Minicronnie

What's wrong with this picture?

2010-04-17T05:22:00.000-07:00

Holland and Barrett are a chain of stores selling wholefoods and supplements and they also publish Healthy magazine.On the front cover of this month's magazine is a mention of an article inside by celebrity chef Antonio Carluccio telling us that 'Carbs don't make you fat!' OK well that is a point of view but I don't think this advice is really coming from the right quarter as even Carluccio's greatest admirers would hardly describe him as svelte. Does anyone else see anything odd in this?

Who's Your Thin Friend?

2010-04-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

I attended a convention last weekend and met up with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, but I knew he had been slimming with a combination of healthier diet and exercise. It was good to see him looking trim and rather distinguished, and he said he felt better than he had done in years. Many people at that convention were considerably overweight, in fact there were several who would be counted as grossly obese, yet the rumour went around that my friend was ill, because he had lost weight, and nowadays in our increasingly obese society it is assumed that people only lose weight when they are ill. He had to make an announcement - 'yes it is me, no I am not ill'. Interestingly, people sometimes say to me 'oh I bet you can eat what you like and not put on weight' because of course if I was slim by some crazy chance that would absolve them of responsibility for their own weight. When I reply 'No, if I ate everything I wanted I would be enormous' they are rather shocked.

Times they are a-changing - slowly

2010-03-30T23:25:00.000-07:00

My local paper recently published a pudding recipe for Easter. The ingredients included 12 hot cross buns, 1 pint each of milk and double cream, 260g sugar, and 4 eggs. It was supposed to serve four people! This monstrosity, coming in at 1100 calories a portion and insane amounts of saturated fat was recommended to be served with clotted cream. I could write to them to mention this but I doubt it would do anything other than brand me a spoilsport and misery who begrudges people a once a year indulgence. I did however sometime ago write to a cookery magazine which regularly publishes healthy eating guidelines to point out that most of their recommended menus supply more calories and fat at one sitting than they suggest should be eaten in a whole day. Now I claim no credit for this at all, but the message seems to be getting across, so I am guessing that other people have written in as well. There was an editorial recently saying that there is more demand for healthy recipes, and they have started including these. One feature of the magazine is a menu recommendation which is a combination of recipes from that issue and this month there was one for a healthy supper. Not CRON, not by a long chalk, but it is progress, and we should be pleased at that.

One thing we do lack in the great mass of cookery magazines is one on healthy cooking and eating. There is a supposedly health-oriented magazine but it contains few recipes and seems mainly to be concerned with illnesses and therapies, chiefly expensive supplements. There are slimming magazines but their recipes are aimed at overweight people who can lose weight on a regime that would actually put weight on little me. I am sure there is a niche for those of us who are already slim and healthy and want to stay that way. Maybe I should drop someone a line?

I can procrastinate any time I like

2010-03-15T01:38:00.000-07:00

Life as we all know can be very busy and stressful. Even if we eat well we can create other problems which will impact our health. Procrastination is a false friend. Why put off what needs to be done, as it will have to be done sooner or later and better now than in a mad rush at the last minute? I am so very far from perfect on this, but I have developed a strategy which requires some discipline (and we all know about that, don't we?) but works for those situations when I need to get ready to go out. In a situation when I need to go out in say, an hour, I might feel that it will take me half an hour to get all the things ready that I need, and so I get on with those little jobs that I can do before I go. This is a trap. Either the jobs will overrrun and I will be late or, when the half hour slot comes around I find it all takes longer than I thought. Result - rushing about like a mad thing and getting stressed. Not good. This is where the discipline bit comes in. I make myself get eveything ready for going out first, so that all I need to do when the time comes, is put on my coat pick up my bag and go. Then, and only then do I start those enticing little jobs. When you analyse it, how many things actually have to be done at the last minute? Very few. I do the same thing when planning a meal. Everything that can be done in advance is done in advance. So the only things that I do at the last minute are the ones that can only be done at the last minute. As I said - I am far from perfect, but at least I know what I should be aiming for.

Pumpkinhead

2010-01-18T14:07:00.001-08:00

Pumpkin is such a neglected vegetable in the UK. Time was you would never see it until October, and that was only for carving lanterns. I wouldn’t be surprised if in some parts of the UK that was still true, but fortunately I can get it all year round. And what a fantastic versatile veg it is! It’s wonderful in savoury spicy dishes like curry and tagine, and its texture makes soups velvety. Of course there is Bob’s wonderful pumpkin pie recipe but did you know that the combination of pureed pumpkin, spices, evaporated milk and the sweetener of your choice can be churned to make a fabulous ice cream?
I have also made a pumpkin hummus, substituting mashed pumpkin for half the chickpeas. Chickpea and pumpkin mash also appeared as a topping on my CRottage pie.
I think in the US it is available canned but I have never seen it canned here. I cut it in quarters and when I want some I microwave it till tender and then scoop out the flesh – that’s much easier than trying to peel it.

Bubba and me

2009-12-14T00:24:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long gap in postings - I haven't dropped off the radar - or off the wagon! Just very very busy and I like to do these postings justice by giving them a lot of thought and attention. Recently we (that is husband and self) acquired Bubba-kegs. We saw a friend with one and thought it was a good product. Basically it is a very large insulated mug. I like to have a mug of tea beside me as I work and with my Bubba-keg (I have the 1.5 litre size and G has gone for 2 litres) I need only do this once and then can sit in my upstairs office glugging as I work. The other advantage of not making frequent trips down to the kitchen is that I don't get importuned by our two cats who think that my presence there is to feed them. They have their own ideas about Ad Libitum feeding! To fill the keg I make up a large pot of green tea, and when it has infused I put half a sliced organic unwaxed lemon into the keg, then decant the tea into it and close the lid. There is a small sipping spout which can be kept covered when not being used. The contents stay hot for about 3 hours. Cold drinks will apparently stay cool for 12. Another good drink in this cool weather is hot vegetable broth, but I intend to ring the changes a lot. I could also make up a big vegetable casserole for lunch but I would have to unscrew the lid to eat it - not a big problem. I am sure there are many products of this kind, but this is the one I have tried, and it suits me very well!

It's not just about food

2009-08-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

While a healthy diet is a vital ingredient in feeling youthful there are other things of importance. I have just spent ten days up at the Edinburgh Fringe festival working as a volunteer for a company that manages a venue. I worked in the kitchen, the cafe, box office, and did cleaning and leafleting. Most of the other volunteers were young enough to be my grandchildren. I spent a lot of my time on my feet, did miles of walking and running up and down stairs. I also ate like a horse - and arrived home weighing slightly less than when I went! So not CRd for that time. (Back on the straight and narrow as sson as I got back) But the huge buzz I got from the vibrancy of the place and the massive engery and enthusiasm was like an injection of youth!

On another subject - I have a small garden, and while I suppose I could fill it with vegetables I choose not to. I do grow fresh herbs, but I can get organic veg from the local farmers' market. In my garden there are flower beds, a rockery, hanging baskets and containers. It is a garden to give peace and visual pleasure. I enjoy being there and just pottering around tending to it. I am sure the feeling of contentment I get from the garden and also the gentle exercise contribute to my longevity as well as my diet.

At last - the CRONish pasty!

2009-08-15T02:52:00.000-07:00

That traditional English dish the Cornish pasty is a nutritional mightmare. The filling isn't too bad, mainly vegetables with a little lean meat, but the surrounding pastry can add 450 to 750 calories per pasty depending on thickness, in the form of white flour, butter and lard. If you were an impoverished tin miner toiling 12 hours a day underground this may well have been the best you could get, but not now! I experimented using bread dough to replace the pastry - fiddly and not ideal. Then I hit on the solution - low carb tortillas. I used Mama Lupe's as that is the only brand I can get in the UK - by post from the low carb megastore. 60 calories each. Make your filling - my favourite so far is mashed sweet potato with chopped steamed leeks and grated Leskol (fat-free cheddar is something we can only dream of over here, and unlike soft cheeses you can't really make it at home). Put the filling on the tortilla - leave enough space so you can press the edges together. Now brush the edges with liquid eggwhite and press together. Pierce the pasty with a fork to let the steam out, put on a plate and microwave till hot.

My little furry friends

2009-08-03T12:54:00.001-07:00

I adore kiwi fruit and I have always peeled them, then recently I read about there being a lot of nutrients in the peel. I looked at the peel. Not very appetising and some varieties are actually furry. Still, I washed them carefully and gave it a go. And do you know it was OK. A coarse brush will smooth out the furry ones. Not only do I no longer have the chore of peeling the slippery little things, but a kiwi has become an easily portable snack. And they're only £1 for a bowlful on the market!

The spice of life

2009-06-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of recent discussion on the subject of variety in food and drink, the general conclusion being that the more varied and delicious and interesting it is, the more one eats. The thing is that for so many of us even those on CRON, food is not just fuel, it is a pleasure, and we intend that it should remain so! But there are other ways to get variety without over eating. Friends often comment on the many kinds of herbal teas and infusions I have in my cupboard - right now I am sipping white tea scented with blackcurrant - I also love to use fresh herbs, and spices, and some of the wonderful low calorie organic relishes I get on the farmers' market. Even if my usual lunch is a big bowl of salad it doesn't have to be the identical salad every day or the same flavour dressing. And I love to plunge my fork into the salad bowl knowing that what comes up will be a little different each time.

Clams

2009-05-11T06:29:00.000-07:00

Inspired by April's recipes using canned clams I have done my best to track down this elusive item in London. So far no luck at all. If anyone has seen any anywhere let me know! Mr Google has not been able to provide on this occasion. Today I went to a deli in Hampstead which does some American products and got a jar of clams. They cost £4.35 for 285g and the label was in Italian but as far as I can see they are bottled in broth. They probably contain far too much salt. I shall have to experiment.

Chocolate drops

2009-05-01T02:21:00.000-07:00

Take two teaspoons good quality cocoa powder, stir in three teaspoons Walden Farm zero calorie pancake syrup or chocolate sauce to a stiff paste. Put drops on a sheet of non stick paper - I just ease them off the tip of a spoon with a knife. Put in freezer, eat from frozen. About 1.5 calories each.

Choca choca choca choc me

2009-04-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

I love chocolate, the darker the better, but of course it comes with a price - calories. So I wondered how to overcome this. The sweetener was easy but it is the fat content of chocolate that makes it solidify, so I thought of an alternative calorie-free way of making solid chocolate. This is a work in progress and improvements may come along but here is where I am at right now. To make six sugar free low fat chocolates - take 2 teaspoons best cocoa, two teaspoons fat free yogurt, two teapoons calorie free chocolate syrup (I used Da Vinci brand - in the UK this is available by post from the Low Carb Megastore) Mix to a paste. Put a sheet of non stick paper onto a small plate. Drop six blobs of the mixture onto the paper. Put the chocolates into the freezer. When frozen they are ready to eat. Eat from frozen.

Timing is everything

2009-03-25T01:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted anything. Very busy with all sorts of stuff and some jobs just seem to fall out of the edges if you know what I mean. I have had a lot of thoughts about timing of meals and I have personally found it very helpful to have meals at set times of the day. It does help my system to learn when food is going to arrive. It also helps me if I feel hungry because I can look at the clock and say - oh it is 90 minutes before my next meal. Then I go make myself a nice cup of green tea to sip, and busy myself with a job (lots of those!) and the time just zips by. Sometimes I make my meals a couple of hours in advance, so when I go to the fridge there is a big box of fresh salad waiting for me at the right time. This means that the meal is actaully put together at a time when I am not hungry, so I can focus on what I am preparing with a little more equanimity! This season has been very bad for squashes and I really miss the spaghetti squashes I used to be able to get. I hope this coming year is better. I have just found a good recipe for 'spaghetti' made by steaming very finely cut runner beans and serving them with cherry tomatoes. This looks like a 'must make'!

CR - UK - on the TV

2009-02-11T00:11:00.000-08:00

There is a prgramme on 17 February BBC1 at 10.35pm - it is part of series with Michael Mosley and this episode is about life extension. He will be including CR. I have seen his programmes before so I am pretty sure he will conclude that CR works but is hard for the average person to follow. (Of course I have always known that CRers are a pretty special bunch of people) He is a very good presenter and I am sure the programme will result in increased interest.

Keeping my feet

2009-02-05T00:29:00.001-08:00

The last thing I want is a fall on slippery pavements, where the recent snowfall has been trampled into a slick shiny surface. So I take fairly elaborate precautions. I don't go out unless I really need to. (One of the many luxuries of retirement!) If I do, I dress in lots of layers including a quilted coat, and I also wear hiking boots, heavy, tough and waterproof, with ridged soles. I have also bought a hiking pole for extra security. And of course I avoid walking on the ice where possible even if it means taking a bit of a circuitous route around patches.

Cocktail time

2009-01-26T05:56:00.000-08:00

I don't know why but drinks just seem to taste better from a cocktail glass, and there is something about the glass itself that makes me want to sip more slowly. Cocktails don't have to have alcohol - or even many calories! Pour some of your favourite flavoured water into a glass and spritz it up with something interesting, a dash of lime, a pinch of spice, a drop of tabasco, a mint leaf. Add ice if liked. Now sip with an air of refined elegance.

