Ideas On Breakfast

Breakfast  convenienced foods comprises the most competitive food industries, all vying for a credible health status, marketing to consumers from all walks of life whilst quietly (oh its in amoungst the small print all right) exploiting our addiction to sugar...vast amounts of it! Even porridge is unpalatable for most people unless intensly sweetened and or topped with honey or jam. To this I put my hand up sheepishly, even though I am currently designing ways of getting around this problem, natures way, having  made it through lent without any desserts, sweet snacks and added sugars or preserves. The first step is admitting you have a problem! Now for the next step. Breakfast!

All manner of savoury options are on the menu in a wholesome diet. there are however 4 things to look out for.
1. Avoid sweet sauces such as, baked beans, barbeque sauce and Ketchup.
2.Select wholemeal and wholegrain breads
3.Balance any fats and oils used for frying with lean cuts of bacon for example or fiber such eg serve  spinach and  tomatoes in an omelette or on the side of a full English.

Limit intake of cured and smoked meat products to a maximum of 2 servings a week and balance it with 2 servings of oily fish a week.
1.Fried sardines, like kippers, make a perfect replacement for bacon or sausages.... A tin only costs 50p


For those who really love their daily breakfast cereal, you will have to break free of the high sugar levels that got you addicted to this so called healthy high fiber life -style. I do not  however recommend that you go for the savory choice every day, due to effects of salt levels on blood pressure, and carcinogenic/ bowl related effects of cured and smoked meat and fish. Variety is after all the spice of life. Try making peanut butter a healthy regular. I recommend Meridians whole peanut butter from Holland and Barrett....worth every penny for quality and purity!

Amongst my favorites are
2. An egg and peanut butter toasted  sandwich (Tescos bake a really nutty, crumbly and light-textured farmhouse multigrain loaf which makes for a delightfully crispy toast) ,
3.Peanut butter and banana malted roll,
4.Peanut butter and date paste in a freshly baked ciabata rolls.

The virtues of porridge are well documented including low GI and satiating effects. It is a comfort food and more than qualifies for a prominent place on the breakfast menu. However to eat it the traditional Scots way means excess salt consumption and the fashionable way is highly sweetened (plus added fruit etc). So here's a wholesome and tasty way to have it.


5. Porridge mountain, milk lake, chocolate lava breakfast. 1 serving, 400Kcals

1/3 cup of oats porridge (rolled or full grain), 1 small sliced banana, 1/3 cup dairy  milk, mixed and microwaved for 1m 30s to 2m in the cup. If lactose is a problem, use  soya milk, preferably Alpro as it doesnt have a beany flavor.

Next pour 1/3 of a cup of milk into the porridge bowl.and spoon the cooked porridge on top of the milk 'lake'

Make a dent in the top of the porridge 'mountain' and place about 2 tablespoons  of chocolate sludge (made in bulk with 5 heaped teaspoons of 100% cocoa powder *1 mixed to a thick ketchup consistency with warn water and kept in a suitable container in the fridge. This can be adequately sweetened with 5 teaspoons of date paste*2)

If you prefer the smooth creamy mouth feel of an homogenous  emulsion, then simply mash the bananas well (with a fork) and mix all the above ingredients together before microwaving it for 1 and a half to 2 mins. The chocolate can also be replaced by a sprinkling of cinnamon if anything.

Date paste replaced with saltanas or other dried fruit-chopped finely if large. It tastes better if you release the natural sugars from the dried fruit by soaking them  in warm water for half an hour to rehydrate them  (the water level just covering the top of the dried fruit), then keep them in a jar in the fridge.  They almost form a natural jam after 2 days of being in the fridge making them taste sweeter! A bulk stock will last at least 10 days.

I am not so fond of cooking dried fruit that becomes sharper upon heating and hence reserve chopped prunes and apricots to go with Greek yoghart and served with Jordans Museli (no added milk, sugar or fat) for a cool summer breakfast....(Plus fresh melon  if desired).

Notice I have not asked you to use semi skimmed milk although this is an option. However if you use whole milk, (dairy fat, especially from grass fed cows now has the stamp of approval of the scientific community) you are less likely to miss the sickly sweetness you're so used to and have come to consider as normal.



I recommend a balance between soya and dairy milk intake in small doses,  because as documented in many adults, (some racial/ethnic populations  more than others) large amounts of  lactose tend to have undesirable digestive effects. This fits a theory based on 'Natures Own Optimum  Nutrition' ( NOON.... for convenience, not for a cult following  as I am not attempting to claim any ownership of  maintenance diet that we are naturally adapted to in evolutionary terms. In other words its just there, but we've lost sight of it for all the clutter! )
So in nature , milk is designed for infants with underdeveloped digestive systems and a high level of lactase enzyme for digesting lactose. Hence limiting ourselves to having porridge with splash of milk about 2-3 times a week can't be such a bad thing especially as there are alternatives like soya milk. Similarly my limitation on excessive use of soya are based on its flatulence inducing effects and, for men especially, estrogen like compounds could be a problem.

