Banning Junk Food Adverts.

So, the proposed 20 per cent 'sugar tax' has been shelved by the government and now Cameron has triggered a new cabinet row by drawing up plans to ban junk food adverts during popular programmes such as The X Factor.

The government is grasping at all kinds of straws trying to address the childhood obesity epidemic which has swept the UK. According to projections, three out of four British adults will be obese by 2035 unless there is a real long term commitment to turn around the way we eat and drink.

Cameron has proposed to stop food giants advertising junk food during peak television slots, for example, ITV's The X Factor reaches an audience of more than 1.2 million children aged 4 to 15. A single episode of the show was surrounded by no less than 13 adverts for unhealthy foods.

Unfortunately, the government (whoever they are) are in the pockets of huge corporations. Already, the culture secretary has stated he will back commercial channels because huge amounts of money are at stake! Industry sources say the BBC's rivals could lose up to £200 million a year if Cameron goes ahead with his plan (given his record of back peddling I doubt he will) but this serves as a prime example of government ministers priorities, public health or huge corporations making money!

The elite aren't affected by these adverts, I doubt Whittingdale and his ilk are slumped in front of the box on a Saturday evening watching The X Factor and drooling through adverts of Domino's pizza. However, I have to say, the time has come for us to take responsibility for ourselves and our children's welfare and stop passing the buck. It's perfectly clear that food corporations, advertisers and successive governments don't have our interests at heart (although they all pay lip service to fact that they do.)

I have visited so many friends recently who endlessly pass their children 'snacks' from the cupboard, a bag of crisps here, a yoghurt there....the old fashioned concept of not eating between meals doesn't even apply because quite often children are drip fed snacks all day without a real meal in sight.

I'm not suggesting we don't indulge in the odd treat, but nutritious homemade meals should be our mainstay. This next recipe is adaptable, you could replace the black beans for kidney beans or even baked beans (especially if that's what your children prefer.) It's also a good meal for using various vegetables, the more colourful the better (children love lots of colour.)

Sweet potato pie

Recipe
8 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 red pepper/1 orange pepper, de-seeded and cut into strips
6 cherry tomatoes
Half a bag of red lentils, rinsed
1 tin of black beans
1 small tin of sweet corn
Spices of your choice (optional) I like to add cayenne pepper for a bit of a kick
A glug of olive oil
A knob of butter
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven 180c/gas mark 4
Boil potatoes until soft, mash with butter

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add onions and sweat gently

Add tomatoes

Add peppers, beans, sweetcorn and season

Transfer to ovenproof dish and cover with mashed potatoes

Bake for 40 minutes
Serve in warm bowls

'We have these weapons of mass destruction on every street corner, they are called cheeseburgers, donuts, french fries, ice creams.,,..junk food. Our children are living on a diet of junk food.'
- Joel Fuhrman

Love donna xxxxxxx

Chicken Carnage.

Apparently we Brits are a nation of animal lovers, in 2014 it was estimated that 13 million households (46%) have pets.

For the most part people love and nuture their animals, providing warmth, food, company and medical treatment where necessary. The thought of subjecting our pets to terrible living conditions, cruelty and torture, would be beyond most normal peoples imagination. Yet when it comes to eating animals very few people consider the animals welfare. We have a belief system that enables us to eat some animals and not others?

I wonder, as we rush to buy our bargain priced chickens, how many of us have any concerns about where these birds are coming from? Our desire for cheap chickens is pushing some producers to erode higher welfare standards in the UK, consequently, millions of chickens live their (on average) 33 -38 days of life in overcrowded metal sheds, (google intensively farmed chickens and watch: live fast die young, if that doesn't make you weep it should at least raise your concerns!

We have recently had scandalous levels of contamination in supermarket chickens. 8 out of 10 fresh chickens bought from UK supermarkets last summer were contaminated with the potentially lethal food poisoning bug campylobacter! Asda's chickens, (3 for £10) contained the highest levels of campylobacter. This contamination is hardly surprising given the number of birds crammed into each shed which thwarts all efforts to reduce disease.

Chickens are by nature gregarious birds, they like to live together as a flock and would naturally spend the day foraging for food. Meanwhile dairy cows are being housed all year round, never seeing the light of day until they are culled aged four or five years old, again this is due to economic pressure, the supermarkets are demanding cheaper milk, which we in turn are buying, giving no thought to the cows being denied their natural behaviour.

