What is a serve of veges?

We’ve become used to hearing that we should aim to have two fruit and five vegetables everyday. But vegetables come in all shapes and sizes and it can be hard to tell what a serve of vegetables is, especially when there are no scales to hand.

What is natural food?

In a stunning tiny country town on Saturday I asked in a café for a skim flat white. I was confused when the lovely shop keeper said I couldn’t have skim milk as they only use ‘natural ingredients’. 

Isn't skim milk natural?

What happened next with the pizza not so pie?

Three slices of regular meat lovers pizza contains the same kilojoules as a 12 oz steak (340g).

But what about a pizza with a strange looking ‘pie’ in the crust.

Four'n'twenty but no pie!!

The elusive "Savoury Bite" stuffed pizza crust

You may have seen a pretty disturbing picture in the Guardian last Wednesday. A new takeaway pizza launched this week.. Pizza, pies, cheese - all in one meal.  Gross!!

To date or not to date?

Many raw dessert recipes are now using dried fruits for sweetness instead of white or brown sugar. But are they any better for us? We can look at this by comparing two brownie recipes:

Raw Date Brownies, one batch makes 12

My Mum’s famous chocolate brownies, one batch makes 12

What is the verdict on the new food pyramid?

The New Healthy Eating Pyramid

Nutrition Australia have this week released their new Healthy Eating Pyramid. It has been updated to reflect the latest Australian Dietary Guidelines and to help us understand the portions of each type of food we should include in our diets.

How to Spot a Fad Diet

Do you know how to spot a fad diet? Find out on a blog I wrote for LiveLighter

What causes a slow digestive system?

A relevant question whether you’re battling with losing weight, IBS symptoms, sluggishness or bloating.

The role of the digestive system is to mechanically process food in the stomach then absorb all the goodness (nutrients) as the digested food moves through the intestines and bowel. Most stomachs empty at about the same rate but it is the time the digested food takes to travel through the bowel that varies. The time it takes a food to travel through is called bowel transit time.

Healthy Weekend Breakfasts

My friend John is a 27 year old professional who loves food, but doesn't have a lot of time in the week to experiment with cooking ideas. Trying to maintain a healthy diet he has come up with a few weekend breakfasts he says are filling and most importantly delicious but more nutritious than a fry-up.

What about the Paleo diet?

The paleo diet is, basically (as the author says) meat, fish, nuts, fruit and vegetables.

Thought to be what humans ate in prehistoric times (think hunter gatherers, cavemen, nomads) the author, Loren Cordain, claims these are the foods our bodies were designed to eat. The diet was written with the aim of reducing modern diseases associated with a diet high in refined foods and salt, fat and sugar (eg diabetes, heart disease, kidney problems). It wasn’t written as a weight loss diet, though it has been adopted as such by lots of celebrities and with some success.

The fast diet: 5 2

Five days of eating

                                          Fasting forTwo

This popular new approach to dieting has led to many questions on whether it's a good one to choose.

Is coconut water good for me?

Coconut water has marched onto the gym and natural drinks scene in the past few years and makes many claims about what it can do for you. It markets itself as fun and re-energising and often also as an essential drink for your post gym workout.

picture source: free digitalphotos.net

What is 5-a-day anyway? For the dedicated

To get the full picture let's back up to the beginning where we need to ask "where did 5 a day come from"? There is overwhelming evidence that eating fruit and vegetables protects us from an early death because it has a double whammy of providing us with lots of nutrients like vitamins, minerals and fibre which protect us from disease while being low in saturated fat and salt which increase our risk of long term health problems and early death.

That ice-cream is diabetic

The ice cream board at a beautiful cafe in Bristol.
Only one question here. What is "diabetic vanilla"?
All the other flavours look delicious but I'm not sure why the vanilla is diabetic.

Snacking on a commute

Who has ever sat behind a headphone-wearing commuted eating bag of crisps open mouthed and fully crunched blissfully unaware of the noise created. Or that sausage-roll wielding school goer at the 0705 Euston service? Far too early for that kind of aroma.

Are nuts good or bad for us?

Nuts are high in energy because they are high in fat. All nuts made up of about half to two thirds fat. Eating too many can contribute to putting on weight.

Are people living in poverty responsible for their food choices?

I was asked yesterday, following on from my £1 a day week:

Isn't it up to the person to make better decisions. They can't afford to eat well because we see them with an iPhone and big TV and satellite dishes.

what do we mean when we talk about energy?

ENERGY

What is energy? there are 2 types of energy in relation to food.

1. energy is Calories / kilojoules which allows us to function.

2. energy is the vitality or lift we feel after eating certain foods or changing our diet.