve talked before about the problems with kids’ food , ie foods that are branded, marketed and promoted to children. Once you look past the dodgy marketing claims, they’re simply poor quality foods. Most of them are high in kilojoules, they contain lots of sugar and are also high in fat. On top of this, they contain few vitamins, minerals or antioxidants, despite the claims on the pack. Most kids’ foods have a very low nutritional value and these are not the foods children should be eating in order to grow up healthy, strong and well.

I’m not against snacks, they are an important part of a healthy diet. I’m also not against treats, however these snacks are often promoted as being healthy and good lunch-box options.

According to Choice the worst offenders are:

Arnott’s tiny teddy dippers (strawberry)
Nestle milo cereal
Steggles chicken nuggets
Uncle Toby’s roll-up funprints
Ribena blackcurrant fruit drink
Kraft dairy bites snack abouts cheese spread and chicken flavoured biscuits
Go Natural berry pieces in yoghurt
The Natural Beverage Company apple naturally flavoured soft drink
Kellog’s nutri-grain bar
Ferrero nutella

Better snack options include:

a tub of fruit yoghurt
a slice of bread with jam and banana
a fruit salad
a couple of vita-weats with a slice of cheese or vegemite
a bottle of water and a pre-packaged fruit cup
some dried apricots and raisins

For more information on kids’ nutrition, browse my archive .

What's the deal with soy?

Posted by kathryn in Health News, Antioxidants and A Balanced Diet

There’s been conflicting news this week on the health benefits, or otherwise, of soy. Earlier in the the week reports linked soy to an increased risk of cancer, but then almost the same day came recommendations to include soy as part of a healthy diet . Even more confusing, both these statements were attributed to the same body .

So, what’s the deal here?

There’s been conflicting information about soy for a while, this transcript from ABC radio gives you an idea of the debate. In this case, the story started when the NSW Cancer Council released new guidelines on soy intake and cancer. Soy beans naturally contain plant chemicals called isoflavones. These are antioxidants, but are also considered part of a group called phytoestrogens , which have structural similarities to the oestrogens found in womens’ bodies and it’s possible they might mimic the actions of our own oestrogen. The concern is, isoflavones may interact with our body’s hormones and play a role in the development of hormone-promoting cancers, like prostate and some breast cancers.

So far, large scale studies have found that the consumption of soy foods does reduce the risk of breast cancer, but only by a small amount and the NSW Cancer Council’s current guidelines state:

From the current evidence, it is believed that a moderate consumption of soy foods (eg 1-2 serves of soy foods/day) along with an overall healthy eating plan is unlikely to have adverse effects. This is consistent with The Cancer Council’s recommendations and dietary guidelines to eat a diet rich in plant foods.

So far, it’s unclear whether soy foods interact with tamoxifen and they also state that women with breast cancer should avoid soy supplements .

The evidence for soy having a protective effect against breast cancers is based on population studies, particularly in Japan, where groups that have a high soy consumption, have a lower incidence of these types of cancer. The soy foods consumed include tofu, tempeh, miso and natto. These are eaten regularly, in moderate quantities and are part of an overall diet that includes fish, vegetables, rice and is therefore low in saturated fat, as well as being high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

I eat soy foods myself and will continue to do so. As well as providing good amounts of vegetarian protein, they contain minerals, essential fatty acids and antioxidants, like the isoflavones. I would have a small amount of some sort of soy product most days. I combine this with a pretty good vegetarian diet.

However, I don’t personally use and don’t recommend to clients, soy supplements. In my opinion, there is little evidence for their efficacy and enough concern about their risks to make them a no-go. It’s important to remember that taking a soy supplement is not like eating a soy food. The supplements do not contain the whole bean and they contain extracted isoflavones at a level way, way above what you would find in a normal diet. More is not always better and in fact, in this case, it may be harmful.

Technorati tags: breast cancer , phytoestrogens , isoflavones , soy foods , soy beans , tofu

Working healthier and happier

Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work and A Balanced Diet

For many, the January holidays are drawing to a close (if they haven’t finished already) and it’s back to work. It can be amazing how quickly that holiday feeling evaporates, when confronted with your pile of work, voicemail messages and email inbox?