Tagine

2009-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Tagine is one of those dishes to be avoided in restaurants. Browned lamb - honey on top - well, you get the idea. But the delicious flavour can be recreated at home in a CR-friendly fashion. I used Quorn chunks, though it would work well with chicken, turkey or a firm vegetable that won't disintegrate if simmered. Put enough of your main ingredient for four people in a pan. (I leave these quantities up to you) Add an onion and three cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Add a pinch of saffron, a knob of root ginger peeled and finely grated, a tablespoon of tomato puree, 1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds, half a teaspoon ground coriander seed, and half a cinnamon stick. For sweetness I use dried apricots (a good source of Vitamin E iron and potassium). Add as many or as few as you wish, but first cut them up with scissors into raisin size pieces, so they will plump up well as they cook. Add some low-salt or salt free seasoning and some freshly ground pepper. Pour on some water - enough to allow that it will have to simmer for half an hour. Bring gently to a boil and cook slowly for 30 minutes, during which time the aromas will perfume your kitchen. Serve with a green vegetable or leafy salad on the side.

Spicy new year

2009-01-04T23:00:00.000-08:00

Happy 2009 to everyone! I have the usual resolutions, of course. May we all achieve what we have set out to do. Here is a nice warming spice mix for the cold weather. 1 clove garlic, finely grated, 1 small piece root ginger finely grated, zest 1 lemon finely grated, (I use a microplane grater which does a really good job) small handful of coriander (cilantro) chopped, half to 1 tespoon harissa - I used the Sainsburys harissa rose rub which is a dry mix without oil. Mix well, and loosen with a little water or lemon juice if needed. Spread over fish fillets or whatever you like before steaming or microwaving.
I love ginger tea and find the soft pulp created by the microplane gives the best result, just add hot water and a little sweetener.

Ophelia's lasagne

2008-12-17T03:02:00.000-08:00

There is an expression used for things that are missing an essential element - they are like Hamlet without the Prince. If that is the case I have been making Ophelia's lasagne as it has no pasta. Some time ago I made lasagne as a party dish and realised that it had so many colourful and delicious vegetables there was no point in adding pasta to it. When I first made that particular recipe I needed a lot of mushrooms and didn't have enough so topped up the volume with butternut squash. It was a wonderful addition both in flavour and texture so now I always put butternut squash into the mix. There is also eggplant (aubergine) and red peppers. I steam the veg, then layer them in a baking dish with onion and garlic passata. The topping is quark (any fat free soft cheese would do) mixed with chopped spinach, and a little parmesan for flavour - you don't need much. I think I might experiment in future using spinach or kale leaves to create a pretty layer with the other veg, and maybe broccoli steamed and chopped would mix well with the quark.

Morocco bound

2008-12-16T00:40:00.000-08:00

I love the warm spicy flavours of Moroccan food. Recently the spice mix harissa has become more available but usually it is in oil. I have found that Sainsbury's now do a dry mix, harissa and rose rub. Hopefully other stores will catch on that not everyone wants their spices in an oily paste. I find adding a teaspoonful when making a vegetable soup really gives it a lift! The ingredients are coriander seed, dried red pepper, garlic, cumin seeds, caraway seed, paprika, chilli, sea salt, black pepper, dried rose petals and mint. Lovely stuff for those cold winter days.

Scary movies

2008-12-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

The scariest things I have seen in a long time are the cookery videos of Paula Deen. There was the pie filled with melted chocolate marshmallows and cream and topped with a huge cone of whipped cream which Paula said was ‘so light’ you could almost believe it had no calories. Gosh really?
Then there was the French toast made from croissants dipped in eggs and heavy cream and fried then covered with bananas in syrup. ‘Makes you almost weep, doesn’t it?’ said Paula. Well, yes it did. For ultimate ghastliness however, the video of her eating a burger, fried egg and bacon between two iced donuts really takes some beating. The amazing thing about these recipes is that people are commenting on the food network website saying that they have tried them and they are now a family favourite.
I have to say when I first saw Paula I did wonder if she was for real. After all there is the redoubtable Jolene Sugarbaker and her trailer park cookery – now Jolene is the alter ego of a male comedian and great fun to watch as long as you don’t try the recipes (I think some people do) - but I can find nothing to suggest that Paula is anything other than a real person who actually means us to eat her sugar cream pie and fried butter balls.
This really is the Texas Cholesterol Massacre.

National Curry Week

2008-11-25T01:04:00.001-08:00

This week is national curry week in the UK. Pretty much always that in this house! On the weekend I had some time to cook and did a light chicken curry with onions garlic ginger, mustard seed and a whole host of other spices. I served it with a dish of shredded mixed greens cooked with nigella seed and curry leaves, a grated cauliflower pilau steamed with whole spices and saffron, and fresh coriander and mint chutney. My version of this chutney is to take a good big handful fresh coriander (cilantro) about half the amount of fresh mint leaves, a hot green chilli deseeded and chopped, and a 1 cm piece peeled chopped fresh ginger, and puree in a food mill with a little water, adding some lemon or lime juice to taste. This will keep in the fridge for about two weeks and adds quite a bit of oomph to just about anything. To make a milder sauce, just stir it into some plain yogurt.

Another birthday

2008-11-15T10:58:00.000-08:00

My CRON birthday, that is. Two years old today. When I started I never knew where it would lead me and never knew how long it would last. Whatever happens, whether or not I actually gain some years of life, I know that the experience has been massively positive. I have gained so much in health and appearance, and feel so much better about myself. I am lucky in having a supportive partner, who although he is not CRd will happily share CR friendly meals. It feels good and it feels right.

Brrrr!

2008-11-13T03:59:00.001-08:00

I am reminded right now of the old pun, ‘winter draw(er)s on’. November in London is cold wet and gloomy with grey overcast skies. (Yes I am making sure to get my vitamin D) I have always, even before CRON felt the cold more than most and being cold makes me miserable and bad tempered. So I am cold-proofing myself this winter with some nice thermal silk underwear. Not glamorous, but it fits like a second skin under even the most fashionable clothes. I find the size aimed at a 12 year old child is a very good fit, and of course this makes the price very reasonable!

Curry

2008-11-06T02:59:00.000-08:00

We Brits love curry, it's sort of a national favourite dish having overtaken fish and chips ages ago. It can be very oily but it doesn't have to be if you make it at home. Last night we had breast of chicken in a light curry sauce with a side dish of casseroled courgettes (zucchini) okra, and peppers flavoured with garlic, nigella seed and lovage seed, a chunky tomato and cucumber salad and a fresh chutney made from blending coriander (cilantro) mint ginger and lemon juice. As you see I have translated British terms into American! One of the useful things I learn from watching American cookery programmes on TV is the equvalent names of some ingredients. For example I was able to confirm recently what I suspected, that April's favourite napa cabbage is the same vegetable as my favourite Chinese cabbage. But I can always learn from the most unlikely sources, even cooks who provide the most calorific recipes can give me tips on attractive presentation or combinations of herbs and spices. I do like the programmes of Ellie Krieger - my husband calls her 'the low-fat contessa' - her recipes are not CR'd of course, but she emphasises healthy ingredients and careful portion control of high calorie foods, which is a huge improvement on many people's standard diet, and many of her methods are CR-friendly. I recently saw her do panini using portabella mushrooms in place of bread. Way to go!

Minty Fresh

2008-10-21T01:26:00.000-07:00

Recently in a restaurant I saw Moroccan style mint tea on the menu. I checked if it was sweetened and was told it was not, so I ordered it. It arrived in an elegant Moroccan teapot stuffed with fresh mint leaves and one teabag. It was delicious! I have had mint tea made with dried mint lots of times before but this was a flavour revelation. I went out to the market and bought a bunch of fresh mint and have been drinking mint tea ever since. I find it works very well with green tea also. It is so zingy that it is amazingly safisfying. You need quite a bit of mint - a few leaves will not give the full effect. Now all I need is an elegant Moroccan teapot. Fresh mint isn't always available on the market so maybe I will establish my own mint garden - in a container of course as I know it can spread out of all control if not in a pot by itself!

Hi and Lo

2008-09-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

The high vs. low protein debate has kicked off again, not that it ever really went away or is likely to for some time to come. Since people don’t fundamentally change it reminds me of the debate that went on between British doctors in the late 19^th century on the action of chloroform. English doctors said that chloroform affected the patient’s heart and it was essential to monitor the pulse. Scottish doctors said it didn’t affect the heart but the respiration and monitoring the pulse was a dangerous distraction that could kill the patient. The arguments became quite abusive! It was like a kind of warfare in which people sat at opposite ends of a field lobbing the occasional missile. ‘No man’s land’ was exactly that, they just didn’t meet in the middle. Many years passed and many people died under chloroform before the matter was finally resolved by the invention of modern monitoring equipment. Most of the protagonists were dead by then so at least no-one had the embarrassment of admitting he had been wrong (or the task of trying to prove he was still right.) Historically I know that it is not always the person who shouts loudest, or is best qualified, or the one who believes in something with an incandescent passion who is proven to be right. Only time can determine that. The famous Baron Lister was never going to agree with humble Dr Clover about how to deal with a choking patient, (he described Clover’s advice as ‘pernicious’), but time has awarded the palm to the quieter man. On the current debate, I have read the posts and the articles to which they refer, and have sufficient education to be able to follow quite a lot of what is being said. I can see that both sides are arguing from different kinds of studies and different sets of data but how much weight to give to the different studies and how to interpret them is beyond my capability. That is something I have to leave to the experts, and of course the experts disagree. The matter is so crucial that I would have thought that a conference on that subject alone might be the way to go, though attendees should beware of the shrapnel!

Oh and the chloroform thing? Both sides were right, it affects both the heart and the respiration depending on how it is used.

Another makeover

2008-09-29T02:57:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from a book of healthy slimmers recipes so it didn't need too much tweaking. Take 225g crisp cabbage, and 100g onion, finely chopped, and steam until tender. Add to 450g lean minced turkey, and season with thyme and sage for that really British taste! If you are worried that meatballs will fall apart, bind with eggwhite. Make about 20-22 small meatballs and put in a pan with 1 bay leaf, a tablespoon of tomato puree and some flavourful broth. Bring to a simmer and cook until done. The added cabbage and onion makes them really juicy and tender.

Lotsa mozza

2008-09-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ok here is the gig about making fat-free mozza - use fresh milk. Heat it gently adding in the citric acid. One and half teaspoons citric acid dissolved in 1/4 cup water to each gallon milk. (I finally tracked down citric acid in an Indian grocers, it is used for making paneer) When the milk is just below blood heat, about 88F it will begin to curdle. Now add the rennet - 1/4 teaspoon liquid dissolved in 1/4 cup water- and stir gently for about 30 seconds then heat to between 100 and 105F. Maintain that heat and in about 5-8 minutes you will have a smooth shiny curd and a lot of clear whey. Turn off the heat. Scoop out the curds into a microwave safe bowl pouring off as much of the whey as possible. (There will be lots) Microwave the curds for about 1 minute then stir well to distribute the heat. Microwave again about 30 seconds and stir again. Do this one more time at which point you could add either salt or any seasoning you like (the recipe says 1 tsp non-iodised salt). The curd should be stretchy, if not heat again. Roll into about 4 balls and put in iced water for half an hour for the best texture. The original recipe was made with full fat milk, but I still got a nice ball of mozza and it melted over some courgettes in the microwave.

Mozza misery

2008-09-11T03:35:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at making fat free mozzarella has resulted in a mass of rubbery grains. The recipe says that this might happen with some brands of milk, so I have to get a different kind and try again. On the bright side I have been experimenting with some of Anjum Anand's delicious recipes. She has re-invented Indian cooking with a light fresh touch, very flavourful, easily made CR-friendly. I am enjoying the fresh coriander and mint chutney with strips of sweet fresh red pepper.

Makeover

2008-08-31T01:52:00.000-07:00

Like many keen CR cooks, I often do a makeover on recipes I get from books and magazines. I used to like those big one-pot dishes with rice, but nowadays I tend to use grated cauliflower instead of rice which is easy as a side dish but as an ingredient means I have to tweak things a bit as it doesn’t absorb water and takes less time to cook. Here’s how I did a makeover recently. I started with a standard recipe for Spanish pork and rice. First I substituted chicken breast for the pork. (This would also work well with Quorn). The liquid required was a combination of chopped tomatoes in juice and vegetable stock. Most of this would be absorbed by rice, but as I was using cauliflower I reduced the liquid but not the flavour by using half a crumbled vegetable stock cube (organic low salt) instead of the stock. The cubed chicken, chopped garlic, sliced red peppers and onion were simmered in the tomatoes plus stock cube until about done, (thus omitting the original recipe’s suggested initial browning in 3tbs olive oil!) then I stirred in the grated cauliflower, added some drained water-canned artichoke hearts (the original recipe used ones from a jar in oil) and cooked gently for five minutes more until the cauliflower was done, the sauce thick and the artichokes heated through.

