Should babies have juice?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Fruit and Kid's nutrition
Some good advice from Choice on juices for babies. Golden Circle, Heinz and Just Juice have started selling specific Baby Juice. Despite the packaging and marketing, they’re nothing extraordinary, but are simply watered down to better suit the baby’s digestive system. The choice advice includes:
- Always dilute it for your child – about one part of juice to one or two parts of water gets the sugars down to a level they can manage.
- Never give juice or diluted juice in a bottle or cup they can suck from over time. Sucking on juice can have disastrous effects on their teeth.
- It’s recommended that children between one and six years have no more than half a cup (150 mL) a day
Babies do no need juice to have a healthy diet. You are much better off feeding them pureed and then cut up fruit, rather than relying on baby juice. Getting kids to eat fruit from an early age is an important habit to develop.
Technorati tags: juice , fruit , fruit juice , baby juice
A novel way to get people on their bikes . . .
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket and Health News
There’s anecdotal evidence that Sydney-siders are cycling more. Whether it’s biking to work every day, or about town on the weekend, more and more people seem to be getting on their bikes.
Which makes this Saturday’s chocolate and fine food cycle ride a cute, interesting and timely event. It’s organised by the Marrickville-South Sydney Bicycle Group and is a 20 kilometre cycle, over three hours, that winds its way around the cafes, patisseries and chocolate shops of the inner west.
According to one of the members, the original aim was to have a calorie-neutral ride, although I’m not sure they’ll manage that aim, if as Fiona Campbell says “the idea is to ride for 10 minutes, then stop for 10 minutes”.
But, it’s better than travelling by car and sounds like a fun way to explore some hidden gourmet food stops around Sydney.
More information on the cycle groups website .
Source: Metro section of today’s Sydney Morning Herald
Are juices a good drink for kids?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Fruit and Kid's nutrition
As I’ve blogged about , juices are not necessarily all they’re cracked up to be. Yes, they contain vitamins and antioxidants, but that’s mixed up with a whole lot of kilojoules and no fibre. 1 glass of orange juice (ie 250ml) is more than 500 kilojoules, which is equal to :
- 2 bananas
- 3 small apples
- 3 punnets of fresh strawberries
- 3 oranges
- 2 tablespoons of sultanas
So, if you’re drinking a few glasses of juice a day, then you’re notching up a lot of kilojoules.
Many parents give juice to kids as their primary source of fluids. It’s sweet, most kids like it and there’s the assumption that juice is healthy. However, again, it’s a lot of kilojoules.
If a child is drinking only juice during the day, then this really adds to their energy intake – four glasses of juice would equal over 2,000 kilojoules, that’s the same as six chicken Mcnuggets and a small fries . Or for a moderately active three year old, 2,000 kilojoules is one-fifth of their recommended daily kilojoule intake .
If you can, get your kids to eat fruit
- put tinned fruit on their cereal
- make a fruit salad with yoghurt for dessert
- use as an after school snack
- make some of my low fat, low sugar fruit muffins (eg peach, walnut and ginger muffins or pear, maple and walnut muffins )
- cook baked apples for dessert
- use dried fruit as a snack
- make grated apple, sultana and low fat cream cheese sandwiches
Buy the fruit your kids like and if they are hungry they’ll eat it. If your kids won’t drink anything other than juice, then start diluting it, gradually making it weaker and weaker until it’s mostly water.
For more ideas on eating fruit, click here .
Technorati tags: juice , soft drinks
Ribena fined for misleading claims
Posted by kathryn in Health News and Food Labelling
GlaxoSmithKline in New Zealand have been fined $NZ227,500 ($200,000) for making misleading claims about the vitamin C content of Ribena. As I suspected , their claim that “the blackcurrants in Ribena contain four times the vitamin C of oranges” has been food label trickery. While blackcurrants themselves are indeed a rich source of vitamin C, Ribena only contains 4% of the fruit. Ribena is therefore a richer source of sugar, water and kilojoules than vitamin C.
As reported in the Herald , the action was taken by the New Zealand Commerce Commission:
Paula Rebstock, the commission’s chairwoman, said thousands of New Zealanders had been duped by the company which had specifically promoted the vitamin C-related health benefits of Ribena for children, teenagers and pregnant women.