As individuals, there is much we can do to keep healthy and reduce stress while at work. Even little changes can make a difference, for example trying to leave on time at least a couple of times per week; booking your next holiday; and getting out of the office during your lunch break for some fresh air and a walk around. Also, of course, watch what you’re eating and try to keep away from the stodge.

The ABC also has some good suggestions , particularly for employees, on ways the work environment can help staff to be healthier and reduce absenteeism. As the cardiologist Dr Geoff Holt says:

“If you want to get the most bang for your buck with your employees then get them to exercise . . .

“You improve their psychological wellbeing and you improve their productivity. They are more alert when they’re at work as they tend to sleep better and reduce their weight. This lead to enhanced productivity,” says Holt.

A healthy workplace is also one with clean air, natural light and open spaces and that providing these elements can substantially improve corporate wellness, he adds.

“Within your green buildings you would supply green foods; low fat foods and no soft drink vending machines. You would have fruit available, as opposed to sausage rolls, and promote fresh produce. Morning teas would not be about biscuits and cakes.”

If you’re office isn’t doing any of these things, then why not raise it at the next staff meeting, or talk to your boss? Start the new year with a healthier and happier office.

"Guilt-free" doughnuts, pur-lease

Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Snacking and Fat

As if to illustrate my point exactly, slap bang in the middle of the back page of today’s Herald , is this headline “Fair Dunkin’! Guilt-Free Doughnuts” :

Is this the future of indulgence? Our picture shows a box of doughnuts from the Doughnut Plant, on New York’s Lower East Side. They look evil, but are trans-fat-free and all natural.

They may well be trans fat free, but THEY’RE STILL DOUGHNUTS . Which means they’re still packed full of sugar and they’re still deep fried. One doughnut still contains at least 836 kilojoules and 10g of fat and much, much more if they’re glazed and filled and covered in chocolate.

Doughnuts, trans fat free or otherwise, are not, and will never be, healthy.

Trans fats: a reality check

Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Fat

Before Christmas I was blogging about trans fatty acids – why they’re bad for us and what foods contain them.

However, in all this concern about trans fats, it’s important we don’t lose sight of the overall picture. Yes, trans fats are bad for us, but so are saturated fats. Trans fats are worse, but we still have to watch and limit our intake of saturates.

How much trans fats do we eat?

Why am I saying this? The NSW Food Authority is currently studying the level of trans fatty acids in the Australian diet. The study isn’t complete, but early figures are showing our intake is pretty low. About 0.6 percent of our total kilojoule intake comes from trans fats. This is below the World Health Organisation’s maximum recommended level of 1% and it’s definitely lower than the average US intake.

Trans vs saturated fat

In Australia we still eat a lot more saturated fat. The average intake is 13 percent of total kilojoules, higher than the maximum recommended level of 10 percent.

In the rush to rid their products of all traces of trans, manufacturers are starting to use fats higher in saturates.

We need better food

There’s a lot of concern and concentration on trans fats at the moment, but it isn’t resulting in better food. As Michelle at Appetite for Profit says

we continue to focus on ingredients instead of the entire food

Yes, we need to avoid trans fats to reduce cardiovascular risk. However, to be healthy and truly improve our chances of living long and good lives, we also need to keep our saturated fat levels under control.

Instead of obsessing about trans fats we should be eating plent of vegetables and a couple of pieces of fruit each day. Plus we need to move more.

Don’t be fooled by the marketing. Just because products are now marketed as trans fat free, doesn’t mean they’re healthy. They’re still junk.

Menu for hope: the prizes

Posted by kathryn in Blogging

For those of you who bought raffle tickets in December’s Menu for hope campaign – the prize winners have just gone up on Chez Pim’s site. A fantastic US$60, 925.12 was raised for the UN World Food Programme .

Check here for the winners . . . and good luck!

