Manners make a comeback!

Just last week someone offered me a seat on the tube (I'm hoping because I had 10cm heels on and looked tired rather than because they thought I was pregnant) and later that week I was kindly rescued by a passer by when my stiletto got comically stuck in a grate. I was even asked this week by a fellow passenger on the DLR whether I minded if he ate his cheeseburger next to me! Long may it continue!

Sadly dining etiquette has been somewhat lost and, whilst it doesn't change the nutritional value of the food you're eating, it does make the experience altogether more pleasurable for all at the table if the basic rules are followed as well as aiding proper digestion. So, at the risk of sounding somewhat like a house mistress, here they are:

First up is not eating til everyone, particularly the chef, is seated and served - not a rule always observed at West family gatherings! Not only is this polite but it gives everyone a little breather to relax before they start eating instead of rushing into eating whilst their bodies are still in stress mode.

Sitting tall and keeping your elbows off the table - this encourages good posture which doesn't just look good but is also good for digestion. If you're hunched over then blood flow will be reduced to your abdomen and your food won't pass through your intestines as easily as they should.

Don't talk with food in your mouth - combining talking and eating can cause you to swallow air and usually means you won't be chewing your food properly. Alternating between the two gives you a break between mouthfuls, slowing down your intake of food. Most of us eat too quickly so it's also good to get in the habit of putting your knife and fork down whilst speaking or chewing to slow the pace right down. Equally out of courtesy try and avoid directing questions at a fellow diner when they are mid mouthful!

Don't overload your fork - shovelling in huge fork fulls of food isn't just super unattractive, it also makes it pretty tricky to chew properly meaning you're likely to swallow food that isn't sufficiently broken down. This can lead to incomplete digestion and uncomfortable stomach symptoms such as cramps and bloating.

Always eat with your mouth closed - I'm pretty sure all NITC readers will be polite enough not to eat with their mouths open, but for anyone who doesn't that's another sure way of swallowing air leading to hiccups/indigestion.

Offer any communal dishes around the table - this isn't just good manners but if you're entertaining also means you're less likely to be left with a big pile of leftovers that you feel compelled to eat your way through.

Boin appetit!
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A healthy dose of curiosity

I was talking to a friend recently about how she'd started systematically trying all the foods she didn't like as a child and had found that she actually liked some of them that she'd been adamant she'd really disliked as a child. I thought this was a very worthwhile experiment - there can be all sorts of non-taste related reasons why we decide we dislike certain foods as children, and in addition our taste buds change alot as we get older so we may experience foods in a totally different way.

Fortunately for me my mother had a zero-tolerance policy on fussy eating so I haven't grown up with any strong dislikes of any particular foods and infact have a healthy curiosity to try new foods which keeps my diet evolving over time. All too often people fall into a food rut and only eat what is familiar to them, however by trying new foods you may find some new foods that you love and in the same time introduce a healthy level of variety into your diet.

So next time you're in the supermarket maybe pick up a fruit or vegetable that you're not familiar and then dig out some recipes to find out how to prepare it. Or if you're not great in the kitchen try something new in a restaurant instead of going for your usual choice.

I also find that health food stores are a great source of new and exotic foods. My latest health food store discovery has been Ume Plum seasoning, a vinegar made from the Japanese fermented Ume plum, which is considered a superfood in Japanese cuisine and macrobiotics.

This vinegar makes a delicious dressing when mixed in equal parts with olive oil and I have taken to having this over greens (steamed bok choi, kale) or salads or poured into the hollow of half an avocado as a quick and yummy snack. Go on .. try it .. you might find you like it!

Will the real fruit and vegetables please stand up!

Going for a big night out when you're not drinking could be a bit challenging for most people. Fortunately over the years I've gotten totally used to it and can party with the best of them without a drop of alcohol! However sometimes drinking just water does get a bit dull and most other soft drinks on offer are either full of sugar (lemonade, cranberry juice, non-alcoholic cocktails) or artificial sweeteners (diet coke). To liven things up I usually have a fruit or tomato juice, but I've also become partial to the odd appletize for a bit of fizz!

The good thing about appletize is that it is just made from fruit juice and doesn't have added refined sugar so is less harmful for you than the usual fizzy drinks. However this weekend I was horrified to see that on a lid of fruitiser it said 'one of your five a day'! How a glass of highly processed carbonated fruit juice can count as one portion of fruit and vegetables is really beyond me, and a claim that I find pretty irritating, given that some uninformed individuals could think that by drinking five glasses of appletize a day will keep them in good health!!

