The world has gone mad for green smoothies. Wherever I look I find health food blogs proclaiming the fountain of eternal youth spouts whizzed up celery and spirulina, perhaps with a few chia seeds thrown in for good measure. And there’s always the photo of course: the jar, the rustic background, the recycled straw. Can you hear my scepticism? (Ironic, I know, given the intentions of this blog … ) Continue reading
I had gone to the supermarket to buy milk but soon found myself far from the dairy aisle, staring bewildered at the tubs, tubes, tins, packets, and bottles stacked meticulously – a visual stampede of farm workers, factory packers and carbon footprints.
Living in Berlin and mostly going to our nearby organic shop or local supermarket (much smaller than its UK counterpart), I hadn’t been in a really big UK supermarket for a while, possibly a year or more. Perhaps this meant I was more attuned not only to the scale of the operation but also to how little of the food in there I wanted to buy. In amongst those garish packets, schools voucher schemes, traffic light systems, and special discount offers, the real food was lost. My intense love of food shopping – that endless daydreaming of possible meals – vanished. This wasn’t fun, it was grotesque. Continue reading
Tempting as it may be after a long day in the office, it is not acceptable to throw tantrums as an adult. With age, most of us somehow manage to control our tempers and defuse anger in more mature ways. If we don’t, our professional and romantic luck will be rather limited – tough but true. But when it comes to what and when we eat, we remain rather childlike. Let me explain why. Continue reading
Mastering self-control is much harder when you’re tired (and hungover to boot). Somehow indulging the body feels very justified, rather like when you’re a little bit ill or sad. And therein lies the fallacy of indulgence. That stodgy breakfast, milky coffee, late afternoon slab of chocolate may gratify your desires but won’t make you feel in better; indeed, it will almost certainly make you feel worse.
Pleasure is your goal, not indulgence. A tired day needs careful management right up to the point at which you can take pleasure in it again (especially in dark and chilly January). This longer term view should provide the discipline to carry you through those bleak hours of fatigue, which can rear up and tempt you throughout a day after a night before. Continue reading
A wise man once told me how he cured himself of a Snickers’ addiction in an afternoon. All sweet treat lovers, take heed: the story goes like this. Having always had a taste for chocolate, the man became increasingly fond of Snickers. This predilection evolved, until there came a point that every time the man yearned for something sweet, only a Snickers could satisfy this craving – cakes and other chocolate bars no longer interested him. And the craving had become self-feeding. Not only did he crave them at his usual sweet snack time – around 4pm – but at all sorts of other moments in the day and evening. A rational type, one day, Snickers in hand, he totted up just how many he was consuming in one week and how much this sweet vice cost him financially. He realised he had to act. Continue reading
Inevitably there are days when we shuttle from country to country, whirling through stations and airports, only resting in transit. Modern lives demand travel. And often it’s no bad thing; taking you somewhere new or, at least, beloved. But joyous reunions and exciting adventures aside, also waiting at the other end is that repellent sludgy feeling induced only by dehydration and packaged food.
Now, I will concede that finding a fresh broccoli, avocado and quinoa salad is harder when on the move, but excuses are excuses and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is very possible, as long as you plan suitably and subdue temptation. Some ideas on how. Continue reading
A friend, who’d been staying for a few days over Christmas, remarked as she left that she must remember bread, cheese, cucumber and celery provided a perfectly adequate meal. Inevitably, my first thought was “what a lazy host I am”, but my second, more reflective thought was “other people surely eat meals like that too, don’t they?” It seemed not.
I must credit my parents for teaching me the art of minimalist eating – for it truly is an art. Not minimalists in so many other ways – their house is an exquisite cacophony of William Morris prints, half-read old newspapers, overflowing bookshelves and grandchildren’s broken toys, befitting for two retired, hummus-eating, brown-bread-making academics – in the kitchen, they value food pared down. It’s not because they can’t cook or because they shy away from strong flavours. Indeed, both are excellent cooks and are naturally adventurous – in food and all sorts of other things. It’s more that they care about ingredients and that they believe most really, truly, good ingredients are dulled by excessive cooking. (My father prides himself on having distilled his legendary fish pie to fish, tomatoes and a delicate béchamel sauce, which he has refined carefully over many years.) Continue reading
When the richness of yoghurt does not appeal early in the morning, I use a couple of big spoonfuls of unsweetened apple puree to moisten some sort of cereal instead. Recently, tired of oats, I’ve been using cold quinoa, leftover from lunch the day before, or buckwheat flakes I buy from our local health food shop. Both are delicious.
But yesterday, in an untypical moment of self sacrifice, I finished the jar of apple puree on the children’s porridge. And so it was left to my culinary creativity to find a suitable replacement. As so very often the self sacrifice paid off, leading me to discover this gem of a breakfast. Continue reading
My three-and-a-half year old daughter has a penchant for sweet treats. Hard as this may be to believe, she appears not yet to recognise the benefits of her sage mother’s ascetic approach to food – perhaps because she is growing as fast as a bean-shoot and constantly darts between her two favourite activities of bouncing on the settee and jumping on our bed, or possibly just because she’s three-and-a-half. Anyway – I digress.
This results in a persistent clamouring for “something sweet – no, something really sweet,” said in that typically three-and-a-half year old, utterly resolute voice. And because she eats a (reasonably) balanced diet the rest of the time – with plenty of protein, healthy fats and wholegrains – I give her craving some credit and usually try to find something acceptable both to her and me; though not always an easy task. Continue reading
I was at a birthday party a few weeks ago, and, after a couple of civilised hours chatting, sipping wine and swaying elegantly (or so I liked to think) on the dance floor, I found myself alone beside the buffet table. Despite having eaten a balanced evening meal only a few hours before, I was inexplicably and irresistibly drawn, in my two-glasses-of-wine haze, to what seemed to me to be a resplendent cheese board and accompanying tapenade. I started modestly – just two small slithers of cheese, one thin slice of baguette and a spoonful of tapenade. So far so good.
But with no-one there to observe my greed, I soon returned to the table and re-filled my plate more generously. The food was tasty, but far too rich for a midnight snack. It was on my third and greediest trip, as I plugged a large chunk of bread slathered with cheese and tapenade into my mouth without even putting it on my plate that I had a moment of clarity: no longer an interested taste, this had become a fully fledged gorge. I wiped my lips and stopped there. Continue reading
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