Clever Little Cooks

Posted by kathryn in Kid's nutrition

A lovely idea to encourage littlies to cook (and be more interested in good food) – buy a subscription to Clever Little Cooks . Each month they’ll send your child a cooking package through the post, which includes two recipe cards, an easy-to-use kitchen implement, newsletter, as well as information on healthy food choices.

Each package is themed, for example around seasons or upcoming cultural festivals. This month’s recipes are based around Australia Day and include mini meat pies and a wattleseed pavlova, whereas next month’s package concentrates on Chinese New Year.

The instructions are easy to follow, well laid out and include lots of photographs of the ingredients and recipe method. According to Clever Little Cooks, their packages are suitable for three year olds and upwards, although obviously the level of supervision required will change.

One of the most successful strategies for getting kids to eat better, is to involve them in the kitchen and in choosing and preparing food. A monthly surprise package, addressed to them, seems like a great way of doing this. You can sign up for just one month to try it out, or pick three, six and twelve month packages.

Source: Good Living

Mercury in fish: advice during pregnancy

Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Kid's nutrition and Fat

Omega 3 essential fatty acids are very important during pregnancy for the healthy development of the bub’s central nervous system. Omega 3s can be found in fish, nuts (walnuts are especially high), linseeds, Omega 3 eggs, canola oil, soy and some margarines.

In recent years, concern that some fish may contain mercury levels harmful to the baby, has led to much confusion. While Omega 3s help the development of the central nervous system, mercury actually impairs this development and functioning, both in unborn babies and young children.

To set the record straight, the NSW Food Authority has produced a guide to eating fish during pregnancy and this can be downloaded from their website. They have a general pregnancy and safe food factsheet, that can again be downloaded, as well as answers to a number of common questions, like what fish have lower levels of mercury and are canned tuna and salmon safe to eat ?

Google mapping child-friendly restaurants

Posted by kathryn in Blogging and Kid's nutrition

Gastrokid.com are putting together a world-wide guide to kid-friendly restaurants and they’re going to include a google map, pointing to all the sites.

What an excellent idea.

I’ve just nominated two Sydney places ( Hopscotch in Annandale and The Barn in Rozelle), but that’s it so far for Australia. If you have any suggestion, leave them in the comments on the gastrokid site.

Eating greener

Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Sustainablity

The CSPI are also running a campaign to encourage Americans to eat greener :

Each day we’re fed over 1 billion pounds—and one trillion calories—of food. Our agricultural system consumes enormous quantities of fuel, fertilizers, and pesticides to produce the grains, meat and poultry, and fruits and vegetables that feed a country of nearly 300 million people. It consumes enormous tracts of land and quantities of water—not just for growing food for people, but for producing food for livestock. And ultimately, a diet so high in animal products and relatively low in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, ultimately consumes the consumer: Diet-related diseases account for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year.

Again, this is US based, but I think has lessons for us here in Australia. Eating a diet higher in plant based foods, having those five servings of vegies every day, eating fruit , leaner meats and less processed foods will positively impact both our health and also our environment.

There’s a quick questionnaire which scores your diet on it’s nutritional value and affect on animal welfare. You can check how changes in your diet will impact nutrition and the environment. Plus you can take a virtual tour of the food supply .

Trust Gus?

Posted by kathryn in Food Labelling and Kid's nutrition

Some interesting resources on the website of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest . These are the guys threatening legal action against Enviga , for misleading advertising.

The CSPI are based in the US and some of the brands and issues they mention are not relevant to us, here in Australia. However, their website has a section for kids and I particularly like the ””Trust Gus? quiz . The scenario:

Gus Bogus is a food industry spokesman who often stretches the truth, while trying to convince you to buy more products – can you spot the facts and the fictions?

Yes, it’s aimed at kids, but we all need to get a bit smarter at reading between the lines of food marketing and PR, so take a look.

I found this via the Shaping Youth blog.

Slimming tea?