Gannet

2008-08-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is, I know illusory but I feel as if I have spent the last 9 days eating at twice my normal rate! This is because I have been working as a volunteer with a venue management company at the Edinburgh Fringe. I worked shifts in the kitchen rushing about with trays of food and also walked miles around Edinburgh. The food was provided to volunteers for free and every day there were big cauldrons of soup made from fresh vegetables, also lots of veggie casseroles and bakes. So it was possible to eat pretty healthily. But my energy expenditure was huge! So not CR'd but I do feel that the sheer buzz of Edinburgh at Festival time and being surrounded with so many young creative people had a rejuvenation effect all of its own. It was a fantastic experience and if anyone is keen to sample what the Fringe has to offer without breaking the bank (accommodation and many of the shows were also free to helpers) it can recommend it!

The meeja

2008-08-15T01:31:00.001-07:00

I was contacted recently by someone wanting to interview a CR'd woman prefereably aged 25-45 in the UK for a magazine article. Obviously I am way out of the age range, but I thought I would ask anyone out there if they might be interested. If you are let me know and I will pass on the journalist's details. She writes for magzines like Marie Claire etc.

Patty pan delight

2008-08-09T01:19:00.001-07:00

Apologies for not posting recently - I can only plead the hectic and exhausting life of a retired person! Last autumn I loved experimenting with the many varieties of little squashes I was able to get on the farmers' market and have felt a bit bereft over the spring, however the first little disc shaped patty pan or summer squashes have arrived and I have been able to try something I had on mind - quiche. They are so lovely and tender you can eat the lot - even the thin skin and soft little seeds. I steamed one, then cut it across into two discs. I then scooped out the centre and mashed it with herbs, tomato paste and a few chopped olives. (There have to be a gazillion variations on this) Then as the mixture is a bit watery I added a teaspoon of powdered eggwhite. The mixture was put back in the cases and microwaved until set, which didn't take long. Hey presto, quiche without the pastry!

Easy peasy lemon cheesy

2008-07-03T03:48:00.000-07:00

I tried three more shops to get citric acid without any success. In the end I went to the market and got lemons, 7 for £1. At one shop (the local Boots the Chemist, and I know they used to sell citric acid as many years ago I worked for Boots as a dispenser) they said they didn’t stock it any more as people were buying it and using it for the wrong things. I wasn’t sure what those things could be, but as usual Wikipedia had the answer. Golly gosh. Hope no-one thought I wanted it for that reason! Anyway I have my lemons now and if the cheesemaking works out and I want to do it regularly I can always get citric acid online from a homebrew supplier. At least no-one looked at me strangely when I bought seven lemons.

I tried the simpler recipe first, it is called superquick ricotta, and the online recipe stipulates 1 gallon milk, 1 tsp citric acid dissolved in ¼ cup cool water and 1 tsp cheese salt which is optional. In my version I estimated I would need 5 teaspoons of lemon juice for a quarter of that quantity. I started by zesting two lemons and squeezing all the juice. (I had other uses for the zest and excess juice) I poured 1 litre of skim milk into a pan, and whisked in two tablespoons of skim milk powder to give it more body. I then added 5 tsps lemon juice, put the meat thermometer in place, (I thought I would have to hold it but it propped quite neatly against the handle of the pan) and started to heat the mixture gently stirring with a plastic paddle so it wouldn’t burn. I watched as the temperature rose gradually to the required level according to the recipe (185-195F). Hmm – at 195F I had a nice pan of lemony milk. I added some more juice, about another teaspoonful, and hey presto the mixture broke into curds and whey. I turned off the heat. The mixture has to sit for ten minutes and this gave me time to cut a square of butter muslin and line a strainer over a colander. Ten minutes later I ladled the curds and whey into the muslin. It didn’t take long to drain and I stirred in a quarter of a teaspoon of low salt seasoning. It is supposed to drain for something like 30 to 45 minutes but I found it didn’t take as long, I suppose it is all a matter of the texture you want and I was looking for a soft cheese. The recipe says that if you want a firm cheese you can tie up the cloth into a bag and hang it from a hook.

This idea brought back hugely nostalgic memories, of when I was a small child and my mother bought unpasteurised milk and let it sour naturally in a big bowl. Sometimes she would tie it in a cloth and hang the cloth from the kitchen taps. When I was in my teens I remember some student friends deliberately allowing their bottled pasteurised milk to sour and then eating the curds out of sheer nostalgia for their mothers’ homemade soured milk. I did explain the difference between naturally soured raw milk and milk that has simply gone off, but they didn’t want to know.

But I digress.

I have chilled the cheese in the fridge and it is fairly dry and crumbly (perhaps it would be moister if I only heated it to 185F?) but with a good very fresh taste, different enough from the products I can buy to make me want to make this again. The faint tang of lemon is rather good! I found I could make it a bit moister by adding a little skim milk. It would be heavenly with sliced strawberries. I might try using it with eggwhites to make a cheesecake.

Oh – and the extra zest and juice? I simmered them gently for about 15 minutes until the zest was soft, topping up with a little water when necessary. I then cooled the mixture and used it with a few drops of culinary lemon oil, as a flavouring for ice milk. But that’s another story.

Please cheese me, oh yeah.

2008-06-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

This homemade cheese stuff is amazingly healthy. Not that I have made any of it yet, but I have had some really good exercise footslogging from shop to shop trying to get the equipment and ingredients I need! I found the recipes on the internet and I deliberately chose the ones designated as easy. The first requirement was a dairy thermometer, or at least for the ricotta recipe one that would read 185 to 195 degrees and for the mozzarella, between 55 and 145. Problem number one – there are two sorts of cooking thermometers easily available; one for confectionary which records really high temperatures, and one for meat which goes from about 100 to 200 F which was the one I got. So I am OK for part of the range but for the lower temperatures it will be a clean fingertip, and a spot of luck. Luckily the recipe does describe what the mixture should be doing at various stages, so that will be my guide. Cheesecloth was hard to get but I managed it at the fourth shop.

I never thought I would get rennet but I finally tracked it down. The one thing I still haven’t got is citric acid, but Wikipedia tells me that lemon juice is 5% citric acid so I will have to use that for the time being. I didn’t even bother to look for cheese salt, which sounds very specialised, and is supposed to be optional anyway.

Both the recipes stipulate using whole milk, but of course I will be using skim, and I may decide to whisk in some powdered skim milk to increase the yield.

Phew! Now I am too tired to make the cheese.

Drop Zone

2008-06-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

I have just stepped on the scales with some trepidation as I have been away for a few days but thankfully it has not resulted in a weight gain. Always tricky when you are not in a position to cater for yourself. I usually reckon that holidays mean a choice between being CRd by just eating less at the cost of not being ONd, or going for good quality food and accepting that I will not be CRd. So far the latter course has worked out as I am pretty active on hols so burning more calories than usual, and it was after all only for a few days, on the first of which I took packed food of my choice. This was another of our battlefield tours, the follow up to the Normandy beaches one we did last year, this one being Arnhem and the Rhine crossings. It was excellent and I learned a great deal. I think the highlight was Remagen, where there is a wonderful museum located in one of the original towers of the bridge. We were in Holland for two days and Germany for two. I don’t know if either of the hotels was typical, so can only comment on what we found. The breakfast buffet in Holland included a good selection of fresh fruit as well as yogurt and quark. The cereals tend to be refined, but for those who eat bread, there is good coarse wholemeal and rye often with sunflower seeds. Obviously I avoided the cooked breakfast in both countries! In Germany it was trickier as there was no fruit at breakfast and just plain yogurt but there was coarse bread, and one morning boiled eggs. Lunch was pretty easy as it is possible in hotels restaurants and supermarkets in both countries to get really good crisp fresh mixed salads. I can find my way around a German menu without any problem but in Holland we had some difficulty as neither of us speaks Dutch, and some restaurants don’t have a menu in English. In one really beautiful place we found a helpful waitress who did her best to translate for us. I pointed to an item on the menu. ‘What is this?’ She gave it a long hard consideration and eventually said ‘It is - part of a cow.’ No further elaboration was forthcoming. I decided to go for the vegetarian option and it was a good choice, a big platter of vegetables and chickpeas in a spicy tomato sauce, with far more couscous than I could eat. Being Holland it also came with a sort of egg and cheese bake on the side, which I had a taste of. We had a set dinner for two nights in Germany so I simply had to be a bit careful, but we did get a good salad, plenty of vegetables, and tomato and vegetable soups. I am sure I ate far too much on those occasions but was able to adjust later! In the end it is not about what one does on any particular day but what one does overall. Back home I have raided the markets for vegetables salads and fruit, and have settled back into my normal healthy CRON diet. No temptation to depart from it! After all, as I said to my other half when we were in a cafe getting coffee ‘that chocolate pastry twist looks good, but not as good as the way my jeans fit’.

Bookends

2008-06-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

I have read The CR Way with great interest, and now I am hoping that MR will someday be able to produce a book with his own views of how CR should be practised. Then I will be able to buy it, study it and put it on my bookshelf; but at the opposite end to Paul’s book as the fizzing and crackling that would go on between them if they were placed together could be distracting. I read what both Paul and MR say on the CRON daily list, I plough through the archives, (not as easy a task as one might think, as following the long threads of debate sometimes blurs exactly who is speaking, but I think I can make sense of it) and of course the differences are obvious. A recent comment on the raw food/cooked food issue added another item of divergence, but the main one as far as I can see is the question of protein. If I followed Paul’s guidance I would consume 0.8gm per kg body weight, that’s 32.8g a day, or approximately 11% of my total calories. MR on the other hand advocates at least 1.5g per kg for AL people and believes there are good grounds for 2g per kg for CRd people. Following MR’s advice I would be eating 82g of protein a day which would be just over 27% of my calories. This is a huge difference, and when one lives at the cutting edge where every calorie must do its job or be evicted from my diet, the choice achieves measures of importance unheard of by those whose greatest dietary decision is whether to have another beer.

The problem is that while in the CR society mailings it is possible even for the ignorant layperson to winnow out the anecdotally based theories from the ones with sound scientific underpinnings, the whole area is so vibrantly a work under construction, that differences will happen (and boy, do they happen!) even amongst those whose opinions I respect, and who know more about CR than I will ever know – in other words, the very people to whom I look for my guidance. So here I am being pulled, protein-wise in two opposite directions.

In the meantime I look forward to the day when MR and April can find time in their incredibly busy schedules to encapsulate their practice of CR in a book, both the scientific side and the practical.

I have done some number crunching on CRON-o-Meter and it is possible to achieve my DRIs (or at least the average woman’s DRIs, which I have to use in default of being able to find out what mine are) on both a 11% and a 27% protein regime, so that at least is good news. The one thing I can’t do is get those DRIs from food alone on 1200 calories a day if I include any but the most modest amounts of cereals or legumes in my diet.

Nutty

2008-05-31T09:24:00.000-07:00

I love nuts, especially almonds, and it is great that they are so good for me, but of course they are very easy to eat in excess! I keep a pack of almonds in the refrigerator and when I have my mid morning snack (green tea and 7 almonds) I count them out and put the pack back so I am not tempted to have any more. Then of course they have been known to disappear in a few seconds! What a shame, they are so yummy I should be able to eat them more slowly and appreciate them more. Today I was working at the computer, green tea and a few almonds by my side, when I had an idea. I ate an almond and set an Outlook reminder for five minutes. Five minutes later, I ate another almond and set the reminder on snooze for five minutes more. And so on. As I was working, the time went pretty fast, and I was always surprised when the next reminder popped up! Nutty? You bet – but a slim healthy happy nutty.

Life, the CRONoverse and everything

2008-05-26T00:28:00.000-07:00

Recent discussions on the CRS mailing list have reinforced what I was writing earlier. There is a sense in which there are no answers. Sometimes the only thing everyone is agreed upon is that there is no answer and sometimes there are very definite answers – several of them – and conflicting. The alcohol question, for example. Some say no, it’s empty calories and potentially addictive; some say yes in moderation, with study evidence to back it up. And then there is the protein question – two ends of the spectrum, two dedicated people, two opinions.

The only thing we in the middle can do is study and read everything, and try to understand as well as we can and then make our own decisions. This sounds daunting, after all it’s not about what colour to paint the front door, it’s about our lives. But of course we have already made the biggest decision we can – we are no longer putting junk food in our bodies, we concentrate on moderate amounts of fresh wholesome foods, try to ensure we get all our essential nutrients, and endeavour to keep fit. That in itself has huge value, and we are giving our bodies far more consideration than most other people. We can all see the benefits -- less visceral fat, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol. So at the moment we are all right, in a kind of global way.

Gulliver's Travels

2008-05-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

When I was a child I read Gulliver’s Travels many times, and while the best known parts and the ones most frequently filmed are the voyages to the land of little people and giants, my favourite, (because I was a horrid little swot) was always the third part, the voyage to Laputa, especially the satires on scientific endeavour.

