Tag: lunch

addictive food

let’s start with cheese

Cheese is highly addictive due to the casein, salt and fat in it.
The producers of cheese products know this, they have known this for quite some time, they prepare the cheese they sell to you specially to make it as addictive as possible so you will be forced to buy and eat more and more of it

They do not care what it does to your health and your mind, except to condition you into buying and eating more cheesy things. The problem is, how do you stop eating something you like to eat which is in or on just about everything we eat?
Once you know it is addictive and is so very unhealthy, how do you stop?

Despite the fact that you believe you like it.

We’ll work on this together

I had some trouble stopping myself eating cheese, it was exactly the same trouble I had when I quit smoking. Not only is it fattening and unhealthy, it is also addictive, just like sugar and salt which are also added to just about everything we eat.

Cheese is everywhere, on your Pizza, in your sandwich, in lasagne, in your macaroni, on your spaghetti, It is really hard to think of a meal that does NOT have cheese in it when you first start out NOT eating cheese. It is also, so moreish, we all love to eat lots of it. The advertisers tell us we love it and we readily and happily agree with them.

Melting gooey sticky stringy oily yellow cheese
On everything

So it’s even harder to quit that smoking, because at least these days we are not bombarded with smoking messages saying how cool it is and great it is and good for us it is. The food marketing industry is now using the exact same strategies the tobacco industry used to make us eat more cheese, like more cheese and defend our sacred cheese.

It’s such clever brainwashing we don’t even know we are brainwashed
Just look at advertising
Or rather, don’t

We have come a long way from the delightful brie made by Mr. local farmer, or the real traditional stilton. The cheese being sold to us now is not really cheese at all, certainly not in the traditional artisan sense. What we get now is a poor reflection of the old local cheese makers varieties, so much so it’s impossible to name any but the most well known mass produced ones. Think about it, what locally produced cheese can you name, or better yet, do you eat?

If we can get ourselves to the point that we stop eating this mass produced muck and go back to occasionally treating ourselves to a local handmade speciality, we are already ahead.
Try not to eat anything with cheese on it for a few days at a time. Say ‘hold the cheese’ and find out how dishes taste without it. It worked for me, it can work for you. Try it and think about how you feel.

As you start paying attention to how you feel and what you think it will become easier to stop eating cheese altogether.
Only when you have reached this stage will you realise how prevalent cheese is in your life and your diet. You will also notice you feel a lot lighter and have less trouble with your knees.

Look what I found

I love to forage.

today I found morels, some of the most delicious mushrooms on the planet, they are really hard to find.
They grow in April and May and love sandy soil

Today I shall eat them lightly fried in a little olive oil. Chefs also sauté them in butter, they can also be preserved by canning, bottling or drying. But this is just a nice little portion for one person, laid across a slice of home baked whole grain bread, with the tiniest smattering of salt.

Always check all your mushrooms for worms and bugs and brush them clean with a small soft mushroom brush. Some mushrooms will be covered in sand or other debris. What I do if it is really bad is wash them under cold running water and then leave them to dry separately for several hours or even overnight so they do not become soggy.

Please never ever pick any wild mushrooms unless you have learned personally from an expert in the field.

There are, for instance, mushrooms that are often mistaken for morelles  which are poisonous and will make you really quite ill, so unless there is someone with you who is an expert in the field, do not pick.
If you are not sure of what it is, do not pick, if it is not in the best condition, do not pick, if it has been half eaten by slugs or is very damaged, do not pick.
Do not pick if it is very young and do not pick if it is very old.

If you are serious about learning to forage mushrooms, learn when they are not in the right condition to pick.
This is not something you can learn from a book or a few videos. You need to learn from an expert in the field, personally. Some experts run workshops during the relative mushroom seasons and it is possible to apply for these where you are.

I was lucky, my mother picked and so did my grandmother and my aunts and great aunts, so I learned from  childhood which mushroom is which, what is edible, what will make me ill, what is medicine and what will give me (bad) dreams, and, of course which ones are delicious and where to find them, which trees they prefer to be near or grow on, as well as all the places they knew where their favourite mushrooms grew.

I never tell anyone where these mushroom patches are, some are very rare, some are very common, some are very hard to spot, others are extremely easy. I know over fifty varieties, but I only pick some of them. I pick depending on seasonal availability, which can vary greatly from year to year.

If you do come across a mushroom patch never ever pick them all, leave one third – always, – don’t be greedy.
Let some grow up and spore, if you see someone else also knows this mushroom patch and has already picked them, leave what is left. and go your way.