Posted by kathryn in Health News, Food Labelling and Weight loss

I can’t say I was thrilled this week to read that Enviga will be on sale in Australia from July this year. Enviga is a carbonated green tea soft drink, manufactured by Coca-Cola and Nestle, which they say has “negative calories”. They claim that drinking three cans of Enviga will slightly raise your metabolism, making the average person burn between 60 – 100 calories. Very little is known about how it works and this claim has not been independently tested. According to Nestle researcher Dr Hilary Green:

The accumulated body of scientific research shows the ability of green tea’s powerful antioxidant EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) to speed up metabolism and increase energy use, especially when combined with caffeine”

Coca-Cola / Nestle are careful on their website and in public statements to say all the right things about it not being a miracle product and just one part of a healthy lifestyle, blah, blah, blah. However, in reality the thrust of the marketing is that it’s a weight loss product, for example the byline on the can is “Enviga: Calorie Burner”. From the Times , Professor Andrew Prentice, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine states that:

“The implicit claim to the consumer is that [Enviga] will make them lose weight”.

Even if the claims are true, you have to drink three cans to burn 100 calories . That’s about 420 kilojoules, which is not a lot. It’s the equivalent of:

one Caramello Koala
half a cheese and tomato sandwich
half a glass of wine
one-third of a danish pastry
one Tim Tam
one-fifth of a packet of Kettle chips
less than half a small McDonald’s fries
two and a half Kentucky nuggets (individual nuggets, not portions)

It’s not enough to make up for a pig-out, it’s not enough to make up for a poor diet. In fact, in terms of weight loss, it’s only going to help if you’re eating healthily and watching your kilojoule intake anyway. It’s an expensive way to lose 420kJ and you’d be better off to eat slightly less, or go for a 30 minute walk.

Moreover three cans of Enviga contains the same amount of caffeine as three cups of coffee, that alone is going to make some people a bit edgy and jumpy. If you then start drinking more, trying to burn off more calories, you’re ingesting a heck of a lot of caffeine (palpitations anyone?).

I first read about this product on Accidental Hedonist . I don’t think Enviga is a useful product, I don’t think we need it. I wouldn’t recommend it for use in any weight loss plan and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to my clients.

Technorati tags: coca cola , enviga , soft drinks , caffeine

Berry and mango pavlova

Posted by kathryn in Recipes: pudding and Recipes: dinner parties

I’ve got a few unfinished blogging strands at the moment, including the dessert from this dinner party. I rarely make desserts, so far there are only three posts in my pudding category and at home we generally stick to the trusty fruit and yoghurt combination.

For a dinner party though, I like to do something special, a little bit decadent even, but without tripling everyone’s saturated fat intake. This berry and mango pavlova fits the bill.

It’s adapted from an old copy of Delicious , although my first attempt at making meringue from the magazine instructions was a disaster – a total failure to maintain any sort of peak, stiff or otherwise – and ended up in the bin. For round two, I consulted the trusty Delia Smith website and followed her excellent meringue making instructions. Success.

I have to admit, this is not exactly a health recipe – there’s too much sugar for it to qualify as being “good for you”. However, it’s not as bad for you as many. Meringues are lower in fat, particularly saturated fat, than most desserts (think cheesecake, anything with chocolate here, etc). Plus I use a combination of ricotta and yoghurt, instead of cream and plenty of fresh fruit, which again keeps a lid on the saturates, while boosting up the vitamin and antioxidant levels. It’s not something I’d eat everyday, but is a good choice for a dinner party.

Berry and mango pavlova

Adapted from Delicious issue 23 (December 2003). The original recipe was for a triple-deck pavlova. However one of my guests was intolerant to sheep’s milk, so I used the top “layer” as a separate mini-pavlova, which I spread with sheep’s milk yoghurt and topped with the berries and mango. The recipe here is for the full three layers. Serves 12.

9 egg whites
520g caster sugar
800g ricotta cheese
200ml thick Greek-style yoghurt
1 punnets strawberries
1 punnet raspberries
1 punnet blackberries
1 large ripe mango, peeled and cut into small pieces
Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Line three baking trays with baking paper. Trace a 26cm diameter circle on one, a 20cm circle on the second and a 13cm disc on the last.

Make the meringue according to these instructions and note her advice about cooking them the day before and leaving in the oven to dry out overnight.