The benefits you get from fruit and vegetables are from the vitamin and mineral content (dramatically reduced by any processing), fibre content (not present in juices) and live enzymes (destroyed by any processing or cooking). This is why I only count portions of fresh or freshly cooked fruit and vegetables as part of my five-should really be eight-a-day - so please remember that drinking a cranberry juice with your vodka really doesn't count!! And for the masses not reading NITC I just hope the government at some point amends their criteria for what counts as a portion to something a bit more sensible!!

Time to take a sabbatical!!

I read in the news today that researchers have recently discovered that having a desk job for more than a decade doubles the risk of developing lower bowel cancer and increases the risk of rectal cancer by 44%. Now I don't like to admit my age, but it will only be a couple more years before I'll fall into this category ... maybe time for that sabbatical trip round Latin America??

But then again the reason for this increased risk is due to physical inactivity during the day ... so given I'm a bit of a gym bunny I shouldn't have to worry?! Unfortunately this study concluded that no amount of physical activity could offset the harm done by spending long periods of time at a desk: ‘We found those who spent the most time in sedentary work had a risk of distal colon cancer that was twice that of those who spent the most time in a job requiring light activity. Even a high level of vigorous recreational physical activity did not modify the effect of sedentary work.’ So basically when it comes to colo-rectal cancer my intensive gym sessions aren't going to save me ... damn!

This is definitely bad news for city folk who spend way too much time chained to their desks, but this is a definite kick up the posterior to break that habit!! Time instead to get into the habit of getting up from the desk every hour and going for a quick walk - use the toilet or photocopier furthest from your desk, pop outside for a quick bit of freshair, or even just do a quick lap of the trading floor. This won't just get you moving, but will also keep your energy levels up and improve circulation.

On top of this it's important to minimize the other main lifestyle risk factors for colo-rectal cancers: diets high in saturated fat and red meat, low intake of fruit and veg and drinking alot of alcohol - but hopefully as regular NITC readers these are things you're already all doing :-)

Tricks for treats

I often get asked whether I feel deprived because I eat such a healthy diet and don't eat cakes, chocolate, pizza - or other unhealthy treat foods. The truth is that most of the time I don't feel deprived at all - the feeling of being healthy and full of energy is pretty addictive in itself - and i know that by eating a muffin and having a coffee is going to make me feel rubbish so it's just not that tempting.

However there are times when I do crave comfort food - usually cake or crisps - and I don't have some amazing willpower that means I can resist these cravings!! But this is why I stick to the 80/20 rule - eating healthily 80% of the time and limiting other foods to 20% of the time. This means I keep my diet healthy, but don't feel deprived ... telling yourself you can never eat something is a sure way to make yourself crave it even more.

The only danger with not being totally strict with your diet, is that the percentages can get a bit out of whack and your 20% gradually creeps up to 30% or even 40% of the time without you really realising it. For this reason I think it is best to make a conscious decision as to when you are going to have a treat food and also choose what you are going to have. If, for example, your colleagues regularly bring biscuits and chocolates into the office and you find yourself frequently picking at them it's probably better to decide not to eat treat foods at work and instead have them at home or in restaurants. Although I did used to have a treat breakfast at work every Friday - a cooked English breakfast to help me get through the day after a usually late night!! and found that I then didn't fancy unhealthy food so much on the weekend.

Another good strategy is that if you really fancy something naughty then make a note of it and decide that when you get to the weekend and have your treat meal that you'll eat it then - often by the time your treat meal comes the craving will have passed, but by telling yourself you can eat that food later in the week you'll find it easier to resist it in that moment. It's also good to make sure you eat really high quality treats, instead of alot of the highly process junk food available - for example if there are chocolates in the office tell yourself that if you still feel like having chocolates by the weekend then you'll buy yourself some really good quality chocolates and enjoy them on the weekend instead of chewing through a load of (not so) quality streets!

Does it really need to be this complicated?

I noticed an article in last nights Evening Standard reporting that scientists have found a way to transform white 'bad fat', usually found around the abdomen, into the less harmful 'brown fat' which is more easily burnt for energy.

The theory is that by converting the fats it will be easier to burn fat stimulating weight loss and from this they have concluded that a transplant of brown fat stem cells could be used as a means of encouraging weight loss and dealing with the obesity epidemic in the Western world.