She described the behaviour as “a massive breach of trust with the New Zealand public”.
Here in Australia, GlaxoSmithKline have issued a correction on the Ribena website :
In the past Ribena has claimed that “the blackcurrants in Ribena contain four times the vitamin C of oranges”. There is a concern that this may have misled consumers into believing that Ribena products contain four times the vitamin C of orange juice products. This is not the case. In the future Ribena will no longer be making these claims”
GSK have been caught out, but they’ve been making this claim for Ribena for decades and it’s taken two New Zealand schoolgirls to catch them out. GSK are by no means the only ones making dodgy claims on their food labels. Food manufacturers are out there to make money, they are commercial enterprises. Packaging is one of the primary marketing tools a food manufacturer uses to encourage you to buy their products. They will make strange, weird, misleading, bodgy statements if they can .
While FSANZ does regulate the food label labelling, they are under-staffed and under-resourced, which makes policing food manufacturers claims very difficult. This means it’s largely up to the consumer to check and question food labels.
Technorati tags: ribena , vitamin C , blackcurrants
Photo: Ribena juice photo by Caro Wallis under the terms of the Creative Commons license
More on juice
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Fruit and Snacking
While we’re on the subject of juice , under the heading Juice – it’s a health miracle , Weighty Matters points out the effectiveness of marketing by the juice industry. Here in Australia, just think about how ubiquitous ads, instore promotions and marketing are by the big juice companies: Just Juice, the Daily Juice Company, Berri and so on.
While at the Diet Dish , Cynthia Sass discusses a UK article stating it’s not uncommon for the average woman to use 70% of her daily energy intake on liquids. As Cynthia points out:
That doesn’t leave much room for solid foods, and if those calories come in the form of soda or sweet tea, there will probably be a whole lot of nutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc.) not showing up for work.
Even if the liquids are juices this is still a big nutritional problem. Fibre, protein, low GI carbohydrates, wholegrains are almost non-existent in that diet. What we need is real, actual food, not juiced up, liquified versions.
Technorati tags: juice , fruit , soft drinks
Photo from the National Cancer Institute: http://visualsonline.cancer.gov
How healthy are juices?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Fruit, Snacking and Kid's nutrition
A while back Cooking Chat asked a question in the comments on my post about antioxidant supplements – are juices a good way to get your daily fruit serves?
I can totally understand the attraction of juice – they’re sweet, easy to consume, tasty, no fussy cutting up or messy fingers at the end, you can buy them anywhere and they’re made from fruit, so they must be good for you? However, it’s not that simple.
Fruit is part of a healthy diet because of its vitamin, antioxidant and fibre content. Fruit also contributes small but useful amounts of potassium and nutritional guidelines recommend two or three pieces of fruit per day.
When you juice fruit you get most of the antioxidants, vitamins and potassium out. But you only get most, not all all of them. Moreover, juice doesn’t contain any of the fibre from the fruit, that goes down the waste tube.
However, the big problem with juice is that drop for drop, millilitre for millilitre juice contains as many kilojoules as soft drinks. Yep, that apple juice you’re drinking has as many kilojoules as a bottle of cola . While juice does contain vitamins and antioxidants and not the chemical cocktail that makes up cola, if you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, then you have to be careful with the juice.
If you’re someone that has a glass of juice with breakfast, a bottle of juice at lunch and then another glass in the evening, you’re easily consuming 1,000 – 1,500 kilojoules in drinks alone. You could have a cheese and salad sandwich and an apple for the same amount of kilojoules, or five Weet-bix with skim milk and an orange.
In contrast one banana will give you plenty of vitamins and antioxidants, lots of potassium, plus all the fibre, for only 250kJ. It also costs less.
I use juices as an occasional treat, rather than an every day drink. If I’m out and about and busy I might get a juice, but I’ll make it 75% vegetable, with only a bit of fruit added in. On the weekends I might squeeze a couple of oranges and have a small glass of juice with my scrambled eggs on toast. The rest of the time I stick to water or herbal tea.