CRON is for me like a voyage of discovery, in which I have visited strange places, encountered some remarkable people and heard many theories. And I still have a long way to go. How often have I seen people new to CRON write in and ask for a handy guide as to what to eat, or even a diet sheet? There is no such thing. Even those who have been practising CRON for many years disagree about how it should be done. In fact as far as I can see the only two things all CRers agree upon are that you have to restrict calories and get all your nutrition. If you fail in either of these you are not doing CRON. As to whether the proportion of protein should be high or moderate, whether for or against supplements, for or against artificial sweeteners, for or against exercise and if so how much and what kind, tofu or not tofu, the CR Way vs. the MR Way, - debates rage and will probably continue to do so for some time. The whole field is in a state of flux, and meanwhile, the beginner finds some very convincing material on nutrition published in books or on the internet and follows it only to find out that either the writer is not regarded as an authority by the CRON community or the research is last year’s (or even decade’s) and has been superseded by new material. Even when research is current not everyone agrees on what weight to give it and if the experts can’t agree what chance is there for the rest of us. Now that the society archives are much easier to search, however, time can be well spent trawling through them to find recent entries on subjects of interest, but the threads must be followed through since what one posting says authoritatively can be shot down in flames by the next one. I read the mailing list every day and try to understand as much of it as I can. This does lead to the interesting situation when someone I know mentions a press article which gives a half-baked potted version of some nutritional information only to have me reply – ‘well, of course that is very simplified and not entirely accurate because what the original research actually said was...’ etc etc. That’s when their eyes glaze over and they edge towards the door. In the 18 months since I began I have learned a great deal, (by layperson’s standards only, of course!) and am still groping towards finding my own way. The teaspoon is poised, but which end will I choose to break my egg? And it has to be an individual thing. It’s not one size fits all, far from it. We are all built differently. My Lilliputian CRON will not be the same as another’s Brobdingnagian CRON, even though ultimately we all aim to be a high functioning struldbrug.

Superstars

2008-05-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

I have been remiss about providing more detailed values for foods and my only excuse is that since I retired from the day job I have been even busier than ever. Go figure.

Now just to recap – This is all about me. I have been trying to establish how to get my DRIs from 1200 calories a day. Regular readers will know that since the DRI tables are not adjusted for weight, mini-me’s DRIs are in many cases the same value as those for the average man twice my size, who is wallowing in the sybaritic luxury of consuming 2500 calories a day. The secret for those of us on fewer calories is not just to use those foods with good values of individual nutrients, but concentrate on the ‘star foods’ which do multiple duty for those nutrients which can be a problem. I never worry about vitamin A or C for example – with my intake of fresh veg I always get lots, and the only minerals I have to worry about are potassium selenium calcium and zinc – the rest I always get plenty of without any effort. What I am looking for are foods which give more, and preferably much more than 10% of my DRIs in 10% of my calories. If I concentrate on these it leaves me some leeway to include other foods which are less starry but still good. My first nomination is the humble mushroom. According to Cron-o-meter 545.5 grams of mushrooms contain 120 calories. The same quantity provides 16g of protein, impressive amounts of B vitamins, (only B12 is less than 10% of my DRI, it’s actually 9%) and 25% vitamin D. It provides 34% of my iron, 37% of my potassium, 92% of my selenium and 26% of my zinc. Now I am not going to sit down and eat 545.5g of mushrooms, but with those figures I know that they ought to be a staple in my diet and as it so happens I adore them!

My next nomination is asparagus. 120 calories worth of this yummy vegetable provides 13g protein, massive amounts of most B vitamins (but no B12) 45% of my Vitamin E, 12% calcium, 26% potassium, 25% selenium and 29% zinc. So bring on those juicy green stems! In fact most green vegetables can be counted as superstars, Swiss chard if you can get it (I see it rarely), kale, Brussels sprouts, pak choi, Chinese leaves, (is this the same thing as Napa cabbage in the US?), courgettes (zucchini in the US) broccoli, lettuce and even the humble cabbage. Spinach is great for potassium Vitamin E, zinc and most of the B vitamins, but I believe its calcium content is poorly absorbed. Celery is good for calcium potassium zinc and many B vits. And let’s not forget the cauliflower. Try inputting 480 g into cron-o-meter and comparing with 32.44g brown rice,(both 120 calories) then flip back and forth on the entries to compare nutrients. You’ll see why I use grated steamed cauli as an alternative to rice!

Another great star is tomatoes. 38% of my potassium, 10% zinc, 24% vitamin E and lots of B vits except 12, and of course all that lycopene. Red and green peppers are great for potassium zinc and vitamin E. And then there are pumpkin and butternut squash, for Vitamin E, potassium, and lots of B vits. Oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and sardines provide masses of B12 bang for your buck, as well as iron selenium and protein. Oysters too but I loathe the wretched things! Low fat dairy products also provide a lot of vitamin B12, with zinc, selenium protein and of course calcium. The only truly fat-free dairy products we can get in the UK as far as I am aware are quark, yogurt, and cottage cheese, but cottage cheese is not a calcium star - 8% only of my DRI for 120 calories.

No fruits are true superstars, but the best for vitamin E that I have found so far are Kiwi 19, peaches, 15, apricots and nectarines 14, raspberries and blackcurrants 13. For potassium, the figures are melon 20, kiwi 13, apricots strawberries peaches nectarines 12. And notice which ones are on both those lists. Apricots are not available fresh for much of the year, so I use organic dried ones and soak them overnight to add bulk.

More blueberries, but hold the Kreem-o-wip

2008-05-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

It has been said that England and America are two nations divided by a common language. This is certainly true when we talk about food. Not only do the same things have different names on either side of the pond e.g. aubergine (UK) = eggplant (US), but the same words are used for different things: ‘biscuit’ means something quite different in the US and UK. Unless someone has an interest in the food of all nations, however, I find that on both sides of the pond we are deeply ignorant of each other’s language of food. A friend of mine once spent ages scouring her local supermarkets for zucchini which an American pen-pal had told her were a healthy food. When she told me she had asked everywhere but couldn’t find any I had to tell her we call them courgettes. But why did neither of them know this? Why did the shop not know? Since we all correspond and talk on the subject I think we should try and find out. I mean, I don’t eat butter but I know how much there is in a stick, even though it isn’t sold in sticks in the UK.

Then of course there are some foods which are common on one side of the water but rare or unobtainable on the other. Quite a few varieties of greens on the food databases I have never seen on sale here, and the cheese buyer for the Kensington Wholefood store has just responded to my enquiry after fat-free mozzarella to say it isn’t available in the UK. (One US item I know I can now get here – the Oreo cookie has just been introduced to the UK. Gee – thanks.) I would like to make clam chowder but so far a complete lack of canned clams is proving a bit of a poser. If anyone spots some on sale, drop me a line. I am pleased to report however that blueberries, which used to be a rare luxury item are now readily available if wildly variable in price from week to week depending on country of origin. The odd thing is I believe they are grown in this country but I have never seen English ones on sale.

The worst problems recipe-wise come with branded products. This, I have to say is much less of a problem with CRON recipes as they tend to use a high proportion of fresh foods, but many American cookbooks use a lot of branded stuff as ingredients, much more so than English ones. I saw a review on the English Amazon site of a low calorie cookbook sold and bought in perfect good faith, which the buyer said she had found unusable as it was American and made extensive use of products unheard of over here and with no equivalent. You know the sort of thing I mean – ‘take one box of Mrs Bagel’s reduced fat blueberry waffle mix, a cup of Kreem-O-wip, a package of instant Choco-pud, one teaspoon Acme buttered popcorn flavouring’ - etc etc – I think the buyer of the book had a lucky escape - that sounds disgusting! (Actually I made up that example, but it’s not so far from the reality)

I am not sure what the answer to this is. CRON should be international. I know there is a feeling that the American terminology ought to be the standard one, and I can see why, but maybe the Wiki ought to have a table of ingredients with alternative names and suggestions as to what one might use if unable to get the item specified. At any rate, since we are an international organisation we should be sharing information with each other much better than we are. What do other people think?

The Sixth Boy

2008-05-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

It was hot in London today, and as I walked along High Holborn I remembered that I was approaching a shop selling good ice cream. Temptation reared its ugly head. I was hot and the ice cream was cold. It seemed like karma. Somehow I could picture the ice cream cone in my hand – I could feel the waffled texture on my fingers - I could sense the anticipation of the first taste – then I could taste it (it was chocolate flavour by the way) but somehow at the back of my mind there was a little nag of guilt. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it, I knew it wasn’t healthy. Not only that, but it was sweeter and gooier than anything I usually eat, in fact it wasn’t really as great as it should have been. Eventually it began to cloy and with nowhere to dispose of the blessed thing I had to go on eating it to the bitter/sweet end. Even the cone which I didn’t like at all. And then all I was left with was a sense that I had let myself down in a moment of weakness. It reminded me of the old fashioned Fry’s Five Boys advert. There is a series of five pictures of a boy going from stages of unhappiness, to expectation of a treat, to being pacified with chocolate to joy at the realisation it was Fry’s. I was the sixth boy, the stage that was negative, the realisation that I shouldn’t have given in to a whim and that all I had was regret and a lot of calories fat and sugar in my body that shouldn’t have been there. Now I didn’t actually buy or eat any ice cream! All those feelings were explored in my mind as I walked along. By the time I had reached that last stage in my mind, I didn’t want the ice cream. I think that most people eating just whatever they fancy actually never get to the sixth stage, or if they do, they get there after they have eaten the thing that tempts them. We have all heard people say ‘I shouldn’t really have eaten that – I’m on a diet/allergic/it upsets me etc etc’. The trick, of course, is to get to the negative stage of regret before and not after eating. And it is a trick. I have no idea if I can pull it off again, but I know I am going to try. I went home and ate some delicious cooling fresh fruit.

Spice Girl

2008-05-06T23:58:00.000-07:00

I have always loved spicy foods. I remember when I was about 5, someone gave me something spicy to eat as a joke thinking I would spit it out and was astonished when I thought it was yummy. I recall sampling some salsa made with scotch bonnet chillies at a food show, and a grinning man said 'too late' as I spooned it into my mouth. 'Mmmm' I said. 'It's quite tangy. Do you want to try some?' He went pale and backed away.
My special favourite is ginger. I have tried a number of ginger tisanes, but lately have been experimenting with making my own by steeping fresh root ginger. The real revelation was when I bought a microplane grater. Not the cheapest of kitchen tools but well worth it - it easily reduces the ginger to a soft pulp. I add hot water and some sweetener and that's it. Ginger heaven.

The Other Woman

2008-05-04T03:15:00.000-07:00

The other woman is 5ft 4 inches tall as compared with my 4 ft 10.5 inches. She weighs about 135 pounds as opposed to my 90, and eats 2000 calories a day compared to my 1200. I don’t know her name but I call her Mrs Average and she has haunted me all my adult life. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t want to be her, but I am well aware that the world is designed for her requirements and dimensions and I just have to try and fit in as best I can. She is of course the reference person for whom the DRI tables have been calculated. I wrote to the Food and Nutrition Information Center who produce the tables, and asked what the requirements were for little me. I am pretty much the same size as their reference 9-13 year old, but apart from telling me I couldn’t use those values for obvious developmental reasons, the only advice they could give me was to consult a nutritionist. Oh, thanks a bunch. It’s not impossible to get all Mrs Average’s DRIs in 1200 calories just from food, but should I be trying to? Are her DRIs really the same as mine? I don’t know, but I shall keep on banging away at this question until I have an answer.

On a more positive front, this retirement and being 60 years old stuff is pretty damn good. The only niggle at the back of my mind is that I might wake up one morning and find it was all a lovely dream, and I have to get up and go to work. Ugh! But this is a hell of an incentive to keep healthy and live long. If you are in your 20s and 30s retirement is about the last thing you think about, but this is just the time to start a pension scheme, put away whatever you can afford, and take care of your health, so that all those years later you can take full advantage of what life has to offer.

Sweet little 60

2008-04-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

It seems so long since I wrote, but life has been incredibly busy just recently and I always like to give my blogs some real thought before I write. The reason for my hectic activity is that I am now officially a lady of leisure - retired - and this, as far as I can see means that I am catching up on all the stuff I didn't have time for before, and am now busier than ever! Hopefully CRON will keep me fit and active as long as possible to enjoy all the time I have left. Will write more later. Must dash!

Hmmm

2008-04-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Response from the manufacturers about V8 ' . . . we received your message and appreciate your taking the time to contact Campbell Soup Company about our V8 Vegetable Juice.

Unfortunately, Campbell Soup Company does not analyze the Potassium and/or Vitamin E content in our products if we do not add them. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for visiting the V8 Juice website.

V8 Juice Web Team

Guesswork

2008-04-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

I thought I would do some guesswork on the 100% natural unfortified V8 using Cron-o-meter. I know from the pack it is 87% tomatoes, and the rest of the ingredients are always listed on packs in order of amount so I have assumed that the carrots are 5%, celery and beetroot 2% each and the rest 1% each.