I will not pass my expertise on to anyone, I have no one I want to pass it on to and do not give workshops. We have so little forest left and it is still being cut down at an astonishing rate. There are few wild meadows left and little duneland. Many of the varieties I used to pick are now rare or even endangered. If I do come across a patch of rare mushrooms I leave them alone, even hiding the patches of the rarest ones so no one else can stumble across them.

Morelles can be bought already dried, or in jars or tins, preserved for your recipes and dishes if you really want to try them, very rarely you can get them fresh. There are now growers who specialize in morles too, that would be the best bet.

Better yet find a restaurant where the chef has them on the menu and try them cooked by an expert.

 

 

A mixed bean salad

Vegan, oil free, gluten free, delicious.

This oil free recipe gets its creaminess from the Violife ‘white’ and the borlotti beans. red beans will also work. Carrot adds sweetness and cucumber a delicious coolness. The rucola is used as a herb as it is strong and peppery in flavour, all offsetting the slight bitterness from the chicory. Thus giving a wonderful easy to eat oil free salad containing all the nutrients needed.

For gallbladder and liver health it is also possible to add dandelion leaf finely chopped, it goes well in this dish adding it’s own flavour in-between the chicory and rucola. It is possible to forage dandelion almost anywhere, be careful to choose clean plants not near busy roads but in meadows or parks where the air is cleaner. Or like I do simply grow it in your garden as it is a healthy nutritious plant.

The lemon juice and salt bring out all the natural flavours of the fresh ingredients and with the rucola and the dandelion leaf you don’t need pepper.

red chicory, finely chopped
spring onion thinly sliced
grated carrot
dandelion leaf finely chopped
a small tin of green borlotti beans (red kidney beans are also good)
greek white ‘goats cheese’ Violife, in small chunks
rucola, very finely chopped (arugula)
red cayenne chilli very finely chopped
cucumber in small chunks
paprika, orange, sliced and chopped (bell pepper)
lemon juice to taste
salt  to taste

 

So lets go

Let’s take a good long look at how and what and when and especially why we eat.
Because we all know it’s not just about hunger and nutrition.

If you are or ever have been ‘serious’ about dieting you have this picture in your mind of what your preferred ‘thin’ is like. You have this idea that somewhere in the future you can be different. You want to change into that perfect person you think you are not.

You want to be this other person, this thin person.
You want to be this totally different being who is slim and energetic, beautiful and healthy and loved
Loved even by you yourself.
So who is this person you can see in the future? This person who is all these things you want to be and feel you are not right now?

We don’t really need to take a long look in the mirror to see what we really look like now, as we know what we look like now, and don’t like what we look like now, this is why we avoid looking at ourselves.
We carefully avoid the mirror, sometimes we won’t even have mirrors in the house and some of us wince when we catch sight of ourselves accidentally.

How bad is that as a body image? Is this how you really feel about yourself? I’ve noticed it about me, my body image is very negative. Do you never wear anything tight or fitted, do you also buy those roomy clothes that cover your body and hide all the lumps and bumps and fat bits? Are you afraid to be seen in public, in the gym? Will everyone who sees you notice all the fat bits wobbling on the fatter bits which you are so unhappy about? I never go to the beach in a bikini anymore because I’m afraid someone might see that I have fat bits.

It’s no way to live. I feel sad and I am angry and puzzled and by my own reactions to what my body looks like now. I do not have a good relationship with my body.
Instead I have a deep meaningful relationship with my fridge, my cookie jar, this bag of crisps and the bar of chocolate, specially the bar of chocolate.
And it is all funny, It’s hilarious, I laugh, we laugh we are all funny, because if it wasn’t funny we would be crying, so I’m snarky and sarky instead and that makes me angry too because it’s not really a joke, mainly because I have begun to worry about my health.
And still I eat
Specially the very things I know I should not be eating at all.

Let’s face it we are unhappy, have a terrible body image and don’t like who we are.

What we need to do is engage our brains, we need to think about this carefully, we need to use the mirror in a completely different way
We need to look at ourselves from the inside out, use our internal mirror
We need to look at our feelings instead of eating something

Avoiding  how we feel is what got us here in the first place, we need to look at ourselves inside out, honestly
It’s just us in here, so it’s safe here, as for everyone else – it’s none of their business, they can stop judging us right now – if they ever did.
We have to let the internal judge sail too and stop judging ourselves, look at ourselves dispassionately, calmly and kindly, without judgment.

