Growing meat? Really?

I've just read a really interesting article by the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18813075 about the upcoming food shortages and how we are possibly going to cope with them. The issue of food running out is already becoming a public issue here in the UK, supermarkets and markets have been fighting over the price of milk and celebrity chefs are doing the best to get people to use the bits of meat that are usually thrown away. The BBC have come up with a few solutions to the problem, including growing meat in a test tube and farming insects, all of which scientists are currently wasting thousands of pounds to test. The answer has been there all along, if everybody adopted a more plant-based, organic diet, we wouldn't have to worry about running out of food for a long time yet.
Oh, and if anyone from the BBC reads this the answer is no, a vegetarian could not eat meat from a test tube. It's still meat, there are many reasons for being vegetarian, and even if it was just about hurting the animal you still have to get the initial sample from a cow in the first place.

30 Tastes of...

Someone once told me that if you taste a food 30 times, you will grow to accept it. Whilst there are some foods that I don't think I'll ever grow to like, nor do I want to (Marmite springs to mind - I'm definitely in the Hate camp), I am finding this fact to be true. As part of my allergy-free diet, I have to take 2 teaspoons of flaxseed oil a day. You can add it to certain foods, although I prefer to just down the spoonful. The important thing is that you consume it cold, as it helps to maintain the properties of the oil. Flaxseed oil, or linseed oil as it is also known, is a great natural source of omega 3, which is why I take it. The label on the bottle describes it as having a 'slight nutty taste', but as someone who generally likes nuts, I would not describe it as such. For the first few days, I had to force myself to swallow it, but the 30 tastes rule must work because, after two weeks, I find it much more bearable now. I wouldn't say I like it, but it's edible.

Caffeine Cold Turkey Day 3

Oh my God - I have no idea how people cope with coming off hard, class A drugs. All credit to them. After 3 days without any coffee, I still feel pretty terrible. OK, I will admit that I caved slightly. No, don't worry, I didn't run into Starbucks and order a double espresso, but I did take my migraine medication. I know it's not technically cheating, but I still feel guilty. Suffering two days with a constant headache and my brain feeling like it was full of cotton wool cracked me, I had to do something or I wouldn't have been able to function at all at work. I know I've been extra snappy with my colleagues this week, although the hot weather has fortunately also brought out the grumpy side of a few other people so I don't think anyone's noticed me too much.
Every morning this week I have dropped more things and walked into more objects than I did the day before. I boiled a pan of milk for five minutes yesterday before I realised that I hadn't put any buckwheat flakes in it. I'm really hoping that this feeling isn't going to last much longer. Outside of work, all I've done is sleep. I have felt SOOOOO tired. I haven't even been to the gym (apart from my pathetic attempt on Tuesday) or done any sport, which is really unlike me.
My original plan was to go caffeine-free for four weeks and then go back to just having a coffee once in a while. After seeing what it does to my body, though, I don't think I ever want to have caffeine again!

Caffeine Cold Turkey

Picking one of the hottest days of the summer to try going caffeine-free for the first time probably wasn't the best idea. It's hard to tell how much it is the sun making me light-headed and tired, and how much it's the lack of coffee. I thought the worst part would be first thing this morning when I got up. I imagined myself half-asleep, attempting to run through my morning routine and accidently putting the buckwheat flakes back in the fridge and soya milk in the coffee machine instead of water. However, I felt fine until about 10am. That's when the tiredness and the headache hit me. Considering caffeine is so addictive, I haven't actually craved it all day, although I almost went and bought a coffee to keep me awake at my desk. I persisted, though, and I've made it through the day sans-caffeine! My usual 45 minute gym workout was a bit half-arsed, and I had to have a nap when I got home, but I'm hoping my energy will come back as the days go on.

One week down, four to go...