Beef cattle and their calves, permanently housed, generally stand up to their bellies in excrement, unable to lie down, freezing cold, their feet rotting, until they are led to slaughter!

I'm not trying to use shock tactics, although we like to pretend that intensive farming goes on behind closed doors, we're all big enough and ugly enough to know full well what's going on! Jamie Oliver has exposed the horrors of factory farming and urged us shoppers to boycott intensively reared animals for years.

                  These beautiful cows have the same emotions as our pet dogs and cats.

For the record, I don't buy the 'I can't afford free-range/outdoor reared or organic.' Argument. Greed is what pushes us, we are as a society consuming more and more. We would rather bulk buy economy burgers and budget chickens, not because we have more mouths to feed, but because we have bigger appetites and why eat one ethically sourced burger when you can have a triple economy burger for less money!

Many of my recipes include meat and chicken, but my family have come to understand it's not about quantity but quality. One small free-range chicken will serve as a roast one day, with leftovers for the next. A very simple and delicious meal is mixed rice, all sorts of vegetables could be added to this dish to bulk it out, therefore very little chicken is needed.

Chicken fried rice

Recipe
A small handful of shredded chicken per person (leftovers from your roast chicken)
3 cups cooked rice
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 cup frozen diced carrots, thawed
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
4 spring onions, chopped

Heat a large frying pan or wok to medium heat
Add oil and fry peas, carrots, onion and garlic until tender
Scramble eggs into the veg mixture, add chicken and rice and combine thoroughly
Add soy sauce and when everything is piping hot, place in warm bowls and garnish with spring onions, serve immediately

'Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in filthy, excrement filled sheds is not very healthy. Beyond deformities and bacterial infections are suffering animals with tortured flesh - that tortured flesh is becoming our own.'
- Safran Foer

Love Donna xxxxxxx

There's More To Life Than Being Happy.

My grandmother with five of her nine children in her garden where she grew vegetables to feed her family.

I never met my paternal grandmother but I often wonder, was she happy? I would hazard a guess that she was probably tired, and worried where the next meal was coming from most of the time, however, apparently she was a jolly lady despite living an impoverished life in a small dwelling with nine children to take care of. I don't suppose she had time to even consider 'happiness,' hers, like many women of her generation, was a life of making the best of things.

I read an article recently, written by a doctor, which asked the question: 'Are you happy?' Apparently, according to the Office for National Statistics, middle aged people are the least happy people in the UK.

We have such high expectations nowadays regarding happiness, we live in a hedonistic society where we endlessly pursue pleasure. Women, particularly of my generation, are no longer tied to the drudgery or lack of independence known by our mothers and grandmothers. We have so much more by way of material things, clothes, handbags, shoes, cosmetics......we have modern appliances that take the hard work out of housework. We go to the hairdressers and beauticians, we dine out and take foreign holidays, we drive and shop online and we barely have to cook if we don't want to.

Yet the statistics are undeniable. People in middle age are juggling careers with responsibilities towards growing children and ageing parents, there are never-ending calls on our time, money and patience with the result that many people in their 40s and 50s are frazzled and stressed.

Ironically, women such as my grandmother didn't strive to feel 'happy' what really mattered was that their lives had purpose and meaning. My grandmother apparently felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment looking after her family. Women of that era realised that there were things other than perpetual happiness which gave their lives meaning, they took the discomfort and sadness along with the good times which they rejoiced.

My gilded lifestyle (compared with my grandmothers generation) is definitely more isolatory. Where my grandmother was surrounded by her family (as the children grew they rarely moved further than a couple of streets away) and neighbours all mucked in together, there was always help at hand and camaraderie. Front doors were left open, what little people had was shared, children played in the street and no one was vying for one upmanship.

It would be foolish for me to say I hanker after my grandmothers life, I can't begin to imagine hand washing heavy fabrics on a wash board, digging through frost to find vegetables for dinner, having nine hungry mouths to feed, taking a bath in a tub filled from a kettle once a week.......

However, I guess we should all take a moment to think about happiness, it seems unbelievable, given all the luxuries we now have, that happiness still evades us? I guess we should realise that happiness is not an entitlement and can't really be measured by material things, luxuries and adventures.

