Tag: sugar

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.

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

 

 

 

Sweet vinaigrette.

Recipe

Extra virgin Greek olive oil 1/4 cup
Mirin 4 tbsp
Braggs cloudy apple cider vinegar 1/8 cup
Fine table salt to taste
Fine ground white pepper to taste
White granulated sugar 1/4 tsp
Dijon mustard 1/2 tsp

put in a jar with a lid and shake well till thick and emulsified.

This vinaigrette it is delicious, and not too sour.

Vinaigrette is all about the balance, the exact measure of oil, sweet, sour and salt, with a hint of spiciness.
I find the taste is quite different depending on the exact elements us use, should it be a Greek extra virgin olive oil or do I go for the Spanish which has quite a different flavour?
The mustard, well, just how many kinds of mustard are there?
Some are delicious in vinaigrette and some are only edible on hot dogs.
They can be rough ground or smooth, sweet or very salty, each make is completely different and adds a totally different flavour profile to the vinaigrette.

As for vinegars, there is possibly even more variation, white wine vinegar, Japanese rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar. Each with its own unique flavour, so experiment, decide which one to use to get the exact flavour you are looking for.

Sugar, each variety has its own unique flavour, white granulated in this case which has very little flavour, but just adds sweetness. There is deep dark muscovado, or demerara and also jaggery. All these have their own uses, and flavour recipes differently. Sweetners of all kinds have a unique effect on every dish you add them to.

Even salts have subtle flavours from table salt to black Hawaiian or pink himalayan to fleur de sel, and there are more.
I use them all in different recipes and in different ways.

Therefore I think it is important that we are clear in recipes which kind we use, which ones make the exact flavour profile we are looking for.
Each variation in the ingredients gives a variation to the flavour profile of the finished vinaigrette, sauce or dish.

So there are two recipes today

The basic recipe is

oil
vinegar
mustard
salt
pepper
sugar

This gives you the basic ingredients, and the one for todays sweet vinaigrette above, which gives you the exact recipe.

Good luck with experimenting and getting the balance right.
Every time you make a vinaigrette you can try a different mustard, a different oil a different vinegar and so on, and each time get a different vinaigrette.

That is the art of cooking, to experiment with a known recipe, technique or principle and find out what you like best or what goes best with the rest of your dish.
Dare to be different, you can even play with the proportions.
Do you want more mustard? Less salt or more sugar or oil?
What if you use honey or add celery salt instead?

Try it.

This recipe is great with all kinds of fresh salads, we ate it with little gem lettuce cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes, with a sprinkling of finely chopped spring onion.

Let me know how you get on