Let’s get real inside our own heads, inside our own feelings first. Take look at what moves us to eat the way we eat, so we get to the point where we can do something about it for good, for the long term.
We need to take control.

It’s like finally quitting smoking, at first it’s impossible to do, we can’t even think about it so we don’t. Then it’s maybe something that might happen in the distant future, then it becomes possible to cut down, after that the idea of quitting becomes something that could happen someday, then one day it is possible and you find you can stop.
After that on the day you quit, not smoking is hard as it nails you down twenty times a day as you slog through the force of habit, but it is possible to continue quitting twenty times a day and not reach for that cigarette twenty times a day. Then you notice you can breathe deeply again, this is it’s own reward, your sense of smell returns, this has it’s own reward too. The smokers cough finally goes away and that feels really good, then movement, walking, running becomes easier, you’re not so knackered all the time and that is really great.

So bit by bit, not smoking becomes normal and easier till you cannot even imagine how you mindlessly smoked all those years.
But it was difficult to put that last one down, and it was very tricky to avoid the next one.
That takes control.
(if you never started smoking, really well done! That’s the best way, never start)

The point is that we can also do this with food. We can be in control of ourselves here too.
It becomes easier, and easier for us to do the right thing as we go along. In a years time, two years time – when you look back at yourself you will smile. You will have become the person you can only dream about now. The healthy active one.

The one you know you are.

So the exercise today is look at your body image clearly and kindly, notice the difference between the one you think you are and the one you think you want to be, that’s it, that’s all there is to it, get these images right in you mind. What are you now? What do you imagine yourself to be? How far apart are these two images, how different do they look to you? Remember though, neither of these images is real – neither of them.

Now, how do you feel?

Fix it

So how do you fix your diet, fix your life, get healthy and be your ideal weight?
Tall order for any diet
But this is it

The thing you gotta do is get your head round it, once you have your head in the right place anything is possible. Like not eating cheese.

Even if you like cheese, I can hear you saying, ‘but I like cheese!’
I know
I used to like cheese, at least I used to think I liked cheese.

There’s the rub

But let’s take a good look at all of it as it’s not just about the cheese
I like to eat, I have to eat
We all have to eat.

And the trouble with most of us is we like, no we love to eat a lot, and mostly we love to eat a lot of unhealthy things, let’s face it food is beautiful, and delicious and filling and good for us.

Most of the time anyway.

It’s when we lose control of our eating that the trouble starts and this is true for most of us, at least it’s true for me. I lost track of where in the distance past my dietary habits and eating patterns changed from normal to this serious weight and health problem. I don’t know what happened and I can’t see when. There seems to be no point in time, when I look back; where I can then pinpoint a moment and say ‘here is where it all went wrong’ – ‘here is where eating became a problem.’

We all look at our weight in Puzzlement and confusion ask ‘What the fuck happened?’

Where did I go wrong? I blame cheese.

So what in the hell did happen? It’s like the very thing we need to do to stay alive was hijacked somewhere along the way and turned into something that’s killing us. Laugh all you like, but that is exactly what happened. We all became addicts to the very thing that sustains our lives.

The cruellest addiction is food addiction because we really cannot live without food

We can’t just drop it forever and do a detox and never look back

If we don’t eat, we die.

So we cannot break out of it, we have to eat to live.
Like breathing,

Which is why smoking was and remains so popular despite what we know about smoking now, people still smoke, it is intricately involved in our breathing and we can’t just stop breathing and say fine see I’m all better

If we don’t breathe, we die

Alcohol and soda addiction or even energy drink addiction is just as hard to stop, we need to drink

We cannot say see I don’t drink anymore, We cannot not drink

If we don’t drink, we die

The thing about nicotine and alcohol is we can stop smoking and drinking that particular thing and still breathe air and still drink water. Can this also be done with food? These addictions and choices we make are intimately and intricately interwoven with the very impulses that keep us alive.

We need to do something, but we can’t not eat at all we can’t stop drinking altogether, we can’t not breathe the air, and we can’t not move. (I’ll get into that last one later.)

Like with drinking and smoking you have to break your addiction to the foods that are killing you.

Specially cheese,

But not only cheese, this is a challenge we need to take, a race we need to win as it is ‘win or die’. And since I aim to live long and prosper I need to win this challenge. I do not want to die, not yet anyway, I want to live to a ripe old age, laughing all the way and a bloody good diet is what’s going to get me there,

This sluggish poisonous unhealthy body I am now living in will become a healthy sleek one, and I will become more energetic and happier. I will become less grumpy less aggressive, less neurotic and less depressed as I fix all the food problems I have. I’m taking you with me, whether you like it or not.