This gives a calorie content per 100ml serving of 19.7 which is not far off what the pack suggests – about 20 cals.

120 calories worth of this product supply 32% of my RDA of potassium, 14% zinc, and 22% vitamin E, and impressive amounts of B vitamins. Not a superstar but still pretty good. As well as a drink (and its very good in hot weather with lots of ice) it is a good base for sauces and soups.

Apologies

2008-04-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

I want to retract the figures I just posted for V8 - the vitamin content I used which I saw on the internet, related to a variety which I didn't even know existed - probably not available in the UK, and which is fortified. (Thanks, Artemis for pointing this out) I wouldn't use a vitamin E fortified product. To the manufacturers Vitamin E = alpha tocopherol only while real food contains mixed tocopherols. So I am going to write to the manufacturers as I am keen to find out the natural vitamin E and potassium content of the 100% unfortified juice. I still think it is a handy product to have - plenty of lycopene, 8mg per 100ml and only 19 calories. The juices are tomato (87%) carrot celery, beetroot, parsley, lettuce, watercress and spinach. Pretty good and one way of getting more veg when my little tum can't cope with a huge plateful.

The big E

2008-03-26T03:34:00.000-07:00

I spent Easter weekend at a hotel event with all the possible dietary pitfalls that ensue. It wasn’t in the end, too bad. A good breakfast buffet will usually supply natural yogurt and fruit, and there was a buffet dinner which always included mounds of vegetables. I took emergency supplies of canned salmon, canned asparagus and almonds just in case! On my return I was convinced I had eaten too much over the weekend, and stepped on the scales in some trepidation this morning to find I had lost a few ounces. Not sure how I managed that.

Here is my champion Vitamin E list – values as before are the % of my RDA supplied per 120 calories which is 10% of my daily intake. V8 vegetable juice, 99, swiss chard 80, spinach 71, sunflower seeds 45, red peppers 41, almonds and broccoli 37, pumpkin 33, butternut squash 26 tomatoes 24. Almost in the super range are kiwi and hazelnuts 19, avocado 18. Scoring well, green peppers and lettuce 15, celery and apricots 14, aubergine (eggplant) 10.

Whoo hoo!

2008-03-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today was my last ever day in the office job (whoo hoo!) and from now on I can (whoo hoo!) get up each morning and (whoo hoo!) do whatever I want - which may (whoo hoo!) be work, but it will be work I want to (whoo hoo!) do, so it is not surprising that (whoo hoo!, whoo hoo! whoo hoo!) - sorry will get back to you when (whoo hoo!) I feel a bit more (whoo hoo! etc etc ) yippeee!

Pots of Potassium

2008-03-13T04:48:00.000-07:00

I often find at the end of the day that even after eating a big salad and an amount of steamed veg that would terrify the causal onlooker, I am finding it hard to make my RDA of potassium. I have a low salt condiment that helps a bit, but have to go carefully with it, as potassium chloride has a rather sickly taste to me. To make sure I get my RDA I find I have to focus on specific foods. So here are my champion potassium foods. Again, this is the percentage of my RDA per 120 calories (10% daily intake) worth. It is not an exhaustive list, only what I have tested so far, and if anyone can suggest other foods I have neglected, do let me know. Spinach 62, courgettes (zucchini) 56, pak-choi 49, V8 vegetable juice 45, celery 41, Chinese leaves 38, mushrooms 37, tomatoes 34, lettuce 33, cauliflower 31, asparagus 26, cucumber 25, aubergine (eggplant) 24, kale 23, Brussels sprouts 23, green peppers 22, broccoli 22, melons 20. Soya milk and cabbage are both 17, and in the 10 to 13 range are bean sprouts, kiwi fruit, skim milk, apricots strawberries and pomegranate juice. Nice to see a few fruits make the list. I’m sure you will have spotted that some of the foods on this list are also on the zinc list. I shall publish my Vitamin E list soon, and again there will be an overlap. Ultimately I will nominate my super-champion foods, the ones that double or treble up on those hard-to-get nutrients, and make those targets so much easier to achieve when on mini-me calories but the same RDAs as everyone else!

Buckets of zinc

2008-03-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

In my ongoing analysis of foods (by 120 cals worth, i.e. one tenth of my daily intake) my search has been to find good sources of those vitamins and minerals in which I can end up deficient if I take my eye off the ball. One of those is zinc. Now I know all about oysters. A few oysters contain enough zinc to make a bucket, the only problem being I find them repellent. I might experiment with a few canned ones, but I don’t want to get my nutrition from something I dislike if there are yummy alternatives. So far my results on zinc are as follows – and the figures I give here are the percentages of my RDA of zinc as provided by 120 calories worth of a food. So 10% plus is good and I rate 20% plus as very good.

Courgettes (zucchini) 59, asparagus 41, mushrooms 35, spinach 35, low fat feta cheese, 26, Chinese leaves, 22, mung bean sprouts 21, cucumber 20. (Fat free mozzarella is 29 but I can’t get it in the UK) Now I probably wouldn’t be able to eat 120 calories worth of cucumber (mind you, I ate 113 calories worth of cabbage today, and jolly nice it was, too) – these figures are a measure of how hard the food is working for me. Broccoli, lettuce, pumpkin, skim milk, cauliflower, chicken, Brussels sprouts, tofu, low fat mozzarella are all in the range 15-18, and in the 10-14 range we have oats, tomatoes, chickpeas, kale, quinoa, sunflower seeds, celery, red and green peppers, aubergines (eggplant), sardines in tomato sauce, tuna and cabbage. All these foods also supply good to excellent values of other essentials. I’m sure there are others I may have missed but this is a good start, and the best thing is, these are all foods I like a lot!

Wet, wet, wet

2008-02-24T01:25:00.000-08:00

As anticipated the mixture was too damp. The pancake idea worked well, we had it with soup for lunch, but the bread was too puddingy. However I have a few new ideas for the next iteration and will report back when I have perfected the recipe. Umm - vegetable pudding anyone? It's yummy - no honest, it is - (sigh).

Alien Bread

2008-02-23T05:37:00.000-08:00

This is my first experiment in making something vaguely like bread but with a better nutritional profile. So far the ingredients include wholemeal flour, grated courgettes (zucchini), skim milk powder and V8 vegetable juice. I’m using the dough-only cycle in my bread machine to mix it up. At the time of writing it has another 30 minutes to go and I have something that looks like off-green slurry. My other half says it reminds him of something out of Quatermass and the Pit. I am still wondering how to cook it and am toying with the idea of pouring the sludge into a pan and baking it on a very low temperature with foil on top so it doesn’t brown. On the other hand it does remind me of some of those fermented batters used for Asian flatbread and pancakes, so I could try some of it in a covered pan on the stove where it will steam. Wish me luck. If I write no more, the evil green-flecked slime will have got me.

There was an old woman who

2008-02-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

I was reminded the other day of a song that used to amuse me when I was a child – There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly – sung by Burl Ives. It ends up with her swallowing a horse with fatal consequences. I was thinking about this recently because I ate a whole cabbage. Now it wasn’t a real big huge cabbage but it was a cabbage, and I shredded it up and braised it in vegetable broth with mushrooms and garlic and ginger. I didn’t start with the intention of eating the whole thing but it was so delicious, and I loved the way the fine shreds wound around my fork like pasta. Amazing how, when you don’t add sugar to things their lovely natural sweetness comes through.

So I could do a variant of the old song.

‘There was a small woman who swallowed a cabbage.

She doesn’t eat garbage

She just swallowed a cabbage’

And the song ends

‘There was a small woman who just ate one course.

She’s CRON, of course’

Obviously a project to work on in my spare moments!

And now I’m off to bathe my face to stop me from blushing red ‘cos April says I’m cute!

Freaky-deaky

2008-02-18T23:52:00.000-08:00

Funny how this CRON business grows on you. Following my New Year resolution to monitor my nutrition better and identify the foods that work best for me, my meals, at least the ones I make for myself alone, have become odder but I have been getting to really like them. I call them my freaky-deaky CRON meals. Even the ones I make for myself and the other half are good healthful CR friendly meals but they look more normal! Yesterday, as I went to work with my boxed salad, tuna, almonds, yogurt and blueberries, I was thinking only of the meal I was going to cook that evening. Lots of steamed kale as a base – then lots of pumpkin on top – what next? One the way home I mentally added cherry tomatoes, and by the time I thought of hot sauce I was drooling with anticipation. Not hunger – anticipation of the delight that was to come. At home, a quick rummage in the vegetable drawer produced an organic leek, and that went into the tower too. Dessert was my fortified skim milk yogurt and strawberries.

I know a lot of people in the CR society don’t approve of juicing or smoothies, on the grounds that whole fruit and veg are better and I do understand this point of view, but for those of us with little tums, especially if gas is an issue, vegetable smoothies, as Kay rightly pointed out, are a good way of adding nutrients without exploding. My liquidiser is currently on the blink and needs replacing, but in the meantime I am glugging V8 vegetable juice which has an impressive nutrient profile and really helps me get my minerals and vits from food rather than rely on supplements.

Egg whites

2008-02-10T03:08:00.000-08:00

I have just spotted - and forgive me if I am giving old news - that the website www.twochicks.co.uk gives details of where to get their product in the UK and also some tips on using it, including how to hardboil in the microwave. Not that I am recommending anyone to make the meringues . . . .

Against the grain

2008-02-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

After a lot more work with CRON-o-Meter I can see why little people are often advised not to eat grains. If you are a big person on 1800-2000 calories a day you can fit in some wholegrains pretty easily, but on 1200 calories a day there isn’t really much room for something that doesn’t provide serious nutrition, and grains, as are legumes, are pretty borderline. Yes they do provide some decent values of vitamins and minerals but not in the starry, ‘every calorie works hard for you’ way that vegetables do. Everything you can get from grains and legumes you can get from other stuff in better amounts per calorie. That doesn’t mean I am going to avoid them completely. As long as the overall daily nutrition is good, I can fit in a small amount of oats with other things for breakfast, some beans as part of a main dish, or the occasional half slice of wholewheat bread, though I wouldn’t do all of those things on the same day! I make my own bread and am experimenting with ways of fortifying it to give it more oomph nutritionally.

Cottage industry

2008-02-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

I had always imagined cottage cheese to be a good source of calcium, as is skim milk, but when I checked this on CRON-o-meter I found this wasn’t the case, so I did some checking. Apparently hard cheeses such as cheddar which are coagulated with an enzyme retain the calcium in the curd, whereas cottage cheese which is coagulated by a different process does so to a lesser extent. Also, as Sara rightly pointed out it is high in salt. So 120 calories worth of cottage cheese, or 167g (10% of my daily calories) provides only 8% of my RDA of calcium and a massive 52% of my sodium whereas the same calorie value of cheddar gives me 18% of my calcium and only 14% sodium plus 12% zinc. Of course most of the cottage cheese calories are protein, (20g per 120 cals) whereas the cheddar is mainly saturated fat and the cottage cheese is a better source of some B vitamins, but all the same it wouldn’t do to rely on it for calcium. I have experimented with the idea of fortifying the cottage cheese. 10g skim milk powder, (this can be whizzed in a food mill to make it finer) can be stirred into a 250g carton of cottage cheese making what I call ‘fortified cottage cheese’. 120 calories worth of this – 145g – gives 13% of my daily calcium, but still 44% sodium. The powder thickens the cottage cheese – no very bad thing, and of course the end product tastes milkier which may not suit everyone. But I am thinking of abandoning the whole cottage cheese thing for a better prospect – drained yogurt.

I make my own fortified low fat yogurt with a product called Easiyo, which is amazingly easy to do. I use their probiotic low fat mix (it’s 98% skim milk solids, plus lecithin and cultures) and add 25g skim milk powder to bump up the protein and calcium. I prefer a thick yogurt so instead of making it up to 1 litre with water I make it up to 900ml, but that’s just my personal taste. I have inputted the recipe into CRON-o-meter, using the detailed vitamin and mineral values for skim milk since the pack only gives basic nutritional data. 120 calories worth of this yogurt gives a fantastic 36% of my calcium RDA, 12% of my zinc, 85% of my B12, 12g protein, and hardly any sodium. If I drain some of it in a sieve for a few hours I get a soft spreadable cheese. I also incorporate the yogurt into frozen desserts. This is still possible without an ice cream maker – just whiz up the yogurt with some frozen berry fruits such as raspberries and serve at once. Mmm – mmm!

