The rise of the Carbophobes.

I don't think I could live with staple food stuffs like pasta, rice and bread. However, these foods are increasingly on people's 'ban' list. OK, so thankfully people have stopped with the dangerous Atkins diet, but people still follow high protein, low carb diets, such as the Dukan diet. Please note this post excludes those who have cut out such food due to food intolerances!

I just think WHY??????

The way these diets work is essentially to make your body use it's fat stores for energy. Carbohydrates provide us with most of our energy, whereas fat is usally stored by the body and used as an energy reserve, it's the can of beans that is kept in the back of the cupboard for the end of the month when we're a bit skint.  However, despite this, when the body metabolises it's fat stores, it does provide us with more energy than when we burn carbohydrates. However the body prefers to use carbohydrates for energy as it is usally more readily available. Think of carbohydrates as the ready meal that you grab when you come home from work and are too tired and hungry to cook. The idea of these diets is by restricting carbohydrates you force your body to turn to it's stored fat for energy.  The high protein (but low fat) aspect of the diet is to ensure that you never get the hunger pangs that you usually associate with diets.

So, your probably thinking 'So this must be a good thing right?', well yes on the face of it this seems like a brilliant diet, it is certainly a good thing to get rid of fat stores however the problem comes from the side effects of not eating the carbohydrates. People who go on these diets often feel lethargic due to the lack of carbohydrates providing the readily available energy, someone on the Dukan diet once commented that they struggled to exercise at the gym because they felt really tired. Now to me that just seems wrong.

Another problem with low carb diets is they affect your mood, I watched ITV's Worlds Best Diet (unable to find the official link) a while back, and Carole Malone was sent to LA to follow a low carb diet, although she lost weight throughout the programme both her and her husband commented on how the diet had resulted in mood swings.

Another issue with low carb diets is what happens when your body metabolises fat, a by-product is produced called a ketone, these are acidic and usually the body is able to restore the PH balence, but when the levels of ketones rise (i.e. during a low carb diet where the body is metabolising fat for energy) the body reponds by going into another metabolic state called Ketoacidosis. This state produces another by-product called acetone which is breathed out and can be smelt in someone breath- if you have ever smelt this on someone you would know it smells awful! Ketoacidosis is common in diabetics and alcoholics. Lovely.

To be fair, the latest craze, The Dukan diet is a lot better that the Atkins diet. It has different phases, and at least includes some carbohydrates and the later phases (3 and 4) are maintaining a desired weight and going back to a more normal diet. But it still involves lots of confusing rules about what you can or can't eat. Phase 2 involved alternating between protein only and protein and veg days- what if your invited out for sunday lunch on a protein only day???

I could go on and on about the side effects of these diets, but I fear I may have been going on a bit already.

The thing I don't like about these diets, or any diet to be honest is that they seem to promise miracles with rapid and extreme weight loss, they are unmaintainable and often ignore the idea of a healthy and balanced diet. They concentrate on weight loss rather than overall health and companies are making a fortune out of desparate people. Is this fair when in the UK those living in poverty are more likely to be overweight and suffer from the related health problems?

I think this is a symptom of our convienience society, we don't have time for gradual, safe weight loss and want the quick fixes. I think a lot of us are baffled by what is meant by a healthy diet, there is so much information out there and science is constantly evolving and changing the perception of what a healthy diet and lifestyle is. I know that I find it hard to get my five a day- breakfast and tea are fine, it's lunch I struggle with. But, we are complicated, when you think of what our body does to get us through the day it's not surprising that our dietry requirements are complicated too.

And despite how complex and inconvienient a healthy diet and lifestyle may be, it is worth it and I for one will continue to do my best to achieve it.

Spinach Stir Fry

I like stir frys, but usually when I make them I end up buying the pre-prepared packs of vegetables, sauces and noodles but this time I thought I’d save a bit of money and compile the ingredients myself.

When I moved into my flat last year, I bought a load of frozen veg and now that I’m due to move out again in June, I’m trying to get rid of all this veg in time for moving.  At the moment I have frozen broccoli left (hence the green pesto and broccoli pasta) and chopped spinach.

I found a recipe in Vegetarian Nosh for Students for a spinach stir fry, I adapted it a bit as I bought some carrots this week in a view to use them to dip into some homemade hummus I never got round to making.  The result was tasty, even tastier when I added some sweet chilli dipping sauce that needed using up ;-)!

Chopsticks for illustrative purposes only!

Serves 1, takes around 6 minutes 
  

One garlic clove crushed

Spring onions (chopped) - the recipe called for two, but as I bought a bunch of ten I used five

Half a red pepper (deseeded and cut into strips)- I had this for two night’s teas, so you could use one half one night and the other half the next, or you could use it in a different recipe

2 tablespoons of any nut- I used cashews

Carrot (sliced finely) - as much as you like/have

A handful of spinach- as mine was frozen into little balls of chopped spinach, I used three balls

Noodles- you could use the straight to wok noodle you get in supermarkets but I found some cheap dried Udon noodles at my local Chinese supermarket

¼ pint of water

1tsp honey

1 tsp soy sauce

Heat the a tbsp of oil in a pan until very hot-I used extra virgin olive oil, but something like sesame oil would be nice

Add the garlic, onion, pepper and carrot and fry for one minute

Add the water, honey and soy sauce. Heat for 30 seconds

Add the spinach and nuts and heat for 30 seconds or until spinach is wilted (as mine was frozen spinach it took slightly longer

Add the noodles, if you use dried noodles you will need to cook these beforehand.