Week one of my allergy-free diet and lifestyle is behind me, and I feel good. I'm not saying that I suddenly leap out of bed at 5am (unfortunately that's what time I have to get up for work) every morning and bounce around all day with a huge grin on my face instead of eczema, but I do feel better. One big difference I have noticed is that I'm much more focused and able to concentrate better. I don't feel as stressed, either. And I'm not really missing any of the things that I've cut out of my diet. I thought I'd be craving bread and chocolate, but it's not really bothering me. I think that's because I'm eating the right stuff so my body doesn't feel the need to crave the bad things, but whatever the reason it seems to be working.
This week my aim is to cut back on caffeine even further than I have done already. From tomorrow I'm replacing my morning filter coffee with decaf, so it'll be interesting to see how I cope without the caffeine fix and if I cave and go and buy a real coffee from the coffee shop in my office.

Whoever knew buckwheat was so versatile?

Considering that I'd barely heard of buckwheat a couple of weeks ago, I'm surprised at how many products there are available made from it. I've just had my first taste of buckwheat pasta and it tastes like..., well, it tastes like pasta. The only discernible difference is the appearance. If you can get past the fact that the colour of buckwheat pasta makes it look more like something that would ooze out of an alien in a sci-fi movie, you should be fine. I don't think I'm going to really miss wheat pasta on my gluten-free diet.

Funky Feet

In keeping with my love of all things made in the UK (if you live in the UK that is) I have to tell you about one of my favourite British businesses. Funky Feet Fashions are based in Shrewsbury and make the most adorable baby shoes, clothes and accessories. All their products can be ordered online at www.funkyfeetfashions.co.uk, from soft shoes and clothing gift sets to personalised cushions and bunting. It's so exciting when my friends have babies because it means that I get to shop at Funky feet again. All the products are really good quality as well. I bought my nephew a soft toy from Funky Feet when he was a baby, and it's survived over three years of being chewed, stained and dropped into puddles. And the best thing is, everything is hand-made here in the UK.

Xantham Gum

One of the discoveries I have made during my cooking and baking experiments is that xanthan gum is a great alternative to eggs. For those of you that can’t eat wheat or gluten, it also comes in handy for making gluten-free bread as it binds the mixture together better. Xanthan gum is used as a food thickening agent and as a stabiliser in things such as cosmetic products. It can be derived from sources such as corn, wheat, dairy, or soy, so you do need to check the label carefully before you buy it. Doves Farm www.dovesfarm.co.uk sell a great vegan, gluten-free xanthan gum that even comes with a recipe for gluten-free bread on the side of the tube.

Xanthan gum comes in the form of a dry powder, and as a general rule I use ¼ tsp for every egg that the recipe calls for. You do have to be quick when working with xanthan gum, as it starts to set as soon as you add it to anything liquid. For this reason, I would recommend adding it at the end of the recipe wherever possible. If you’re using xanthan gum in place of eggs, I also find that adding a splash of soya milk provides the moisture that you lose when using the dry powder.

More Sweet Treats

For those of you with a sweet tooth, here are some more recipes. Apologies if you are on a health kick, and I promise I will be blogging some more veggie-based, healthier recipes again soon. I'll also be trying gluten-free alternatives to these ones. Enjoy J

Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

100g/3½oz plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

large pinch of salt

125g/4oz soya spread

175g/6oz soft brown sugar

1tsp xanthan gum

1tsp vanilla essence

175g/6oz organic porridge oats

50g/2oz chocolate chips (These are optional. Obviously, regular chocolate chips contain dairy, but you can buy vegan alternatives. The cookies still taste great even if you miss them out altogether)

1. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180ºc/Fan 160ºc.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl and set aside.
3. Beat together the soya spread, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture and then beat for another 2 minutes. Add the oats and chocolate chips (if using them) and stir to mix through. Finally, add the xanthan gum and quickly mix in.
4. Line 2 baking sheets with non-stick baking paper. Drop a heaped tbsp of the dough onto a baking sheet and press down to flatten, then repeat it 11 times – you should be able to fit 12 cookies onto each sheet.
5. Bake for 8 minutes until golden but still slightly soft in the middle. Allow to sit on the baking sheet for 2 minutes and then transfer onto a wire rack to cool.

It took me a long time and many attempts to find a cookie recipe as good as this one. Previous recipes that I tried all tasted really dry, but what makes the difference with this one is the porridge oats. They keep the cookies nice and moist.