Superstars

2008-02-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

First the good news – it is possible to get all your RDAs of nutrients on 1200 calories a day. The not quite so good news is that it takes a lot of effort. First of all it involves eating very large amounts of vegetables, which for little people with little tums can be a bit of a strain, and then of course it is not just any old veg. The only way of achieving this is to concentrate on those foods which supply particularly high values of a wide range of nutrients, particularly the ones in which it is easy to be deficient. Forget about eating one foodstuff per nutrient, you will end up eating 2000 calories a day like – er – oh yes, like the CRd menfolk. In the last few weeks I have in such spare moments as I have, painstakingly been creating a chart of star foods, based not on values per 100g or per cup or per tablespoon, but per 120 calories worth. It is only by comparing them with a fixed percentage of my daily intake that I can really judge how hard they are working for me. I have also been looking at how available the nutrients are, since I did remember – and then checked up – that not all the huge amounts of iron and calcium in spinach are actually absorbable, though it does provide lots of other good stuff. In practice I am finding that I need to concentrate only on those nutrients in which there is any danger of being deficient if I take my eye off the ball. These are for me – potassium, zinc and Vitamin E. Once I have those locked down, I tend to find that I have made my RDAs of all the others. I also like to ensure that I have good values of calcium, and protein. The chart is far from finished, and I am sure there are many very wonderful foods which don’t yet appear as I haven’t checked them out yet. However, these are my preliminary results. The top star foods to date are Swiss chard, spinach, red peppers, lettuce, broccoli, butternut squash, courgettes, pak-choi, Chinese leaves, mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus, kale, Brussels sprouts, cucumber, celery and low fat milk products, (but cottage cheese doesn’t make the grade on the calcium front). For additional top quality protein I add eggwhites, chicken and fish, especially salmon. Now I am not advocating that anyone should confine their intake solely to these starry foods- rather that by allocating a lot of your calories to these, the other good but less starry foods will easily provide the rest of what you need, and you will still be able to get some variety into your diet.

The whole thing is much easier if you are cooking only for yourself or your best beloved is also CRd, but if not, as is my case, I have to balance the freaky CR meals I do on those occasions when I do cook for just me, with the less freaky but still very healthy meals I do when the other half and I dine together.

Lots of other veg are also very good - this means in my book that they provide between 10 and 19% of nutrients per 120 calories. The best fruits so far are kiwi strawberries and melon. However it is interesting that 120 calories worth of dried apricots (not something usually thought of as CR friendly) provides really useful amounts of potassium iron and Vitamin E. I don’t see why they can’t be used soaked overnight to add bulk, and they have the advantage over fresh of being available all year round. OK I’m off to make lunch now, which will be a big plateful of steamed asparagus, mushrooms and Chinese leaves topped with an eggwhite and skim milk omelette, and some organic tomato chilli sauce. (Yep, my poor darling has had to work today)

Urgggh

2008-01-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

I usually only eat out at places I have chosen, but last Wednesday I was one of a party of 20 meeting up at a London pub to celebrate a friend’s birthday. And it was a lovely pub – historical, very well preserved, with an interior like an atmospheric film set (except it was all real) and a great view. Unfortunately the food was horrible. I had tried but been unable to get a menu in advance, and when I saw it, what was my astonishment when I found there wasn’t even a salad. Everything was pretty much deep fried, slathered in mayonnaise (they must have got though buckets of the stuff) or topped with full fat cheese. Not so much food to die for as food to die from. Not wanting to be a party-pooper I thought I had better order something so chose the chicken curry which I thought was the most innocuous thing on the menu. We will gloss over the way it managed to not even have any culinary aspirations let alone fail to meet the most basic. The food that I saw being served to others was similarly uninspiring. Ordering the curry was my first innocent error. My second (woe is me) was to eat it. The best thing I can say about it is that there wasn’t a great deal of it. The worst is that I was very very ill the following day. I have little leeway in the weight loss stakes, and managed over the next few days to plunge down to under 87lb. I am now a great deal better but wondering what is so very wrong with what the public demands of pub food. Still, if anyone would like me to recommend a place to relax in a historical atmosphere, with a lovely view, let me know. Just eat before you go.

Me, me, me

2008-01-17T03:07:00.000-08:00

Being a bloody-minded little b**** I have now returned to my pre-Xmas weight of 89.5lb (no, don’t throw things, please!). Fascinating how right now the media is full of stuff about how people must feel ghastly not to mention guilty after the excesses of the holiday period. This means that the magazines are crammed full of healthy recipes, which is good, but a healthy lifestyle is not just for January. I managed to be quite restrained over the holidays - didn’t eat junk or high fat and sugar foods, which in no way prevented me from having a pleasurable time - and have never felt better in a January. Last year I was just starting CRON and feeling my way, making lots of mistakes. This year I think I am enjoying the results of the effort I have put into it. Also I have not had my usual bout of winter colds, in fact I have not had a full-blown cold since I started CRON.

In line with my New Year resolution, I am working harder at using Cron-O-Meter, and in particular have been trying to use it as a tool to sculpt what I am eating to my own personal requirements. No point in looking at the books, as they all seem to assume I am an average sized man living in California, and the guys who guzzle their 1800-1900 calories a day find the specific problems of mini-me a little bewildering. No-one is going to tailor my nutrition to me except me. So this sister has to do it for herself.

Getting RDAs on 1200 calories a day is bloody hard, so I have to skew what I eat to foods which provide nutrients out of all proportion to the amount of calories. With CoM calibrated to my calories, I have been entering in quantities of foodstuffs which give 10% of my daily calories, (figure chosen for ease of computation) and then looking at what percentage of vital nutrients that amount provides. I am focusing especially on those nutrients which I am finding it most of a struggle to get from food alone. Not a lot of point for example in bothering to chase vitamin C or A of which I get stacks from the amount of greenstuff I munch my way through. I am making up a spreadsheet for easy reference. Very much a work in progress right now.

There are three main categories of foods on my sheet. One is what I call the star foods, things like mushrooms and spinach, packed with nutrients and very low cal. Then there are ‘good but not starry’ providing more than 10% of nutrients per 10% of calories but not spectacularly so. Oats, for example, and many fruits. Then there are foods I would say were OK – still good fresh foods such as apples and pears, but they underperform compared with the others. I include those to add variety, but don’t emphasise them. Some of the results have been real eye-openers. So the idea is that when I am considering what to have for dinner I can look at my results for the day, see where there are low scores and quickly look up what I need to bump up the values.

All this is a counsel of perfection and of course I fall way short of that. I eat out once a week, and have to be careful what I choose and do my best to estimate what I have eaten. One thing in which I am very fortunate – I have no cravings whatsoever for junk food, so the chances of going on a Mars Bar bender are pretty much nil.

Choc shock

2008-01-05T02:56:00.000-08:00

Now we all know that small amounts of ultra dark chocolate can find a place in a CRON regime. If you go to the right shops you can find 100% cocoa solids bars. Recently – and I don’t know how prevalent this is in the US – there has been a fashion in the UK for the chocolate fountain to appear at parties. It began with the big commercial ones, but soon smaller cheaper ones appeared in the shops and now everyone can have a chocolate fountain whirring away on the buffet table. I was at a party which featured one recently, and this did give me an opportunity to look at the instructions and find out exactly what is in the tempting looking dark gloop. I found that ordinary chocolate is too thick to run through the fountain, and it is recommended either that a special high fat variety of chocolate is used or – and this is what the home user is more likely to go for – ordinary chocolate can be melted in a pan with extra oil. Funny how the chocolate didn’t look so tempting any more. Good news, however - the chocolate fountain is always accompanied with things to dip in it, which should include fresh fruit. Ignore the exhortations of fellow diners to dip the fruit in the chocolate, and wear your most figure-hugging outfit. You can always nibble a square of the 100% when you get home.

Welcome 2008!

2007-12-31T00:21:00.000-08:00

If all goes to plan (and how often does that happen, but one must live in hope) 2008 looks set to be a pivotal year in my life. I will reach the age of 60 in April and hopefully will still have all my faculties, all my teeth, and three pensions. Not riches, but enough income to do everything I want to do, given that I deplore mindless extravagance. The only worry is that I will find that I still don’t have the spare time for all those little projects that have been on the back burner!

My other half being quite a bit younger than I (pause for a blush) is still a wage-slave but has recently acquired an assistant at work which should mean that he will at last be able to take all his annual leave, and not fret or be interrupted with phone calls while he is on holiday. So I am looking forward both to more me-time and more us-time. Holidays, trips and general fun-stuff are being booked!

Time for the New Year resolutions, and mine involve taking more exercise, (unless it involves ironing) and being more rigorous with my CR. My CRON practice has refined quite a bit over the last year and I can see it getting even better. Daily use of Cron-o-meter, and even more imaginative cooking lie ahead.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Strategy and Tactics

2007-12-27T12:49:00.000-08:00

So – the Xmas holiday bit is over. While my other half knows all about and supports my CRON there are other relatives we see less often and believe me it would be a whole different ball game and not worth the effort to explain. I knew I wouldn't be doing strict CRON for a few days but I can limit the main excesses. So my aim in steering my way around the calorie-fest was excluding the really heavy stuff. I trotted out the handy hiatus hernia which explained why mince pies and Xmas cake and pudding are no-nos for me, and why I avoid very fatty foods, and late night snacks are not a good idea as I don’t eat after 9.30 or I don’t sleep. And as a pure sideline I don’t like very sweet stuff. All of which is actually quite true. And it does mean that no-one presses me to eat things I don’t want. I pleased the relatives by expressing lipsmacking delight at vegetable dishes and delicious salads, which I consumed with relish. So I’m back home now and maybe a few ounces heavier but not much. Easily adjusted. Only New Year's Eve to do now, and that should be easy as we are spending it with friends eager to return to virtue after the gluttony of the last few days. I am taking a few of my special dishes along for the buffet. But 2008 will be an interesting year and I will spend some time in what remains of the holidays re-thinking my CRON and seeing where I can be better in future.

Happy CRis-mas

2007-12-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

This is a difficult season of the year, whether those around you are celebrating grease-mas or saturatedfaturnalia. Personally, I prefer CRONukah. But I decided to get into the festive spirit by devising CRis-mas pudding. Put 90g fresh blueberries in a dish. Quarter 90g dark grapes. Put grapes and 1/4 tsp ground mixed spice (the sort used for baking cakes) into a food mill or processor and pulse a few times until the grapes are lightly chopped and have exuded some juice. Mix the grapes into the blueberries, add 50ml pomegranate juice. This is quite sweet enough without any additional sweetener. Whisk in half a teaspoon of konjac powder (or you could set it with a little gelatine or agar), and divide between two ramekin dishes. Allow to set. About 73 calories a pudding. You could top it with some natural yogurt, a few flaked almonds or fresh redcurrants to decorate. Serves two virtuous people.

Gas attack!

2007-12-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

I recently read an article in a health-oriented magazine about the benefits of vitamin K, which it said was best obtained from real food, the recommended sources being cauliflower, beans and green leafy veg. The same magazine had an article on how to reduce flatulence, one tip being to reduce consumption of the foods which were mainly responsible – yes, you guessed it, cauliflower, beans and green leafy veg. Mind you, the same edition of the same mag had tips on reducing calories at Xmas dinner, one of which was serving Brussels sprouts with chestnuts instead of butter and bacon. 66 pages later on in the same magazine was a recipe for Brussels sprouts with – come on, now, if you can’t guess this one you’re not really trying!

But back to the subject of gas. I have always been a windy little person and I love my green veg with a passion – kale, Brussels sprouts, chard, spinach, cabbage – bring it all on, I say. After a nice green plateful, huge bubbles of self-generated gas churn around my lower intestines and can look quite alarming from the outside if you don’t know what they are, since my slimness makes then stand out like large moving lumps. It doesn’t cause me any pain, but of course there are social issues. I am consuming infusions of fennel, ginger and mint to help, but this will only do so much. I am unwilling to consume medication, which does not have greatly proven benefits in any case. The tips in the recent online Harvard Medical School leaflet weren’t really too helpful either. I don’t smoke, of course, don't drink much in the way of fizzy stuff, rarely eat eggs except the whites, and eat meat in modest amounts. It’s beans and the healthy leafy stuff that has the – um – explosive effect. So maybe I shall just have to live with it, and perhaps even turn it to some practical use. Has anyone any tips on how I can tap into this source of energy production? On a good day I should at least be able to run our household lighting system.

Buffalo Gal

2007-12-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

We recently sat down to meatballs with spaghetti followed by pumpkin pie and ice cream. No, I haven’t taken leave of my senses – the meatballs were made from bison meat made juicy with chopped onion and pureed aubergine (eggplant) bound with eggwhite, and simmered in a broth of tomatoes with a splash of red wine. The spaghetti was spaghetti squash. There was also a nice crunchy salad. The pumpkin pie was Bob’s recipe from the CRS Wiki and the ice cream was a small scoop of my low fat no added sugar frozen dessert. For those of us who want to eat red meat, (and my other half believes there is nothing wrong with a vegetarian dish that can’t be mended by serving it with meat) bison is the obvious choice. Lower in calories and fat than chicken, nutrient dense, it is so lean that the extra expense is offset by there being so little waste, and the fact that it doesn’t shrink on cooking. I get it from the farmer’s market. There are bison farms in the UK where the animals are reared naturally. I have visited the farm in Wiltshire, and seen the great beasts roam free in the fields. There is a Native American powwow there once a year. Burger, anyone?