Before serving, mix together the ricotta and yoghurt. Place the large meringue disc on a serving plate, spread with half the ricotta mix and scatter over half the fruit. Place the medium circle on top of this, spread with 2/3 of the remaining ricotta mix and fruit. Finally, add the small circle and top with the last of the ricotta and fruit. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

See the full menu here .

PS Sorry the photos are so bad, but it was a damned fine dessert.

How to treat your heartburn without resorting to medication

Posted by kathryn in Health News

From the latest Grand Rounds , a guide to natural ways of helping heartburn and indigestion by Jolie Bookspan.

Many people with stomach acid problems are prescribed a class of medicine called proton pump inhibitors, which are often taken in conjunction with antacids. However, this medication regime has been linked to a decrease in calcium absorption and an increased risk of osteoporosis and hip fractures.

Jolie recommends a range of foods, spices and herbs that can reduce and alleviate stomach acid and heartburn issues. I’d add slippery elm to the list as well (mix it with yoghurt to make more palatable).

The article also covers osteoporosis prevention, including a number of targeted weight-bearing exercises to improve bone strength in key areas.

What I've been reading

Posted by kathryn in Food Labelling and Blogging

Given I’ve ditched the blogroll, I thought I’d run through some of the blogs I’ve been reading recently.

The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

One of my recent discoveries are The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl . With over 50% of men and 40% of women in NSW overweight or obese, the difficulties of losing weight is a big topic and Dietgirl’s site is a very personal account of her challenges and successes. Everyone needs support while making major life changes and Dietgirl has found it online. I particularly like this post, where she flips the weight loss mentality – it’s not about deprivation and denial, it’s about being healthy.

Orangette & Gluten-Free Girl

Orangette and Gluten-Free Girl are blogs I’ve been reading for almost a year now and they’re simply two of the best writers about food (and life) I’ve come across. Shauna also publishes recipes, resources and inspiration for all those people who are living gluten-free, while Molly is my egg poaching guru .

Shaping Youth

I’ve talked on a number of occasions about food labelling, the campaign to ban junk food advertising to kids and even problems with cordial adverts, but much more detail on these issues can be found at Shaping Youth. The site is US based and covers all types of youth marketing, not just food.

Fatfree Vegan & Vanesscipes

On the recipe front I’m loving Fatfree Vegan. I’m a long-term vegetarian and we have vegan food a lot, but Susan’s recipes are more imaginative and interesting than anything I’ve come across. Her food isn’t totally fat free, for example she uses nuts, coconut milk and sesame oil, but she doesn’t add any extra fat during the cooking. My other current recipe favourite is vanesscipes – vegetarian recipes with a healthy dose of attitude. She shares my love of khichri and I currently can’t get this recipe out of my head.

Pause

And completely off the topic of food, diets, health and recipes, Jory’s site – Pause – is the reason I started blogging in the first place. What she writes makes sense to me in a deeply felt, YES-that’s-how-it-is kind of way. On my RSS feeder, Jory’s is the first blog I’ll read and her writing stays with me – I’ll find myself thinking about it a couple of days later.

Where's the blogroll gone?

Posted by kathryn in Blogging

I’ve just done something I’ve been thinking about for a while, I’ve deleted my blogroll. For those of you unsure what I mean, many bloggers have a list in the sidebar of their site, of the blogs they like and frequently read, called a blogroll.

When I first started reading blogs I found these lists useful, as a means of navigating through the blogosphere, finding other sites and expanding my horizons. When I first started Limes&Lycopene, I had every intention of including a blogroll.

However, more recently I’ve been dissatisfied with my blogroll. I read quite a lot of blogs, in fact at any one time I’m usually monitoring about 50, through an RSS feed. I read them for all different reasons, for the writing, for the recipes, for information and resources. Some of them I read as a small business owner, for ideas on marketing and improving my business. While there are blogs from other countries I read, to broaden my awareness of what’s happening in this world of ours.

Sometimes a blog may just have one or two posts I like, while others may include recipes for foods I’d never cook (and never recommend), but I like the writing, or they make me smile. The list of blogs I read is constantly expanding and contracting.