Ideas on how to fit more fruit in your day here .
Technorati tags: juice , fruit , soft drinks
Ribena caught out by schoolgirls
Posted by kathryn in Health News, Food Labelling and Kid's nutrition
School science projects can lead to unlikely results – GlaxoSmithKline were caught out on their ribena claims by two New Zealand schoolgirls .
Two years ago Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo, a couple of 14-year-old high school students tested the vitamin C levels in Ribena. Not only did they find it contained very little vitamin C, they also found at least one commercial orange juice brand which had four times more vitamin C than Ribena.
I’m wondering if this is more label trickery . The claim used on the Ribena label and in its advertising is “the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges”. This is different from saying Ribena has four times the vitamin C of oranges .
Blackcurrants are higher in vitamin C than oranges, however Ribena isn’t only made of blackcurrants. As I’ve discussed before , it contains 4% blackcurrants, with the primary ingredients being water and sugar. Of course, this is semantics – the label and all the Ribena advertising implies Ribena is chock-a-block full of vitamin C and therefore a healthy drink.
Technorati tags: ribena , vitamin C , blackcurrants
Ribena and those vitamin C claims
Posted by kathryn in Health News, A Balanced Diet, Fruit and Kid's nutrition
Ribena manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline have dobbed themselves in to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for misleading advertising. Apparently their claim that ribena contains four times more vitamin C than oranges, is not entirely true. They are already under investigation in New Zealand and will be in court next week facing more than 80 charges relating to misleading claims.
Back in January Choice included ribena in their list of the _ * Ten foods that make kids fatter faster * ._ Citing their high sugar content, Choice criticised GlaxoSmithKline for their promotion of ribena as a healthy drink:
It’s been around forever, but now comes in a funky ‘Squee-zee’ pack. And with its much vaunted vitamin C and “no artificial colour, flavour or sweetener”, you might think Ribena is a healthy drink to put in your kid’s lunchbox — especially if you had it when you were a kid and your Mum said it was good for you. But the major ingredients in Ribena are water and sugar; blackcurrant juice comes a very poor third at only 5% (and even then it’s a processed product made from concentrate).
Blackcurrants are high in vitamin C and they are used to make ribena. However with only 5% blackcurrants and a high sugar content, ribena should be relegated to the only-occasionally group of foods. It’s certainly not how kids should be getting the majority of their liquid intake.
To make sure your kids are getting enough vitamin C, avoid the ribena and instead:
- put a handful of berries on their cereal in the morning
- squeeze 1 – 2 fresh oranges to go with their breakfast
- slip half a dozen cherry tomatoes into their lunch box as a snack
- after dinner have some fresh fruit and yoghurt
- chop up some red and yellow capsicum sticks and offer it with hummous for a healthy after school snack
- make up smoothies using a mixture of fruit, low fat yoghurt and a smidgeon of honey.
Feeding fussy eaters
Posted by kathryn in Kid's nutrition
Good advice from Bill Granger this week on how to feed fussy eaters. In response to a question, he suggests:
Feeding young children can be trying at the best of times, but with these challenges please don’t let her fussy eating get the better of you.
All children go through periods of not eating different foods and wanting only starchy carbohydrates. It is natural for children, or all of us, especially when we’re tired, to go for carbs because they provide instant energy. But these alone are not a nutritionally sound meal.
Make sure you persevere in serving balanced meals to your daughter. Try not to make a huge deal at meal times and praise her for trying new things. No one is going to starve missing a meal here or there and you can always serve a good breakfast the following morning.
He also includes three recipes for polenta with tomato sauce and buffalo mozzarella, pork stir fry with broccolini and chicken wings with chick pea and feta salad.
Food facts and fiction
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet, Weight loss, Vegetables, Carbohydrates and Food & Health Myths
I saw this article, _ food facts and fiction _ , in the Sydney Morning Herald last week and it’s finally up on their website. Paula Goodyer answers some of those basic questions about diet and nutrition, for example is spinach a good source of iron, does broccoli prevent cancer and does sugar cause diabetes? As Paula writes:
Healthy eating should be simple to do but many of us still take our information from our friends, mothers and the media – where the quality of nutrition reporting can be mixed. It’s no surprise, then, that much of what we believe and pass on to others has all the scientific accuracy of Chinese whispers.