For my part, (particularly since Bert has left home) I realise that happiness is having your loved ones around you. It's not about the new car, the holiday to the Maldives or the Louboutin shoes, these are fleeting, it's not about impressing your friends or upstaging your colleagues. Happiness for me is when Bert pops in for a cup of tea or cooking Sunday lunch and having loved ones around the table, not so very different to my grandmothers idea of happiness I suspect.

Quite often, I find that the things which give me the most pleasure are quite mundane. Don't get me wrong, I pursue happiness as much as the next man, a meal in a nice restaurant, a few drinks at the pub with friends, a new outfit, a holiday........However, I find real comfort spending time in my kitchen, listening to radio 4 whilst preparing dinner or baking. I posted recently about industrialised bread (see post: Homemade Bread) and how bad it is for us. However, I appreciate that making homemade bread is quite laborious and not something the majority of my audience would consider making with regularity. Having done some research, I have found several very good organic bread mixes which can be bought either online or in most health food shops. This is simplicity itself, a case of mixing your dry mixture with water, kneading and leaving to rise before baking. Beyond the fact that this both tastes and smells so good, it's actually very therapeutic to push aside your phone or tablet, forget about your hectic day and just lose yourself in a bit of mindfulness.

Organic multi-seed bread

1 packet of bread mix

Empty dry mix into a bowl (if using a plain mix you can add a few pumpkin seeds or chopped nuts)

Add required amount of tepid water

Mix together until you form a dough

Place dough on a floured surface and knead and stretch for 10 minutes

Mould into a ball and rest for 10 minutes
Shape the dough and place in a greased loaf tin, cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise for 40 minutes

Uncover and bake in the oven 230c/gas mark 8 for 30 minutes until golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap the base

Turn out and cool on a wire rack

'Maturity is achieved when we postpone immediate pleasures for long-term values.'
- Joshua L Liebman

'I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.'
- Emma Goldman.

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx

Pancake Day

 The expression 'Shrove Tuesday' comes from the word shrive, meaning 'confess'. Observed by many Christians who make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to deal with.

Shrove Tuesday is the last day before the penitential season of lent. This is a period of 40 days beginning on Ash Wednesday, it is a season of reflection, a time of abstinence, a new beginning, a fresh start. A bit deeper than the general consensus that Shrove Tuesday is just a good excuse to indulge in lots of syrupy pancakes!

Personally I shan't be giving anything up for lent, however, I am using the season of lent as a time for reflection. There is a saying which goes: 'every morning we are born again, what we do today is what matters most.' I think it's good to have a bit of self reflection once in a while, sometimes we get caught up on the treadmill of life and forget to award ourselves, and others, respect and kindness.

Pancakes were traditionally eaten on the Shriving Tuesday for two reasons, firstly because they contain fat, butter and eggs all of which were forbidden during lent, secondly so that no food was wasted, families feasted on foods that might go off during the forty days of lent.

Pancake day still seems to be a traditional practice, although we now tend to eat pancakes whenever we want. I remember as a child going to a French restaurant with my parents where they would order Crepes Suzette which would be flambéd at the table. I was always fascinated by this but never allowed to have the pancakes as they were doused in Cointreau, cognac and kirsch.

Whenever I visit a local Spanish restaurant I always order the Crepes Suzette out of sheer nostalgia, and of course, because they are so delicious.

Crepes Suzette

Recipe
Serves 4

Pancakes
125g plain flour
1 egg and 1 yolk
300ml milk

Sift flour into bowl, make a well in the middle
Whisk egg and yolk, add a little milk, pour into the well and begin to whisk with flour
Gradually add remaining milk until you have a smooth batter
Heat a frying pan and brush with a little oil
Ladle 2-3 tablespoons of batter into hot pan, tilting so that the batter spreads evenly across the bottom
Cook for 45 seconds, loosen the pancake and flip it over with a palette knife
Cook the other side for 30 seconds and repeat until you have roughly 12 thin pancakes
Stack your pancakes on a plate (if they are hot when you stack them they won't stick)

Sauce
Juice of 2 oranges
175g butter
75g caster sugar
80ml liqueur (Grand Marnier, Cointreau or licor 43)

Pour the orange juice into a pan, add butter and sugar, bring to the boil, turn the heat down to a simmer, cook for 10 minutes until the sauce becomes syrupy

Fold your pancakes into quarters and arrange them in your pan in a circular pattern slightly overlapping each other

Warm the crepes through for 3 minutes over a low heat
Pour liqueur over the crepes and set light to the pan to flambé them

      

                                                                Serve immediately

'Drama is very important in life: you have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake'
-Julia Child

Happy pancake day
Love Donna xxxxx

Asda's Wonky Veg Box.