However, the focus of this site is about health. I aim to provide a realistic perspective on food and health, debunking some of the myths, while encouraging my readers to eat a bit better, by providing simple recipes, useful tools and practical resources.

A number of the blogs I read are irrelevant to this core message, or may only contain the occasional post that fits. So, instead of having a blogroll, I’m going to link to other sites more frequently – specific posts I like and think you might find interesting or useful. I’ll also do an irregular round-up of what I’m reading at the moment and the blogs I like.

There will still be plenty of links, recipes and reading suggestions, but it’ll be more targeted and hopefully, therefore, more useful.

Grand rounds: food as medicine

Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work, Health News and Blogging

I’m pretty pleased that my post on _ what actually is five serves _ has been included in the latest Grand Rounds . This week’s subject is food as medicine, which is perfect for Limes&Lycopene and it’s hosted by Dr John La Puma. I’m still making my way through the round-up, but there are some excellent posts and topics to review.

Grand rounds was started in 2004 by Blogboyrgmi , as a weekly round up of the best of the medical blogosphere.

How much food is 200 calories?

Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Snacking

In a similar vein to my _ what actually is five serves _ post, Columbus Foodie has pointed me to a series of pictures on Wisegeek, called what does 200 calories looks like.

To put this in some context, 200 calories is the old money equivalent of 836 kilojoules. Depending on your height and activity level, if you’re a women you need between 7,600 and 10,000kJ per day. Whereas men will need 9,400 – 14,000kJ per day, to maintain your current weight.

Therefore, for most people, each of these pictures roughly represents the number of kilojoules you should be eating as a snack. While even I couldn’t eat 1.4 kg of celery, it’s an interesting series of pictures.

Do remember that kilojoule content is not the only criteria for choosing a food. For example, while nuts are very high in energy (and are near the bottom of the guide), they’re also packed full of minerals, essential fatty acids and vitamins – all good stuff, that we want in our diets.

What actually is five serves?

Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Recipes: vegies and Vegetables

One of the main subjects I find myself returning to on Limes & Lycopene, is the importance of vegies and how to get those five daily recommended servings. Simply put, vegetables are a crucial part of a healthy diet.

This applies to everybody, it’s not just sick people, or old people who need to keep up the vegies. It’s not just those with a family history of cancer, cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Instead, it’s you, me, our families, friends – all of us need to be having plenty of vegies every day to be healthy.

In clinic, clients will often tell me their diet is “pretty healthy”. While it’s true they don’t eat a lot of junk, or processed foods, they keep saturated fats to a minimum and cook with olive oil, their vegetable intake is often low to non-existent. And it’s not just my clients, with the recent report by the Chief Health Officer of NSW showing that, in this state at least, only 5% of men and 10% of women are having their daily five serves – it seems there’s still a long way to go with this message.

Moreoever, since the release of new nutrient reference values for Australians in 2006 (RDIs and suggested dietary targets), it’s looking more and more like the recommended daily level is going to increase from five, possibly to seven per day.

What is a serving of vegetables?

While five servings of vegetables sounds like a lot, it’s actually not. A serving is equal to:

1 cup (ie 250ml) of salad vegetables and leafy vegetables (eg lettuce, herbs, rocket, tomato, cucumber, mushroom, spinach)
1/2 cup of other vegetables, including tinned and frozen vegetables and legumes
1 small potato

That might translate into a small salad at lunch, or “all the salads” in your sandwich and then a couple of cups of vegies in the evening.

A pictorial guide to the 5 serves

However, I realise this is often difficult to judge. What exactly does a cup of spinach or half a cup of carrots look like when you’re at the supermarket buying food for dinner?

Below are seven photographs, each showing different examples of the five servings of vegies and how you can put them together during the day. You’ll see the cup and half cup measures at the back of most of the photos, to give you an idea of proportions.

If you ate one of these plates each day, you’d be getting the full five serves, which is the minimum level you need. Don’t ignore this, or put it off until you have more time. Make this your new year’s resolution and improve your health today.