Parents jury
Posted by kathryn in Kid's nutrition
I’ve been reading a lot in the media recently about the Parents Jury . Set up by Diabetes Australia, the Cancer Council and the Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity, the Parents Jury is an online resource and forum enabling parents to discuss children’s food, health and physical activity.
Through collective advocacy, they are targeting food industry marketing tactics, aiming to reduce the marketing of products to young children. And it’s not just about television adverts. The Parents Jury scrutinises all marketing techniques, from in-store promotions and product placements, through to emails, sms and sponsorships.
They also have their sights set on schools, wanting to improve the nutritional value of canteen food, while also encouraging schools to provide consistent nutritional messages around the school and promote the benefits of a well balanced and healthy diet.
They have strong opinions and it’s not just about discussion. In their Trial by Jury campaign members are asked to nominate examples of unethical food marketing. A jury of members then passes judgement – guilty or not guilty and results are displayed on their website. This week it was Krispy Kreme’s turn and they were found “guilty”, for directly marketing their doughnuts to children, through school and sports fundraising. As Parents Jury spokesman Dr Anna Peeters says:
“Schools need to be creative with their fundraising activities and ensure that they do not rely on unhealthy, high fat, high sugar foods that send out unhealthy messages to students and their parents. Such activities compromise and undermine the efforts of schools to promote healthy eating and physical activity.”
While the Federal government seems resistant to calls for a tighter control on marketing to children, this topic is not going away. I’ve blogged about this before . With childhood obesity on the rise it seems more and more urgent that we do something. It is simply too easy to blame parents and accuse them of a lack of control over their children.
Food companies pay a lot of money to marketing people to spread the word about their product and increase sales. If marketing to children didn’t work, they simply wouldn’t do it. And yet we expect small children, who still have so much to learn about the world, to be able to understand and with-stand these professional marketers. As Richard Glover put it in the herald a couple of weeks ago:
Fast-forward 50 years and I reckon people will look back at us, amazed. Why did we ever think it appropriate for highly paid adults to devote all their sophistication and intelligence to tempting children to eat food that would shorten their lives?
I’m going to follow the activities of the Parents’ Jury with interest.
Technorati tags: parents jury , kids food , food marketing , food advertising , childhood obesity , children’s health
Declining life expectancy?
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Weight loss
Over the last 150 years life expectancy has constantly been on the rise. For most people it’s a given – we eat better, are wealthier, have better health care, science has brought us more drugs and medical procedures, meaning we’ll have a longer life span than our parents and grandparents. Surely?
Well not necessarily. According to Professor Ilona Kickbusch , the rise in childhood obesity is putting this at risk. The World Health Organisation estimates there are over one billion people in the world who are overweight, and 300 million who are obese.
As Professor Kickbusch says:
“If you want to put it simplistically at this point in history we have more energy going into our bodies and less energy expended by ourselves. We go everywhere in cars, our work is sedentary a lot of our leisure activities are sedentary. In schools a lot of physical activity has been reduced in favour of certain academic principles. So what we’re seeing here is an epidemic which is an epidemic of our times.”
While we're on the subject of vegans: what on earth do vegans eat?
Posted by kathryn in Recipes: vegan and A Balanced Diet
The diet dish has an excellent introduction to becoming a vegan. Cynthia answers basic questions like what does it mean to be a vegan and why people choose to become a vegan. However she also covers the practical stuff like, what vegans eat (and it’s not just carrots and lettuce), along with how to get enough protein and calcium, and whether a vegan diet can be healthy.
Being a healthy vegetarian or vegan is certainly possible and while we’ve all heard the stories of the friend-of-a-friend who turned vegan and became really sick, it doesn’t have to be that way. Vegetarians and vegans do need to be careful with their diet – to make sure they’re eating a variety of foods, getting enough protein, along with calcium, iron and B12. It’s not hard, but a bit of knowledge is vital.