                                                                Asda's wonky veg box

Supermarket chain Asda have just launched a wonky veg box which costs only £3.50 and is loaded with seasonal vegetables.

Obviously I am overjoyed, as regular readers will know, I'm a huge exponent of eating 'real' food and you will have read over and over again how I deplore the fact that supermarkets demand such exacting cosmetic standards regarding fruit and veg, thereby rejecting tonnes of perfectly edible food, causing colossal food waste and crippling farmers across the UK.

I have written about Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's war on waste and how he has challenged the food corporations who have such an overwhelming amount of power over our food supply. Now Jamie Oliver is on 'a mission' to cut food waste and get wonky fruit and veg back into our shopping baskets. It would seem that gradually we are beginning to see sense.

Asda's wonky veg box has enough vegetables in it to feed an average family for a week for only £3.50! I've already been contacted by several friends who have said they will be buying these boxes, most people (well, those with common sense) understand that there is nothing wrong with imperfect looking food. Once peeled and chopped up, a wonky carrot or parsnip is no different to a perfectly straight one.

Food corporations treat us like idiots, of course they don't really want to be giving us a weeks worth of vegetables at such low prices, they see no shame in discarding 'imperfect' produce, to then offer the consumer 'perfect' produce at higher prices, it's a clever marketing ploy, much like the 'use by' scandal which we've all bought in to.

Unfortunately, we've become a nation of fast foodies, we don't revere food in the same way previous generations have. Consumers are lured into cheap meal deals which can be chucked into the oven without any preparation. The fact that they are pure quantity over quality doesn't seem to matter.

A Co Op meal deal. On the face of it this seems like a good deal. £5 for all of this food.

However, these types of meals offer no real nutritional value, they are full of additives and calories and although filling, are literally just bland stodge. I occasionally make the mistake of using oven chips out of sheer laziness, I never enjoy them and funnily enough, although the birds in my garden will happily eat leftover potatoes, regardless of how I've cooked them, they won't touch oven chips even if I mash them up.

Bert put me to shame this week (he's been the recipient of my laziness in the past regarding oven chips) by telling me that Holly makes lovely homemade chips. Actually it was lovely to hear that Holly cooks so well, as I say, so many people (young working people especially) rely on ready meals and live on a diet of crap.

Rather than the method of twice or triple fried chips (which is quite laborious) Holly par boils potatoes, cuts them into chips, fries them briefly and then finishes them in the oven. Actually this is a relatively quick and easy alternative and having tried it I shall use this method in future.

Holly's chips
7 potatoes, peeled
200ml coconut oil
Sea salt and black pepper

Preheat oven 200c/gas 6
Par boil potatoes for 8-10 minutes

Cut potatoes into chips

Heat oil in a pan and fry chips for 5 minutes (don't overcrowd the pan, better to do this in batches)

Place chips on a baking tray (I line mine with greaseproof paper)

Cook for 20 minutes or until crisp and golden

Season with salt and pepper (and I guarantee, you'll never eat another oven chip again.)

                                                                    Lovely little Holly ♡

'Would you pour sand into the petrol tank of your beloved car? Of course not, your car was meant to run on petrol. Well, your body works in the same way. Your body was meant to run on good food: fruits, vegetables and lean protein. Treasure your body, eat good food.'
- Tom Giaquinto.

Love Donna xxxxxxx

Gym Junkies.

The good news is: evidence is firmly in place regarding the health benefits of red wine!

Resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, helps to remove chemicals from the body responsible for causing blot clots, which is the primary cause of coronary disease, added to which, studies revealed that those who drink a glass of red wine a day are less likely to develop dementia, diabetes and even cancer.