Notice that there are no demonic groups of food to be expelled outright in our omnivorous diet. Neither are there any glorified foods for unlimited consumption.

Just optimum amounts of each food required by our bodies. We should perhaps be more attentive to our bodies response to eating  as wholesomely as possible and adapt a new menu that suits  our individual needs.

 And here, note too that there are bound to be some inherited (genetic) or environmental (due to upbringing or long term exposure) variation (subtle or otherwise) between populations and individuals. http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_5.htm.

*1 I recommend Bournville cocoa powder for purity and quality.
*2 I have discovered that dates can be easily obtained at affordable prices when bought with the stones. They are a naturally occurring high sugar, low water content fruit which have characteristics like set honey, but with plenty of fiber. I like them for sweetening hot dishes/deserts and for making my own  chocolate paste/sauce. They have absolutely no sharpness or bitterness. Just pure sweetness although a very delicate unique and pleasant date flavor is detectable  A bulk paste can easily be made from 20 finely grated dates (throw stones away) to 20 teaspoons of water mashed into a smooth consistency and as with chocolate paste, kept in the fridge for 10 days. You cannot OD on sugar in the form of dates or date paste because of the fiber. Trust me you will know about it if you try (and those who use prunes for the same reason will concur)!

Losing The Sweet Tooth

WHY SHOULD WE?

Cutting calories is not the answer because "a calorie is not a calorie". The effect of a calorie in sugar is different from the effect of a calorie in lean grass-fed beef. And added sugar is often disguised in food labelling under carbohydrates and myriad different names, from glucose to diastatic malt and dextrose. Fructose – contained in many different types of sugar – is the biggest problem, and high-fructose corn syrup, used extensively by food manufacturers in the US, is the main source of it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/20/sugar-deadly-obesity-epidemic

HEALTHY OPTIONS?

An article in The Times On Sunday (05-05-13) revealed that many of the so-called healthy options sold in supermarkets contain similar amounts of sugar per serving than a can of coke! Thus includes High fiber breakfast cereals and sauces used for supposedly savory main courses. Many of these products boast a low fat and low salt content, plus no artificial x,y,or z oh and made with real fuit etc. Surely the health revolution is well underway.

Alas it is only business in the food industry that is booming, even though there's a recession on which should force people to buy less and make their own food from carefully sourced first ingredients....you would think.) thank you very much. I too am a full time working mum and am fully aware that working ours have extended to breaking oint and invaded our family lives on every level. We barely have time to dash around the supermarket for the weekly shopping once a week, let alone read the small print on the food labels! So who really controls what the average Brit is of necessity putting inside his body? They keep very quiet about the increasing amounts of sugar, in the form of glucose and fructose sugars that they have increasingly been adding to foods for which the authentic counterparts would never have called for. Should a  sweet and sour sauce not be sweetened with sugar ? Only a table spoon added of unrefined cane sugar (the pulp on this occasion is humanly indigestible  to a dish for 6 goes a long way in South East Asia so what's going on? We've demonised fats such as coconut   oil and blamed fat for being fat for so long that whatever has beed lost in mouth feel, fat soluble natural flavoring compounds and the general satified feeling at the end of the meal is now being replaced and drowned out by highly concentrated levels of sugar. It not only distracts us from the boring taste of the dish with its poor quality ingredients, but high levels of sugar also act as a preservative,, extending the shelf life of the product. A win win situation for the food industry. We have now become accustomed to that intense sugar burst and crave it when its not there. In fact in many cases  we neither care what food should taste like in the authentic sense, nor the historic sense both of which should concern us if we're to achieve the low levels of obesity and western diet related diseases shown by the populations who invented these dishes in the first place!

In the following posts I will be embarking on an adventure to rid myself of my desire for snacks and deserts made with added and refined sugar. My definition of refined excludes pure fruit juices (sans the rest of the edible fruit), all forms of non-white sugar, all syrups and honey (separated from the beeswax/honey comb).

I will attempt to rediscover suitable natural wholefood replacements and either device or find interesting recipes including ways of compensating for unavoidable bending of  rules due to time, money and social constraints. In the process I will be weaning myself from pre-prepared meals, sauces and shortcuts such as frozen pastry.When the menu is well developed, it then falls on me as a mother to reeducate my family's palate, as far as possible (without ruining their social lives), which up to now has been mainly  nurtured by the  Food Industry in more ways, both subtly and blatantly, than I ever imagined. The plan will hopefully be that the quality and impact of the food will do most of the talking for itself!

I will be interjecting with more reflections on this wholefood philosophy as they occur, and will update you not only with the Scientific evidence I find, but also with how I am coping with these changes myself.