Technorati tags: vegan , vegetarian
Vegan baking @ the post punk kitchen
Posted by kathryn in Recipes: vegan
In the Post Punk Kitchen Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero cook vegan food, including . . . vegan cupcakes. In Vegan Baking 101 they run through the range of replacements for eggs, milk and butter, giving recommendations on which work best with different types of baking. I’ve used silken tofu before, but have never thought of flax seeds.
Baking without eggs, milk and butter also means many of their recipes are useful for people with allergies.
Source: Good Living hard copy 13 March 2007
Fruit & vegetables in season in March
Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket, Fruit and Vegetables
Yikes, I’m so behind with my blogging that I’ve forgotten my monthly what’s-in-season list. It may be the middle of the March, but here’s my list of the in-season fruit and vegetables in Sydney at the moment.
We’re into autumn, so they types of fruit and veg available are gradually starting to shift. Stone fruit and berries are going out of season this month, which will be reflected in sharp price increases. While the new season apples, pears and nashis are becoming available.
Fruit:
- apples (royal galas, red delicious&jonathons are in season)
- avocados (fuertes are just coming into season)
- bananas
- figs
- fuji fruit
- grapes
- guava
- kiwifruit
- limes
- longons
- mangosteens
- melons still seem to be a good price, although they are moving out of season
- nashi
- nectarines are finishing
- oranges (Valencia)
- passionfruit
- pawpaw
- peaches are finishing
- pears (especially Williams and buerre bosc)
- pineapple
- plums
- pomegranates
- quinces
- tamarillos
Vegetables:
- Asian greens (bok choy, gai lan, etc)
- beans
- beetroot
- broccoli
- capsicum
- choko
- cucumber
- daikon or white radish
- eggplant
- ginger
- leeks (although they’re still quite pricey)
- lettuce
- mushrooms
- okra
- onions
- potatoes
- pumpkin
- radishes
- sweetcorn
- sugar snap peas
- tomatoes
- zucchini
- witlof
The return of Jamie at home
Posted by kathryn in Health News
Mr Oliver’s new cooking programme Jamie at home is back on TV. Having been tantalised by the first few episodes back in February, Channel 10 are now showing the rest of the series. It’s on Thursday evenings at 7.30pm .
[Sorry about the day late notice, I meant to post this yesterday, but my internet connection was struggling 
]
Fast food giants to reduce trans fats, but is this an improvement?
Posted by kathryn in Fat
I’ve blogged about trans fats before – why they’re bad for us , what foods contain them and how much of a problem they are in Australia . Most Australians don’t eat anywhere near as many trans fats as the US and Canada, however, one of our big sources is fast food.
This week the Assistant Health Minister, Chris Pyne, has met with the fast food industry to discuss the fat content of their foods. Hungry Jack’s, Krispy Kreme, KFC and Pizza Hut have all agreed to cut their use of trans fats , although no specific target has been set. McDonald’s have already virtually eliminated trans from their foods.
While there has been agreement on reducing trans, Yum! Restaurants who own KFC and Pizza Hut, have refused to commit to reducing the saturated fat level of their foods. In 2006, KFC started using a cooking oil based on palm oil, which they have regularly promoted as being low in trans. This is true, however it also contains 52% saturated fat .
Trans fats are a problem. They increase our risk of heart disease, diabetes and are also linked to obesity and liver dysfunction. Trans fats are worse for our health than saturated fats – they have a bigger impact on cardiovascular risk in particular.
However, it’s not progress to be replacing the trans fat content of your foods with a higher level of saturates . Saturated fat is still prevalent in the Australian diet and on average we eat about 30% more than we should be. Saturated fats increase our risk of heart disease, diabetes and so on. Yes, they have less of effect than trans, but they’re still making our health worse.
Even if fast food outlets eliminate trans fats and reduce saturated fats as well, it still doesn’t mean their food is healthy . Their meals are low in vital micro-nutrients (vitamins and minerals), there’s still too much fat in total, too much starchy-carbohydrate and generally too much protein. Fast food should be an occasional meal, not an every day choice.
If you do eat at fast food outlets and want to know the best choices to make then look at this and this post.