Serve

What is good about this meal?

The spinach, carrot and pepper provide 3 of your five a day. Also because the water they are cooked in is used as the sauce, your retain the nutrients from the veg that leach into the water during cooking. The nuts provide protein, and as I used cashews in my stir fry they also provide iron.

Super size vs. Super skinny

I’m a regular viewer of Channel four’s super size vs. super skinny, and although I’m not entirely convinced by the method of diet swapping of two extremely unhealthy diets in order to make the participants overcome their food issues, I still end up watching it as it is still a program about food and health, and therefore I’m automatically hooked!

Last night’s episode shocked me, not in the usual way though. I was shocked by the super skinny participant’s diet, and the fact that because her food intake was so low, her energy levels were non-existent and as a result, she spent most of her time sleeping!

I say it shocked me in a new way, because usually I’m more shocked about the diet of the supersizer as I think “how can they eat all that food and not stop as the weight piles on?” Although I KNOW that the super skinny diet is just as bad, and just as damaging to their health I’m just not as shocked by it.

I've come to the conclusion that the reason that I’m not shocked so much by the super skinny diet is that it has become the norm. Although we’ve been conditioned to see overweight people as repulsive and as a joke, we are surrounded by skinny celebrities and encouraged to aspire to their image. We’re bombarded by the latest diet craze and celebrities who put on the tiniest bit of weight are attacked the media, those who lose weight are paraded in the glossy mags like role models. Even though the way they lose weight is unattainable (and sometimes damaging to their health- remember the Atkins craze?) to the normal person, I know I haven't got the money to spend on expensive diets and a personal trainer, or the time!  

Although the super skinny participants in the program fussy eaters or have poor appetites, our obsession with being skinny means that some develop eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. A friend became anorexic during High School and they once told me that they received compliments on how good they looked. They have now made a full recovery, but scarily the more I hear about sufferers of eating disorders, the more aware I am that its quite normal for sufferers to receive compliments about weight loss, which can only encourage them to carry on.  It is only when the weight loss becomes severe, that people start to take note, by this point it's often too late and the eating disorder has taken over the completely.

The fact is that both are equally damaging to our health; obesity causes diabetes, heart disease and other health complaints. But under eating is just as deadly, lack of food causes the body to ‘eat itself’ in order to survive therefore the sufferer literally wastes away, malnutrition is another issue, in the episode last night, the lack of iron in the super skinny participant’s diet caused her periods to stop and therefore making her infertile. Karen Carpenter lost her life to heart failure as a result of anorexia, although she was in recovery at the time, the damage to her heart had already been done.

Obesity may be on the rise, but cases of anorexia and bulimia are also on the rise, no doubt both are due to our unhealthy attitude towards food and our tendency to either eat too much, or too little. In the program, Dr Christian Jessen constantly warns viewers "How will the NHS cope with the rise in obesity", but equally, how will it cope with the rise in other eating disorders and their health complications?

Green Pesto Pasta with Broccoli and Pine Nuts.

Before moving out in 2007, my idea of cooking was beans with  breaded chicken fillets and potato croquets.  When I decided to move out I decided to buy myself a Student Cook book and settled on Nosh for Students by Joy May.

Joy soon became my go-to food author. I now own the latest edition of her Nosh For Students book (I gave the first book to The Boy and his brother for use at their student house, I doubt it gets used much unfortunately), Nosh for Graduates and Vegetarian Nosh for Students with is approved by the Vegetarian Society.

One of the meals I've been making from the Vegetarian Nosh book recently is green pesto pasta with broccoli and pine nuts.

Serves 1 15-20 minutes:
1 serving of pasta
As much broccoli as you like, I usually use a couple of handfuls
2 tbsp Vegetarian green pesto (I used vegan)
Olive oil- use enough just to make the pesto a desired consistency
1 tbsp pine nuts
Cheese (I used cheddar)

1) Add pasta to boiling water and reduce to simmer
2) Mix the pesto, oil and pine nuts
3) When the pasta has about 5 minutes left, throw in the broccoli
4) Once cooked, mix all together, sprinkle with cheese and serve.

What's good about this meal?
This is quite a balanced meal. The broccoli is part of your five a day, the pasta provides a portion of carbohydrates (I used 'white' pasta here as I bought a load in bulk last year and I'm trying to use it up. But wholemeal pasta would be better) and the pine nuts provide the protein.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog.

I've started this blog as a way to share my thoughts on food, nutrition, environmental and ethical topics. I will also posting up reviews of various recipes I try, as well as related products.

My blog is called herbivorous carnivore as although I don't intend to classify myself as a vegetarian I'm trying to reduce the amount of meat I eat, for environment, ethical and health reasons.

Enjoy!