　

Flapjack

If anyone ever tells you they can’t bake, pass this recipe on to them. It only uses 3 ingredients, is really easy and makes the best home-made flapjack I have ever found.

To avoid any language barriers, what we call a flapjack in the UK is known as a muesli bar in Australasia and totally different to what is classed as a flapjack in the States. For anyone reading this in the USA, the best was I can describe it is as an oat bar. Please see the photo above.

Ingredients

4½oz/6tbsp golden syrup or corn syrup (Please note: I’m not sure why, but golden syrup from a tin works better than the squeezy bottles)

200g soya spread

12oz/330g organic porridge oats

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºf/180ºc/Gas 4.
2. Grease a 9"x13"/23cm x 33cm tin and line the base with baking paper.
3. Place the syrup and soya spread into a large saucepan and heat gently until the spread has melted into the syrup. Stir well.
4. Put the porridge oats into a large mixing bowl, add a pinch of salt (optional – I usually forget!) then pour the soya spread and syrup mixture over the oats and stir until they are all coated well.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, flatten down well with the back of a metal spoon, and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven while the flapjack is still slightly soft.
6. Place the tin on a wire cooling rack and cut the flapjack into squares. Leave in the tin until completely cool.

Day 2 of the Buckwheat Challenge

When the nutritional therapist gave me my new food plan, what upset me the most was that I have to give up my beloved oatbran for breakfast. I think I even found that harder than having to cut down on chocolate, alcohol and caffeine. I've grown accustomed to making my oatbran over the past six months, it's become a part of my morning routine.
Gluten-free alternatives to oatbran are rice and millet porridge and buckwheat flakes. I've never heard of rice and millet porridge before, plus I couldn't find it in the health food shops, so I decided to give the buckwheat a go. I was a little concerned. After all, would this new foodstuff be able to replace my love of oatbran? The shop assistant assured me that the buckwheat can be prepared exactly the same as oatbran, or porridge, and apart from a slightly different texture is essentially the same.
The texture certainly is different, although still very tasty. I've also noticed that buckwheat doesn't take as long to heat up if you're making it like porridge. That messed up my morning routine a bit on the first morning, and luckily I thought to check it before it burnt through the pan and set my whole building alight.
So, panic over, I have indeed found a more than suitable substitute for oatbran that is gluten-free. One word of warning, though. Some people have been known to have severe allergic reactions to buckwheat itself, so please check you're not allergic before trying it yourself.

Filtered Water: Refreshingly Different

Just tried my new water filter for the first time. There were an array of filters to choose from in the shop, but in all honesty I went for the cheapest one. After all, as long as it filters water then it should be OK. I made sure I got one with a universal filter, though. The last thing I need is to run out of filters and find that the shop has stopped stocking the one that I need.
The blurb on the box promises to reduce chlorine and organics from tap water by up to 90%, reduce limescale (my kettle will thank me for that) and reduce metal contamination, sediment and pesticides.
I must admit, that water does taste different. I'm just finding it hard to get out of the habit of going straight to the tap rather than the water filter, especially when I'm filling up the kettle. Maybe I need to put a big STOP sign above my tap or something.

Anti-Allergy Regime

I've decided to go all-out with my anti-allergy diet. The nutritional therapist recommended that I avoid everything I'm allergic to for 5 weeks and also follow a course of vitamins and supplements that she has suggested, so that's what I'm going to do. As of today, I'm taking all my B vitamins as well as two teaspoonfuls of flaxseed oil everyday. I've also bought some spirulina powder, which I have to say is one of the wierdest things I've ever consumed. It's a blue-green algae, which I always thought was just something that grows on canals and kills all the wildlife. It comes in powder form and you dissolve it in water. It's a bit messy to prepare if you don't concentrate, it looks a bit like a deep green smoothie, but it doesn't taste that bad. I think I can handle one glass a day at any rate.
I've bought some plant-based shampoo and laundry detergent to help with my contact allergies, and I took my list of things that I can't eat shopping with me today. Surprisingly, there was actually still a lot at the market that I can eat.
My consultation with the therapist also gave me lots of tips that are useful for everyone. Like drinking 2 litres of filtered water daily (I must remember to go and buy a water filter tomorrow), and not drinking and eating at the same time. It's important to allow 30 minutes between eating and drinking, otherwise the water dilutes your stomach acid whilst it's trying to do it's job, which causes heartburn. The hardest part for me is going to be remembering to drink water at work, and specifically remembering to drink it 30 minutes before my lunch break. My lunch box and water bottle usually get buried underneath all the paper on my desk, so I'll have to set myself some kind of reminder to dig them out at the right time.