Technorati tags fast food , McDonald’s , hungry jack’s , kfc , healthy fast food , trans fat , trans fats , partially hydrogenated fats , hydrogenated fat , krispy kreme , fat , pizza hut , saturated fat
What to do with sustainable fish
Posted by kathryn in Sustainablity
One of the bits I found interesting in the Matthew Evans’ article I linked to this morning: of the 166 species of fish available to chefs in Sydney, the top restaurants only use ten . As Evans says:
It’s a shame, because chefs cook seafood better than most home cooks can. They’re our inspiration, so it would be brilliant if they stopped relying on farmed fish and unsustainable species and showed their talents with the fantastic species we need exposure to, such as leatherjacket and trevally.
I haven’t cooked fish for years, but when I did it was always salmon, tuna, flathead and red snapper – I rarely strayed from this limited repertoire. People are eating less fish at home and in my experience, through talking to clients, it’s the main food group people are insecure about cooking.
If you are looking for ways to cook different types of fish and are thinking about experimenting with a new species, then I’d recommend looking at the Sydney Fish Market website first. They have a recipe database covering most of the species available in Sydney. You can look up leatherjacket and trevally and find recipes for each. Moreover under the “species” tab in the sidebar, you can find more general information on the types of fish, how to buy and cook.
Sustainable fish products
Posted by kathryn in Sustainablity
The MSC is an international organisation that measures and grades fisheries on their management and sustainability. The core principle is that:
A well-managed and sustainable fishery protects the fish and the environment in which they live, whilst allowing responsible use of the species that come from it.
The MSC has certified a number of fish products in Australia, most of which are available in supermarkets. These products display the blue MSC logo on their label and include:
- Canned Pink salmon
- Canned Red salmon
- Canned Medium red salmon
- Salmon tempters
- Skin on hoki fillets
- Smoked hoki fillets
- Skinless
- Hoki in Tempura Batter
- Hoki Tasty Bread Crumb
- Hoki Lemon Pepper
- Hoki Lite
- Hoki Fish Fingers
- Nuggets Crispy Crumb
- Nuggets in a crispy batter
Sustainable seafood day
Posted by kathryn in Sustainablity
Today is the Marine Stewardship Council’s second Sustainable Seafood Day. Here in Australia, the latest Bureau of Rural Sciences report estimates that at least a quarter of Australian fisheries are overfished. Of the 166 species available to consumers, only about nineteen have the sustainable all-clear.
Part of the problem is lack of information to consumers, but also different bodies give conflicting advice on which fish are managed sustainably and which are at risk.
Health-wise, fish is a low-fat source of good quality protein. Many fish, also contain those lovely omega-3 essential fatty acids, which are good for heart health, our skin, our joints and many other body systems.
This week’s Good Living had a comprehensive article by Matthew Evans: Fish&Tips: everything you need to know about choosing, cooking and eating seafood . It’s a good starting point for information on which fish to buy.
Pear, maple & walnut muffins
Posted by kathryn in Blogging, Fruit and Breakfast
I’ve had a lot of deadlines recently, which has made it hard to blog with my usual regularity. I’ve been writing articles, recipes, sending out newsletters and finalising details of a new monthly column. In amongst this I’ve been seeing clients and been putting together two new seminars ( here and here ) at the clinic. On top of that, Richard and I are beavering away on a new project. It’s very exciting, but not due for release until later in the year, so more of that another day.
So it’s been a busy time and I’m behind with my blogging. There have been questions in comments, news items and posts from other blogs I’ve wanted to cover, plus a couple of new products I’ve spotted in the supermarket, which means the next few days are going to be blogging catch-up.
The first item is a follow up from my last muffin recipe . In the comments , I was asked if you could use tinned fruit and if so, how much.
Well I’ve done the experiment, made two batches of muffins in the last two days (fortunately they freeze) and I can report back the answer is yes . If you want to use tinned fruit, then there are a couple of things to note. Firstly I’d recommend using fruit in juice and you’ll need a large 825g tin to get 500g of fruit out (yes they really are 1/3 liquid). Tinned fruit is “wetter” than fresh, so I’d also recommend leaving the milk out of the original recipe.