Recent studies conclude that Resveratrol was also seen to improve physical performance, heart function and muscle strength in the same way as they're improved after a gym session! Incredibly good news if you abhor gyms as I do.

These days everyone seems to be gym junkies, forget a brisk walk, a bike ride or doing a few laps in the pool, everyone's pumping iron and working out with their personal trainer. Personally I can't think of anything worse, most gyms smell like a tyre plant with white noise blaring from speakers and the shower rooms are breeding grounds for bacteria, added to which,  I just can't stand the whole elite athlete/ benign masochist vibe.

I guess we can all look at ways to promote our health, but as the old Dave Allen joke used to go: 'I've given up smoking, drinking and eating red meat, I may not live longer but it'll certainly feel like it.' I don't want to spend a moment of my life in a sweaty, stuffy gym by the same premise.

It would be wonderful to replace the gym with red wine, however, the recommendation is 1 glass a day with at least 30 minutes of physical activity such as a brisk walk. This combination seems to work very well for Spaniards, large consumers of red wine, Spaniards are also keen walkers as it is seen as a social activity. I recently met a gentleman in his 80s taking a post prandial stroll, he told me that since a young man he has always had a glass of red wine every day and had cycled and walked regularly, naturally, he has eaten a typical Mediterranean diet including lots of fish, vegetables and olive oil, needless to say, he's never been in a gym.

Along with my daily glass of red wine I have made a conscious effort to have a meal of fresh vegetables at least twice a week, no meat, no carbohydrates, just lots of lovely fresh seasoned vegetables. If this is your main meal of the day you could indulge in some grilled fish or chicken to accompany your vegetables.

Vegetable medley

Recipe
3 large leeks
A large handful of peas (fresh or frozen)
A large bunch of spinach
Olive oil
Sea Salt and black pepper

Trim leeks then cut through vertically, fan the leeks out and rinse under cold water to remove any hidden dirt

Chop leeks into roughly 1 inch pieces
Place a frying pan over a medium heat, add a splash of olive oil to cover the surface of the pan
Add leeks and season, turn the heat down to low and let them cook gently for 5 minutes

Stir in spinach and peas, once the spinach has wilted and the peas are tender, pile onto a warm plate (you could sprinkle with some Parmesan cheese for extra flavour)

Enjoy with a nice glass of red wine.

'Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.'
- Louis Pasteur.

Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Is Coconut Oil Healthy?

I have been looking into foodstuffs recently in terms of how healthy/unhealthy they are. I've written about black garlic, industrialised bread and how processed food affects our gut bacteria. I don't subscribe to the whole January thing about crash dieting, blimey, it's bleak enough without having to spend these dark nights sitting with a bowl of mung beans or sprouting broccoli for tea, and you can forget dry January, who's bright idea was that?

Dieting gained popularity in the UK in the 1980s and the 'diet industry' has become a very lucrative business, but as I said in my previous post, dieting rarely works because we return to bad eating habits over and over again. We've switched from eating in order to survive to eating in excess and much of what we eat is processed, as the saying goes: 'If it's a plant eat it, if it was made in a plant don't.'

Coconut oil seems to be the latest health fad and is being touted for its ability to help us lose weight, stave off illness and even prevent Alzheimer's but the jury is still out. Research thus far has consisted of short-term studies and nutritionists have said they need a lot more research before they can say it's a super food. As yet, no one knows how coconut oil will affect heart disease.

I'm always wary of foods with 'health halo's,' a generation ago we were decrying coconut oil or any saturated fats, yet we now know that trans fats (still found in a variety of food products) are the worst types of fat we can eat and are hazardous to our health!

We can also run away with the idea that if something is 'healthy' we can eat more of it and lose sight of portion control. We know that olive oil is unsaturated, however, it still needs to be used in moderation, coconut oil is 90 per cent saturated fat, about half of which is lauric acid which does have a number of health promoting properties, however, moderation is definitely the key.

The plus point with coconut oil is that it's a wonderful treatment for dry hair. I recently saw some coconut oil hair products in TK Maxx which were extremely expensive, far cheaper to melt some coconut oil from the pot you've bought for cooking and slather it on!

'The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second biggest is diet books - telling you how not to eat what you've just learnt to cook.'
- Andy Rooney.

Love Donna xxxxxxxx