Sounds great doesn't it - like it's the new lipo - pop into the docs for an injection of brown fat stem cells and wait for the fat to melt away! But, just as for liposuction, this procedure would do nothing to address why the individual became obese in the first place, or to make sure it didn't happen to them again.

What strikes me about this is that there's a tendency to over-complicate treatment of obesity, with huge sums of money spent on research into weight loss drugs and procedures such as gastric banding (available to some individuals on the nhs). What I'd like to see is this money diverted into education for the public on the dangers of obesity and the simple ways to avoid it and reverse it.

Weight-loss doesn't require a magic tablet or expensive injection, just sensible advice (not the calorie restrictive information found in the press) and in some cases counselling to deal problems in the emotional relationship with food and weight. Once an individual knows how to eat to stay slim and healthy they have that skill for life, no nasty side effects and no repeat prescriptions necessary!
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Mountain fuel

Alot of the time I'm focussed on recommending foods high in nutrients and low in calories to maximize nutrient intake. However sometimes calorie rich foods are in order, and that was the case this weekend on my hiking trip in Wales where I needed easy to digest calorie rich snacks to power myself and my friends up Mount Snowdon.

My cohorts packed bags of Haribo and Mars bars as their fuel of choice, however there are plenty of healthy ways to get the calories in when undertaking any kind of endurance sport or particularly physically activity periods.

No effort healthy snacks:

Bananas - easy to carry and conveniently come with their own wrapper! Also naturally rich in potassium which is lost through sweat.

Raisins and other dried fruit - most supermarkets do small snack packs of dried fruit and, whilst I don't usually recommend eating alot of dried fruit due to the concentrated fruit sugars, these are perfect top ups for blood sugar when you're being active. Dried figs and dates are also great energy boosters.

Nuts - nuts are calorie rich, but mainly due to the fat content, so whilst they don't provide an instant calorie boost, they're good to eat alongside dried fruit to give more long lasting energy supplies. Vegan ultra-athletes eat huge amounts of nuts to maintain their calorie intake through training and endurance events. It's best to eat them natural, but a small amount of salted nuts can also be good to replace sodium lost through sweat - just make sure you're also taking on plenty of water. Bounce and Pulsin protein snacks are also great nut-based protein snacks that are easy to and give slower release energy to keep you going like a Duracell bunny!

Ready made bars - alot of muesli and granola bars have lots of added refined sugar, however the following bars are all sweetened with fruit sugars or dried fruit, making them a much healthier alternative but still a great easy source of energy:

Nak'd bars, Food Doctor snack bars, Fruitus bars and fruit sticks

Sugary emergencies - anyone who did Duke of Edinburgh awards at school will know you never go on a hike without some Kendall Mint Cake for any low blood sugar emergencies!! However I've moved on from those days, and for my sugary backup take Oskri Coconut bars (from Holland & Barrett) which are pretty sweet, but sweetened with rice syrup rather than glucose, which provides a quick sugar supply but without the same addictive qualities as sugar.

The downside of stocking up on readymade snacks is that they can burn quite a hole in your wallet (as per last weeks blog on my expensive trip to the Health Food Store). So for this trip I also packed some homemade snack bars. It's pretty easy to make healthy granola or muesli bars by using Agave syrup instead of sugar, but if you're gluten free these aren't an option.

Fortunately Elana's Pantry came to the rescue again with this great recipe for Breakfast bars, which I baked on Thursday night, and kept me fuelled through the weekend. These tasty bars aren't just good for those who are gluten-free - they'd also be great as a mid-afternoon pick me up at work, or healthy lunchbox snacks for kids.

Gluten Free Breakfast Bars

1 ¼ cup ground almonds

1/8 teaspoon celtic sea salt (I used Solo low sodium salt)

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup grapeseed oil

¼ cup agave nectar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup shredded coconut

½ cup pumpkin seeds

½ cup sunflower seeds

¼ cup almond slivers

¼ cup raisins (I used Goji berries)

In a small bowl, combine almond flour, salt and baking soda

In a large bowl, combine grapeseed oil, agave and vanilla

Stir dry ingredients into wet

Mix in coconut, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, almond slivers and raisins

Grease an 8x8 baking dish with grapeseed oil (I used a 1lb loaf tin)

Press the dough into the baking dish, wetting your hands with water to help pat the dough down evenly

Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes (until firm and golden coloured)

Cut into bars and allow to cool before taking out the tin

Makes 6-8 bars

http://www.elanaspantry.com/breakfast-bars/