Food, inglorious food

2007-12-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

We went to the theatre in Battersea after work on Wednesday, and not really knowing the area decided to eat out first at a restaurant we knew where I had a scrummy vegetable and couscous stuffed aubergine with yogurt in a tomato and onion broth. When we got to Battersea we found there were loads of cafés restaurants and takeaways lining Lavender Hill, and then on the way home as we passed through Victoria Station even more eateries, in fact most of the outlets there were selling food of some sort. It really came home to me just how surrounded we are with food for sale, and not the sort of food that you take home and cook, but all ready to eat, - sandwiches, pies, pastries, chocolate, cakes etc, wafting their sugary fatty aromas to passers by. How easy it is to be unthinkingly seduced by your own tastebuds into ‘treating yourself’ to a 500+ calorie snack that you don’t really need! No wonder such a high proportion of people are overweight. We have become so used now to just picking up food and eating it without a thought. Humankind developed in an environment where we hunted or gathered our food. It wasn’t easy to find, it wasn’t always there and it took some physical effort to get it. There were gaps of time where there was no food available. When there was a lot, we ate our fill, not knowing when the next meal would come. Nowadays people just thoughtlessly eat their fill, again and again.

On CR it takes some re-adjustment to know when to stop eating. I like April’s advice – eat when you are very hungry, stop when you are not hungry. And of course ‘not hungry’ happens way before you have a full stomach. I interpret it as a nice comfy feeling, which would be spoilt by over stretching my stomach. But what is ‘hungry’? Now this isn’t at all scientific, and indeed it is very personal to me, but I recognise three types of hunger. At the most extreme level, there is ‘body hunger’ which is to be avoided – I feel weak because I haven’t eaten enough. Funnily enough since CR I don’t get this as I am monitoring my nutrition and do a ‘little but often’ regime. In the past I mainly experienced it when researching in the British Library when I got so engrossed in what I was doing I forgot lunch! Then there is ‘stomach hunger’ – the signals from the tum telling me it is empty. That means it is time to eat, and when I do, even if it is something very light, I sense that nice grateful sensation of my body absorbing what it needs, (that is, of course, what it needs and no more) the way that water quenches a thirst. And finally, the vile seducer, ‘mouth hunger’ which is those naughty little tastebuds saying – ‘we want a treat’. That’s the one that leads people to overeat. All the satisfaction takes place in the mouth.

Many people overeat from boredom and stress. Stress is another issue, which I won’t comment on, as it is so complex and individual, but I do observe a lot of eating behaviour which is just for ‘something to do’ and it’s mainly snacking. On holiday last summer I saw a lot of our fellow travellers munching crisps and sweets as they went between locations, and having seen what they scoffed from the breakfast buffet I can be quite certain they weren’t hungry!

It’s easy to tell the difference between stomach and mouth hunger, and tell the latter to ‘get thee behind me’ – it can be diverted also, by the tingling of a sparkling mineral water, or the clean flavour of green tea. The other way of satisfying those tastebuds is to eat more slowly at meals, which I am trying to learn to do, so that I get more satisfying sensations from my food. The flavour of foods is intensified by CRON, in any case, which is a bonus, and that quarter glass of red wine I have with meals is taken in very small sips. I enjoy every one.

Treats

2007-11-23T14:21:00.000-08:00

When I was 14 I decided that I really ought to learn something about cooking as this would be a useful skill, so I started reading recipes. That was the start of a lifetime’s interest in food and its preparation. I am one of the unusual CRers who loves food and cooking. I have been subscribing to a cookery magazine for many years, and have recently been going though the back issues to see what CR-friendly recipes I can glean. I am currently putting them onto a database in order to be able to dispose of the magazines which I don’t have room for. There isn’t really a CR-friendly magazine as such. I have looked at slimmers’ magazines and they are obviously designed for people who are overweight and want to be slimmer not skinny me who wants to stay that way, so the recipes are still way too calorific. But the mag I usually take does have quite a few healthy style recipes and many which can be tweaked usually by reducing the amount of oil used (for tablespoons read teaspoons) and substituting a few ingredients. Some recipes intended to be side dishes can suddenly find themselves promoted to main course status. There are a lot of recipes that are way beyond the pale, however. The classic signs to look out for are names that include certain key words such as ‘creamy’, ‘cheesy’, ‘sticky’ ‘luxury’, ‘decadent’ and ‘indulgent’. And any recipe whose title includes the word ‘heaven’ is probably going to get you there a lot faster. We are urged to treat ourselves to things that are naughty but nice. This does call to mind the time I saw a friend who I knew was trying to lose weight, consuming a large sugary snack. She commented guiltily that she knew she shouldn’t be eating it but reckoned she deserved a treat. But that was a treat only for the tastebuds, a few minutes of pleasure followed by hours of regret. A treat should be something that is going to benefit our bodies, not do them damage. My friend didn’t deserve that snack because she is a good person who should be with us as long as possible.

The useful thing about the magazine is that for each recipe it supplies a calorie count per portion plus analysis of protein, fat, saturated fat, carbs, sugar, fibre and salt. And what a horror story this sometimes tells. There have been 500 calorie starters, dessert recipes with over 800 calories a portion, vegetable dishes dressed with cream and butter, and one main course which was over 1100 calories! The magazine would probably say in its defence that it always possible to make adjustments elsewhere in the meal, but this argument doesn’t apply to features which recommend a three course menu. Taking a magazine at random I went through all of these set menus and counted the calories. Not including drinks with the meal, I found that they were advising people to consume 2000 to 3000 calories at one sitting. So I wrote to them pointing out that while I appreciated that this wasn’t a slimmers’ magazine, they were suggesting that readers eat at one meal as many or more calories than were recommended for the average person to consume in a whole day. In other words these were weight-gain menus. They didn’t reply, but I noticed they did do lip-service to this point in a later issue by stating that a course could be omitted if it was felt to be too much!

The Two of Us

2007-11-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

Great excitement today – Sarah visited for a cup of coffee – this is the first time I have met another CRer – so I told the other half he was officially outnumbered which he took with his usual good grace. As ever I think we wanted to talk about everything on our first meeting but couldn’t squeeze it all in – good to know we were in agreement about so many things and we also found other interests in common, a love of cats and the theatre. Probably loads more we haven’t found yet. It would be great if more London-based CRers could meet up. Sarah had a great suggestion – the ideal place is the Wholefood Store in Kensington where you can just choose your own food and take it to the dining area to eat and chat. Must try and set that up sometime!

Happy Birthday to Me

2007-11-14T23:09:00.000-08:00

Not my actual birthday but my CRON birthday. I don’t know the exact date I started CRON but I do recall it was mid November 2006, so I have nominated November 15th. So here I am, one year on and I am thinking about what has changed. Well I am lighter than I have been all my adult life, about 90lb. I put on fashionable clothes, look in the mirror and feel horribly pleased with myself. My mood is lighter, too – the CR euphoria effect, even though I don’t fast. Those people who think CRers are miserable are so very wrong! And I haven’t had a cold all year, at least nothing with the usual sniffly congested miserable symptoms, even though my other half has had three, and I used to get every cold he had, only worse. Food tastes so much better, I love to savour its fresh flavours. And I have plenty of energy to buzz about and do all the stuff I need to do. I have not had to give up any food that I enjoy eating. I have been able to make low-calorie nutritious versions of things I like. Some unhealthy foods I find I no longer want to eat in any case. I can still, with a little ingenuity in choices, eat out regularly. I have had a hiatus hernia for some years, and used to take medication to fight acid reflux. Not any more. And I don’t have to prop myself up on lots of pillows to sleep. Through the CR Society I have made the acquaintance of a great number of intelligent and interesting people, read their comments daily, and look forward to meeting them some day. I have learnt a huge amount about nutrition. Nothing is worse, lots of things are far far better. My only regret is that I didn’t discover CRON earlier.

Just Desserts

2007-11-08T06:06:00.000-08:00

I have never had much of a sweet tooth, and a year on CRON makes me even less inclined to eat sweet stuff. But I do like a nice not-too-sweet pudding, especially ice-cream, and I don’t see why with a little kitchen ingenuity it can’t be part of my diet. Some CR-friendly desserts are designed to be as low calorie as possible, but why not shift the emphasis and make the dessert the star of the show? Fresh fruit, natural yogurt, skim milk, egg whites, low fat soft cheeses, good quality cocoa, nuts and seeds, all can be employed to produce dishes full of vitamins, protein and calcium. Start the meal with a big salad or steamed vegetables, then tuck into a fruit and yogurt ice-cream sundae sprinkled with chopped almonds. To the casual onlooker you seem to be scoffing something wildly calorific – only you know it’s health food – and they will wonder how you maintain your trim figure!

Hungry?

2007-10-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

We eat out pretty regularly, and of course this is quite a challenge, as it is impossible to know exactly how many calories you are getting. A fair basic knowledge of nutrition does enable me to make a good estimate, and I try to be realistic. Underestimating what I am eating does no-one any favours. I choose the healthiest options I can find on the menu, assume that I am eating more calories than usual for that day and then adjust the day after. After a meal last evening – two fairly modest courses – I felt pretty full and continued to do so right until the following morning. And I realised something interesting. I didn’t really like the sensation. In fact I was looking forward to regaining the feeling I get inside when I am CRd. Some may call it hunger but after almost a year of CRON it feels different to me. I adopt the ‘little and often’ eating pattern so rarely go many hours without food. A light breakfast, lunch and dinner with 50-calorie snacks (usually almonds or fruit, or cottage cheese or a drink of oat milk) in between and lots of green or white tea to sip. So my stomach is either in the state of feeling comfortable, though not especially full with what I have just consumed, or it is in an empty resting state. And resting is good, without any discomfort or stress on the system. For many years I suffered from IBS – painful spasms of the intestines, precipitated by a horrendous bout of gastro-enteritis. There were a lot of remedies for this, none of which helped me, and I got a lot of advice about things to take, but when the pains came on all I could do was take painkillers, lie down, and wait for them to go. And then it dawned upon me – I was constantly being told to put things in my stomach, when what my body was demanding was a rest. So I went on a fast, and two days later the cycle of painful attacks was broken. And they never came back. I have been free of IBS for ten years. I can see why people feel peaceful when fasting, the body is not labouring to digest volumes of food. Not that fasting is for me, except on that one occasion. But I welcome back that little rumbly tickly feeling in the stomach that tells me I am properly CRd. In a peculiar way I have grown to like it. Incidentally, I contacted an IBS research organisation to tell them of my experiences, as I thought it might help others, but my comments were not taken seriously. Ten years on, I see that fasting is now recommended as a strategy for helping sufferers!

On the hoof

2007-10-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

What to eat when out and about is a perennial problem. You may not always know how long you will be out, how much or what kind of food will be available and whether you will have access to any kind of cool food storage. I have a few solutions. If it is just a matter of being out for a few hours, most food will keep cool if well wrapped, so I take my finger salad – stuff like celery cucumber etc cut in strips that I can eat with my fingers out of the box, plus cherry tomatoes and small salad leaves. I add some cubes of low fat cheese or a few almonds. Almonds are a great portable emergency snack and I have sometimes lunched off a small handful of almonds and an apple. I am also experimenting with a healthy flapjack recipe. Best kept in fridge or freezer they can be taken out just before you travel. On a longer trip your hotel may not be the health food emporium you would like it to be and will look askance if you bring your own food and ask to use their fridge, so last time I was on a weekend trip I took apples, plus a tin of butter beans, (a large white cooked bean - nothing to do with butter!) two tinlets of tuna in water, a small plastic box and a tin opener. Day one, I opened the beans, put half of them in the box for the next day (they will be fine for 24 hours unrefrigerated) and used the rest plus one tinlet of tuna for a salad. The next day I used the rest of the beans and the other tin of tuna. That was two lunches. Dinner and breakfast being buffet style in the restaurant I was able to choose something suitable.

Sometimes these situations will lead to serendipitous discoveries. Not long ago I was staying at a location where mass catering was the order of the day and breakfast was going to be bacon, sausage, fried eggs etc. I rooted around the kitchen and found a pack of rolled oats but there were no facilities for cooking a single portion. So I improvised by pouring some oats into a serving bowl and adding boiling water. In five minutes I had porridge. And it was the best porridge I had ever eaten! The grains had a little bite to them and the nutty taste of the oats was more evident than if I had simply boiled them. I made another discovery on a similar occasion. Again, staying away from home, I was in a cold house and wanted a hot breakfast. There was a big bowl of delicious fresh fruit salad in the fridge which was just what I fancied eating except that it was cold. So I filled a bowl with it and put it in the microwave just long enough to warm it through but not long enough to actually cook it. Yummy. Even if I was lowering the vitamin content by warming it I was still getting more vitamins than if I hadn’t eaten it at all. So warm fruit salad is now a winter staple.