And it is not JUST about the food, it’s a bout me and you, and our personal long term survival.

I will repeat a lot of stuff, it’ll get it into your head, so you remember, so you know. So I remember, so I know.

Also we will try to drown out the advertisers and the government propaganda. Some of you will be able to listen, some will not due to the weight of subliminal messaging and life long bombardment with misinformation, but my hope is once this thought is in your head it will stay there a and help you do something long term about the terrible eating habits and unhealthy food addictions that got you and me here I the first place.

Restaurant review L’Amandine

L’Amandine

Salon de Thé – Restaurant
chef. Myriam Cadet
host. Hugo Eenhoorn

This little place in Bussum, The Netherlands is worth a visit
If you are ever in the area  visit this a charming little tea house where lunch is as pleasant as it is in France.

Stop by if you are parched and just need a cup of tea or linger longer for lunch or dinner.

They have a sound menu where even the vegan is catered for, order a sandwich, a full hot meal or a delightful plate of grilled vegetables at any time of day.

We sampled them all and they are all delightful.
The food is of a high standard, the dishes are all cooked to order. The Chef, Myriam Cadet knows what she is doing in her little kitchen. No fast food here, just French dishes done well.

We will be returning whenever we are in Bussum. I highly recommend this little gem.

the details

L’Amandine
Salon du Thé -restaurant
Havenstraat 134 B
1404EM Bussum

http://www.lamandine.nl
+31 642133755

Getting better

Why would ‘better’ be something we have to go out and get?

Surely it should be with us all the time, but the same wording is used for ‘getting’ ill – as if it is something we shop for at the supermarket

Well

Perhaps it is something we get.

Most of us spend most of our lives living with some kind of low grade inflammation all over
This is what we consider normal and it gets worse with age
We have gotten so used to it we think it’s normal

We eat junk, we know it’s junk, we eat rubbish, we know it’s rubbish, we turn our noses up at fruit, we refuse to eat vegetables and we have phobias about eating salads.

We are all addicted to sugar, fat and refined carbs, and wonder why we feel vaguely sick all the time.

Stop messing about, you know why you feel sick all the time. You eat crap! You pay no attention whatsoever to the quality of the food you put in your mouth, half the time you don’t even know what it is!
You just shove the fastest, easiest, nearest crap into your mouth and assume all will be well, just like everybody else, till, when you are fifty you find yourself on a gurney being rushed into surgery for a bypass.

Welcome to the western world where your diet will kill you.

Having just reached a similar point myself I know where that place is, being hospitalised is scary.

Going out and ‘getting’ better is where it’s at.

Get yourself a better diet, get yourself healthy, get yourself fit, get that feel good factor into your life now – start now by eating your veggies before you die.
Get your head round it, get rid of your junk addiction and start eating real food.

I thought I had a fairly healthy diet, mostly vegan mostly plant based, I loathe meats anyway so I don’t eat them. I hate milk, I’m not keen on greasy stuff or sweet things I don’t eat sweets as such, but I slip often enough to make my diet pretty damn useless anyway, so I need to clean up my act.
Recently I was eating bars of chocolate, white buns with jam and clotted cream, tiramisu, mayonnaise, prawns and fish slathered in oils and even some meats like roast beef. I was completely off the rails.
Then came the easter celebrations and plates full of filled eggs and devilled eggs and other dishes made with eggs, french cheeses, white bread, jams and clotted cream and serious overdoses of chocolate.

I ate everything. I overate.

No wonder I ended up in hospital with stabbing pains in my guts the day after, the DAY after!

I did it all to myself,

I know what to do now. You know what to do too, you do, you have always known, but you don’t listen to it, you only listen to your food addiction and every day you make the easy wrong choice, and you know you do. Even in the face of your own addictions, your own habits, your own routines, as well as advertising, the misinformation, propaganda and the immense social pressure we are all under, change anyway.
Start anyway.
Just like me you need to change your diet before it kills you.

get better
get healthy

 

 

 

Dandelion salad with artichokes

Super simple super nice

seriously good for your gall

Why?

Well – dandelions have been famous throughout history for helping the liver and gallbladder, this little plant is also a diuretic, thus great for the kidneys and helps the immune system.

I have used the plant before in salads, it’s a bit like rucola, nice and pungent and bitter. It adds a lot of fresh flavour to salad dishes.

It is also delicious, I used the leaves chopped and the flower petals scattered over the dish.