One of my muffin batches was these pear, maple and walnut muffins – it’s a lovely combination. I’ve used maple syrup instead of jam and mixed spice instead of ground ginger.
Pear, maple&walnut muffins
As before, these muffins have a high fruit-to-muffin ratio, so they’re best left to cool and firm-up in the tin for about 15 minutes, before moving to a wire rack. You could also bake them using cake cases. Makes 12
- 1.5 cups wholemeal flour
- 3 teaspoons mixed spice
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/3 cup walnuts, broken into large chunks
- 1/2 cup yoghurt
- 1 egg
- 1×825g tin of pears in fruit juice, drained
- 5 tablespoons maple syrup
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin.
Sieve together the flour, spice and baking soda. Add in the walnuts and stir to combine.
In a separate bowl whisk together the yoghurt and egg.
Roughly chop up 3 pear halves and add them to the yoghurt mix. Put the rest in a food processor with the maple syrup and pulse together. This will only take seconds, as you still want the fruit to have some lumpy-ness and texture. Add to the yoghurt mixture and stir to combine.
Pour the yoghurt and fruit into the flour and mix together. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin. Place the muffins in the middle of the oven and cook for 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack.
Nutritional information per muffin:
Total kilojoules: 546kJ; Protein: 4g; Total Fat: 3g (mostly poly-unsaturated); Saturated fat: 0.5g; Carbohydrate: 25g; Fibre: 3g; Sodium: 22mg; Number of fruit serves towards daily total: 0.5 serves; Additional nutrients: potassium, Omega 3 essential fatty acids.
Technorati tags: Muffins , breakfast , walnuts , Omega 3 , Fatty acids , pear , tinned fruit
10 ways to reduce your diabetes risk
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet and Carbohydrates
With the incidence of type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes on the rise in Australia, it’s increasingly vital to spread the message of how it can (usually) be regulated through diet and lifestyle changes. If you want to prevent complications, keep your blood sugar levels stable and continue living a long and healthy life, then diet and lifestyle are important.
The latest GI newsletter contains a comprehensive list of the ten diet and lifestyle changes you need to make to reduce your risk of getting diabetes, or to live well with the condition. If you have type II diabetes, have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, or there’s a history of diabetes in your family, then this is the list for you.
The changes range from small to large, but it can seem pretty overwhelming. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to make all the changes at once. Pick one thing, that’s do-able, whether it be going for a 15 minute walk each day, or eating two serves of fruit per day. Make that change, stick to it for a few weeks and then make the next change. Track and record what you’ve done, so you can see the big progress you’ve made.
And if it is all too hard, then talk to your health practitioner about seeing a nutritionist or dietician. Regulating your blood sugar levels through diet and lifestyle is possible and crucial, so it’s worthwhile doing this.
Technorati tags: diabetes , insulin , glucose , gi , glycemic index
Nutrition tours
Posted by kathryn in All In A Day's Work
From May of this year I’m going to be doing Nutrition Tours . Run over two sessions, this programme aims to give you the practical information, tools&resources to make it easier to shop&eat well.
For most people, eating well starts with the shopping. If your house is full of healthy, tasty and easy-to-use foods, then it’s more likely you’ll eat well during the week. However, for many people the supermarket can be a minefield – too much choice, too many products and too little time to make informed decisions.
If you’re confused about how to select and use different vegies, which are the best (and easiest to cook) cuts of meats and what to do with fish? Then my guide to healthy shopping is the tour for you.
In the two sessions you will:
- Learn how to decode food labels
- Discuss how to plan and cook for yourself and a family
- Look at different foods and the best ways to cook them
- Hit the Gladesville shops, to find everything you need
Details:
- Dates – Saturday May 12th&Sunday May 13th*
- Times – Saturday 2.30pm – 4.00pm&Sunday 10.00am – 11.30am
- Venue – Source of Wellness clinic&the Gladesville Shopping Village
- Cost – $50 for the two days
- Bookings – email me@kathrynelliott.com.au
- Please note the second session, the nutrition tour, will take place at the Gladesville shopping village. This will be conducted in small groups only. Depending on enrolment numbers further dates will be made available for this session.
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31 March, 2007