Win some, lose some

2007-10-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

The downside of CRON is that you have to go and buy an entire new wardrobe of clothes. The good thing about CRON is that you have to go and buy an entire new wardrobe of clothes. I have been trying on last year’s winter garments, and some of them, principally skirts and trousers, are hanging on me like old sacks – or at least like clothes made for a larger woman. Sadly, there are some real favourites where the structure of the garment means they can’t simply be taken in – I am the daughter of a tailor and believe me, I know. So they are destined for ebay or the charity shop. The worrying thing is the stuff that fits. What on earth did I look like in them when I was 20% heavier than I am now? I must have been deluding myself into thinking that the bulging tum wasn’t really all that big and no-one was really going to notice that extra roll of blubber on the midriff; whereas now the fabric sits nice and smoothly over my trim waist and hips. In fact, for those of you who feel an urge to binge, or have secret cravings for CRON-unfriendly foods, here is my tip to drive away those hunger pangs – put on a clingy top and look in the mirror. Works for me! I think it may be an age thing. When I was in my 20s I used to wonder what the year 2000 would be like. Picturing myself then at the age of 52 I imagined a dumpy little woman rather thick around the middle. Today, I am in low-rise size 8(UK) (that’s size 4 USA) cargo pants and a skinny sweater, and getting away with it. At the age of 59 this is not something I take for granted! Anyway – must dash – I’m off to buy myself a cinch belt. The fashion gurus dictate that the waist is back. Thanks to CRON I’ve got one.

Happiness is a Nearby Farmer's Market

2007-09-30T03:32:00.000-07:00

Feeling very elated right now as a new farmer's market has opened which is minutes walk from my home. I went with high hopes of what I might find and was more than delighted. I am now back with organic chicken, turkey and bison, the fabled spaghetti squash (I have never seen this on sale before) also another kind of squash and some black kale. So dinner tonight will be a lovely casserole of lean bison with red wine and veg. Looks like it will be a weekly event, and if the attendance I saw is anything to go by it has been a roaring success.

Selling Myself Short

2007-09-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

I have been making a great effort to track nutrition on CRON-o-Meter. While I have established a good daily eating pattern this is a great way of showing up the potential gaps and making adjustments. I was alarmed recently to see that I wasn’t making my targets on potassium and zinc. It’s not a question of adding in one food to redress the balance, I think that the main way I will make those targets is eating a wide range of items all of which do provide those nutrients. One problem I have is that many of the products already on CRON-o-Meter are American, while the British ones I use are not there, and the nutritional analysis provided by the manufacturer only tends to give calories, protein, fat, carbs, fibre, salt and a very few of the major vitamins and minerals. One such item is fat-free yogurt which I make with an Easiyo mix, adding a little skim milk powder to increase protein and calcium. Originally, I entered the new foods onto CRON-o-Meter using the analysis on the pack, but have realised that by doing so I am omitting to include a lot of the trace nutrients which are undoubtedly there. And those little traces add up. So my total at the end of the day is inaccurate. I suppose what I ought to do is write a letter to all the manufacturers involved asking for a more detailed nutritional analysis (and then wait for ever for a reply) but what I have been doing in the meantime is revisiting my entries on CRON-o-Meter and seeing where the gaps are. The best way I have found is to look for something already on CRON-o-Meter which is very similar to what I am using and then adjust and re-name it. It won’t be perfect but even if the traces of zinc for example are not exactly right at least they will be there and not entirely absent! When I did this I found that my daily results were far better than I had feared, indeed I had made my targets of zinc, and only fell short of potassium a little. I need more greens and pulses, obviously. I like greens and pulses, in fact there are many delicious Indian soups and side dishes with those very ingredients, but if I produce any more gas I will probably go into orbit.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

2007-09-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

No, I haven’t suddenly lost half an inch in height, but I have adjusted my details. I have been 4ft 11” all my adult life. Two years ago I was measured as part of a routine check and was told I was 4ft 10 1/2 “. I wasn’t convinced this was accurate, and still went around thinking I was 4ft 11” After all, it’s easier to say "four foot eleven" if I was asked how tall I am, and if you say you are 4ft 10 ½ some snidey person will make a comment about how important the half inch is. There’s an answer to that but I won’t post it here. I know the potential problems of having such a small frame. Last year I had a bone density scan which showed no cause for concern, and of course I make sure to eat lots of calcium rich foods and take supplements of calcium and vitamin D. But the other day I decided to get measured again, and I had to admit I as 4ft 10 1/2. The only good thing is that it means I haven’t dropped any height in the last two years.

Beach holiday

2007-09-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

Five beaches to be precise: Juno, Gold, Sword, Utah and Omaha. We have just returned from a tour of the D-Day landing sites, and the places where battles were fought inland to get a foothold in Normandy over the 77 days of the 1944 campaign. So I have seen the Mulberry harbours, crossed the original Pegasus Bridge, and walked on Omaha beach. We also visited a number of war grave cemeteries, all beautifully and respectfully maintained. It’s humbling to think of all the young people who died for our freedom.

Normandy is of course, the land of cream, butter, and full-fat cheese, so I was a little concerned if my 4-day stay was going to pile on the calories. I took with me some apples almonds and low calorie cereal bars in case I was ever stuck somewhere with nothing at all I wanted to eat, but in the end I needn’t have worried. Breakfast was a buffet affair and there was always fresh fruit and plain yogurt. Most cafés will do a salad with seafood or chicken. Big surprise was a chain called Buffalo Grill, an American diner and the last place I would have expected to find low calorie meals, but they do a number of designated healthy dishes of less than 330 calories. Best one was the lean bison steak, grilled and served with a mound of steamed green beans sprinkled with garlic. Perfect. I did have a buckwheat pancake one day, stuffed with lettuce and goat’s cheese, but didn’t eat all the cheese. My main indulgence was a glass of good Merlot in the bar at the end of the day. At home I have about a quarter of that. I must have done something right as I returned the same weight as when I left.

Salads are easy to get but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of variety of vegetables. So I’m looking forward to getting back to my big mixed veg plates with cottage cheese for dinner. I’m used to some cereal fibre in my diet and everywhere most bread was white, so next time I go to France I will take some oatbran and oatgerm to add to my fruit and yogurt in the morning.

Fat-free cheese

2007-09-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

As an avid reader of April's blog I naturally want to cook some of her creative dishes, but I haven't been able to locate two vital ingredients - fat free mozzarella and ricotta. I was at the Kensington Wholefoods market yesterday. It's a good thing I can regard some food merely as art, dining off its beauty rather than its calories! I will return when I feel a little less dazed by the massive variety there, but I did get some red cabbage and broccoli seeds for sprouting, and an excellent Thai curry paste, packed with herbs and spices (and no oil!). I specifically asked about fat free cheese but they didn't have it or even know it existed. Frustratingly I can find it on the internet, on sale in the USA, but I don't think it's one of those things you can order by mail in the UK! I have just written to the store asking if they plan to stock it. Has anyone in the UK had better luck in tracking it down? The other thing I wanted was cartons of eggwhites. They did have these - frozen. I had planned to buy fresh and then divide them up to freeze in batches. I'm not sure I can use 33 eggwhites up in a week! Has anyone any thoughts on this? I have written to the manufacturers to see if there is anywhere I can get them fresh, but they are not widely distributed.

Nemi

2007-09-01T00:53:00.000-07:00

Nemi eats loads of junk food and drinks far too much yet is effortlessly slim. This is because she is a cartoon character. I adore the Nemi cartoons which are a great commentary on our everyday lives. Yesterday's (I read them in the London edition of the Metro) showed Nemi having just scoffed a plate of iced cakes reflecting without a trace of guilt that joie-de-vivre is better than self-control. Wrong, of course, but that is how people do think. Self control, in the CRON sense, leads to joie-de-vivre, in the long term, a kind of sustained gentle pleasure that is so much better than the quick fix.

Luigi Cornaro - CR icon

2007-08-30T12:42:00.000-07:00

I have only just discovered the discourses of Luigi Cornaro, ‘How to Live 100 Years, or Discourses on the Sober Life’, written some 450 years ago and yet so fresh and beautiful. The man was way ahead of his time! He describes the kind of life I would like to lead, healthy and simple and full of gentle pleasures. There are quite a few websites with this on – here is one –

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020105cornaro.html

This evocation of peace and happiness and contentment is like a balm on our frazzled modern consciousness. I have read it through several times and aim to read it again often. The thing that gets me is that he was writing at a time when nutrition as a science didn’t exist. There was a concept of what food was good for invalids, i.e. very simple digestible food, but that was about it. He had no idea that vitamins existed, and no nutritional software! His diet was pretty reasonable – meat, fish, vegetables, soup, egg (only the yolk) milk, panado - which I think is a bread and milk pudding, and wheatmeal as opposed to refined bread. He doesn’t mention fruit but he did drink what to us would seem like a lot of wine – I don’t know how strong it was back then! The then current way of thinking was that if food was good for the palate it was good for the stomach. He tested this idea on himself and realised that it was wrong. The reason being of course that even then, for a man of means, there were all sorts of refined foods very far from what was available in nature, which deluded the palate with flavour unconnected to good nutrition. Having changed his diet to a modest and simple regime he said that after many years he relished his simple food more than he would have done refined delicacies. So he effectively reversed the prevalent idea – feed the body and the palate will follow. So if you eat food which is good for the body eventually you will come to prefer that food to the unhealthy stuff. So – eventually - no cravings – it’s just a matter of sticking with it.

The man is an inspiration!

Wot, no pasta?

2007-08-27T05:23:00.000-07:00

I do like a nice Bolognese sauce – I use Quorn mince as a base, with beef broth to add flavour, garlic, tomatoes, onions, peppers and herbs. Even my almost obligate carnivore other half likes it! But what about the pasta? I have been using wholewheat in small amounts but it doesn’t give the nutritional ‘bang for the buck’ as they say. I have been experimenting with substitutes – one is finely shredded lettuce, which does give nice long thin threads for the sauce to cling to and a crunchy freshness. The other idea is courgettes - (zucchini in the USA). I cut them very thin lengthways and steam in the microwave till tender. A nice alternative to penne is mushrooms sliced quite chunkily. Shirataki noodles are quite good and almost calorie free but are best in wet dishes like soups. I was wondering if anyone had any better ideas?

Back from the BBQ

2007-08-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the welcome messages!

I think I did OK at the BBQ. The trick is to bring a dish I know I can eat, (lime and chilli chicken) fill up on sugar-free drinks while I am waiting for the food to be put out and get cooked, then dig into the salad and chicken. There were sausages and burgers, there too, all very fatty and indigestible. Not at all tempting to me. But there were some great vegetable skewers, and corn on the cob, and strawberries and a good red wine. Perfect. More calories than I am used to, but I balanced it with a lighter than usual lunch before I set out and a smaller than usual breakfast this morning.

My first blog posting

2007-08-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

This will at present be an occasional blog – only as time permits. Life is too busy for me right now but I look forward to next year when I retire and will hopefully have a little more time.

I am 59 and have been practising CRON since last November. It is a fascinating process of learning and refining which still has a long way to go - an exciting journey which I am really enjoying. I may well be the shortest Cronie at 4ft 11” and weighed about 110lb when I began. My weight shaded down gradually losing about half a pound a week and now varies between 91 and 92. I haven’t felt this good in ages, and love the way my clothes fit.

There have over the last few months been a number of ‘challenges’ to meet - restaurant meals, weekend trips etc but these have been much less of a problem than I had imagined. I can usually find something I want to eat. Last Saturday I was at a wedding held in a Weatherspoon’s pub. The buffet consisted of large platters of chips, fried chicken, fried onion rings, fried onion bhaijis, and similar stuff with seafood salads smothered in mayonnaise and a cheeseboard. There was some white pasta with tomato sauce and shaved parmesan. Hmmm. I did find a plate with some melon slices and grabbed one, then got the grape garnish off the cheeseboard, and managed to excavate some salad that had missed out on the mayo smothering. I found a dry cracker, looked at it, decided I couldn’t be bothered with it and left it. I had a few bits of pasta in the sauce. I drank a glass of champagne and an orange juice. It was enough until I got home and had a nice salad dinner.

Was I tempted by the chips and other fried stuff? Not one bit. My stomach is used to fresh healthy food with good clean flavours. Had a large bowl of blueberries been placed on the table no-one else would have got a look-in!

Good to read about how little ladies like me have an advantage in CRON as we eat less. I aim at about 1200 calories a day. Rarely more, sometimes less. I weigh most stuff apart from salads and the really watery veg. But once I have weighed an item I don’t need to do it again. I know how many almonds make a 50 calorie snack. I know the calories in the normal size portion of chicken and salmon. My tuna tin says on the outside how many calories within. It’s not that hard.

I love good wine and good chocolate. I manage to consume both in moderation.

Today I am going to a friend’s barbecue. I am taking a dish with me – chicken breast portions sliced lengthwise into thirds, marinated in one teaspoon of mild chilli powder, the juice of a lime and a handful of chopped fresh coriander. If I was at home I would bake this in the oven on a non-stick baking sheet. And bring on the crunchy salad!

Testing testing

2007-08-25T14:09:00.001-07:00

This is my first posting - let's see how it looks!