And artichokes are scientifically proven to help the liver and gallbladder, to help with nausea and vomiting, and is also an antioxidant. I’m on firmer ground here as some of this has actually been studied. And is thus now considered proven scientific fact, which we like.

I got the artichokes out of a tin as they are not quite in season yet here, though I recommend them fresh if you can be bothered to prepare them. They are one of my favourite foods when in season.

You know you can even order artichoke on your pizza if you want, it’s all good.

Sprinkle on some lemon juice and a pinch of salt on the salad and you’re good to go.

That’s all you need.

Emergency gallstones

So I got out of hospital yesterday with my gallbladder still in me

What a treat

To get to keep all your body parts

I am pleased I managed to avoid surgery, they are all so very keen to chop you up and take bits out.

Like it’s some kind of fashion.

The problem is not the gallbladder, the problem is the gallstones, it’s the gallstones that need to go so why not leave the gallbladder which has a job to do and just remove the gallstones? That strikes me as far more logical. The surgical technique would be practically the same.

Unfortunately any and all cures for gallstones or ways of removing gallstones or in fact any other kind of treatment for gallstones except surgery is not supported in mainstream medicine, so you’re fucked before you start! You have to drop conventional medicine and go your own route if you want to keep all your insides right where they are. Which is the route I have decided to take.

Very careful menu planning, loose weight slowly and gently, drink lots of water, lots more exercise, and meditation

Specially the meditation

As, together with the searing stabbing pains from gallstones I also am extremely bad tempered lately, I mean white hot rage, temper tantrums and anger attacks for no reason.

I’ve got a gall!

It’s even in the language, it’s become part of the language. Gall!

Yes the anger, the rage, the temper are all part of gallstones and gallbladder and liver problems.

Apparently my digestive system rules.

In my research the only place I have found references to the emotional aspect of this is in chinese medicine, and partially in ayurvedic medicine nothing in western medical literature, though I’m sure if I dug a bit deeper I might find some reference to it.

So we will see what happens now.
I have an appointment with my GP to go and I have made an appointment with an ayurvedic GP as well. (Yes I wish it was Deepak Chopra as well – but he doesn’t practice here)

Of course I will be trying every fad and find and alternative AS WELL as keeping an eye on the mainstream, after all, the goal is to survive.

So now onto a good meditation hour and………..

Wish me luck – I need it.

 

‘Bami,’ noodles easy vegan style

A quick simple wok dish
Ready in no time
A clean and easy recipe if you like you can use any bits of any suitable vegetables you have left over

Of course it’s vegan!

You will need Mie.. Mie is a kind of noodle made from wheat, one rose or swirl of mie per person is enough.
You can use noodles if you wish.
Don’t overdo it, too many noodles or mie spoil it.
With this recipe you want to really taste the veggies

This makes enough for 4

Ingredients

Mie 4 nests

prepare all the vegetables in advance.

One large onion cut in half and then thinly sliced.
Garlic 3 large cloves halved lengthwise and sliced thinly
A chunk of ginger the same size as the garlic altogether, sliced to the same size as the garlic
juice of 1 lemon
sugar 1 tbsp. (or a little more to taste if the lemon is very strong)
4 tbsp Ketjap benteng manis (sweet soy sauce)
2 tbsp ketjap asin (salt soy sauce)
One paprika finely sliced, any colour
Green french beans blanched and cut in half.
Courgette, 1/3 of an average sized one. sliced lengthwise into strips
A little sunflower oil or peanut oil to start the cooking off in the wok.
salt to taste

technique

Chop all the vegetables as instructed above in advance
Blanch cool and cut the beans in advance.
Put a pan of water on to boil and cook the mie according to the instructions on the packet.

Add a little oil to the wok and quickly heat the ginger and garlic without burning them, turn them out onto a dish

Then sear the beans to get a little colour and flavour into them and turn them out onto a dish

Add the onion, paprika, mushrooms and courgette to the pan and toss turning the heat low
just as they are starting to soften.
Then add the beans, ginger and garlic back into the pan.

Add the lemon juice, the ketjap benteng manis, the ketjap asin and the sugar and stir through.

Add in the cooked and drained mie
for four people I add four mie ‘nests’
Turn it all over in the pan and mix well turning the heat right down to avoid burning.

Taste the cooking liquid,
it is important that you taste the liquid in the pan for balance

Add more sugar and/or ketjap asin to balance the lemon juice and ketjap benteng manis as needed,
taste it all again till you are satisfied with the flavour balance, adding salt only if you must.

Serve immediately

Any leftovers can be frozen and are delicious if reheated in the wok.