Allergy Testing

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've known since childhood that I have food allergies. Unfortunately, not many other people have believed me, including my parents and doctors. One doctor who did listen to me, however, was my doctor when I was living in Rhodes. He advised me to request an allergy test on my return to the UK. Once my laughter had died down, I explained to him that in the UK it's not so easy as walking into a surgery and asking for what you need. This practice seemed crazy to him, and rightly so. Surely it makes more sense, and is much more cost effective, for the NHS to diagnose peoples’ allergies that to repeatedly treat their reactions. Apparently not. According to my wonderful GP, there's no point in me knowing what I'm allergic to. He says that I'll work out my allergies on my own eventually, and even if I know what I'm allergic to I probably won't be able to avoid most of it anyway.

The problem, I believe, is that people who don't suffer from allergies don't understand the affect they have on your body. My main problem is eczema, which is classed as a 'skin allergy'. Most of my reactions are contact reactions, ie things that my skin literally comes into contact with, but eczema is also promoted by food allergies. The assumption by the medical world seems to be that eczema just causes itchy skin, but believe me it has a much greater effect. Everyone is different, but when I have an allergic reaction it makes my whole body feel ill. Sometimes my whole body or parts of it swell up, including my tongue and throat, which can mean I have problems breathing. Sometimes I feel so tired all I'm able to do is curl up on my bed.

As my GP suggested, I have been able to figure out a lot of my triggers through educating myself and omitting certain foods from my diet. Although this method can deliver results, it’s really just trial and error. The phrase ‘needle in a haystack’ comes to mind. Most recently, following a plant- based diet has had a huge positive impact on my health generally. There are some triggers, though, that I don't think I would ever find on my own. I figure that if I haven't worked it out yet (I'm 32 years old) then I'm probably not going to. So, when I saw that my local health food shop was offering private allergy tests, I signed myself up.

Using the Asyra Pro test, a simple and non-invasive machine that looks at your health status, the nutritional therapist was able to answer a lot of my questions that I have been asking for years. All that was required of me was to hold two electrodes and answer a few questions about my health and lifestyle. She seemed pleased that I was already following a plant-based diet. This makes a refreshing change, as most people look at you like you’ve just landed in your spacecraft when you mention that you live a plant-based lifestyle.

Although I’ve always suspected that I have complex food allergies, the results surprised even me. Apparently, if someone has food allergies, the computer usually displays about twenty foods that they are intolerant to. My list contained over forty.

There were some triggers which I would never eat anyway, such as clams, duck and haddock. However, knowing that I am allergic to them could explain some of my severe reactions in the past. Although I wouldn’t eat a clam, if I’ve come into contact with something that has been made near clams, that could explain why in the past I have suddenly blown up like a balloon with no known cause.

Among my other allergies, which I would usually eat but now need to avoid, are cabbage, caffeine (I knew that one already really, I’ve just been hoping I can pretend it’s not true), cane sugar, coconut (not worried about this one, I hate coconut), cucumber, ginger, mango, rice milk (gutted!), mushrooms, nutmeg, onion, pea and raisin. The list goes on, and if I avoided it all completely then there wouldn’t be much left for me to eat. The two main culprits, however, are dairy products and gluten. Dairy products are no surprise, as they are a common trigger for eczema. I remember when I first read that dairy products are not good for eczema sufferers. I was horrified that my doctor had not even suggested I cut down on dairy. I spent most of my childhood in horrific pain as a result of my condition, and my life was greatly affected by it, yet here was a simple solution that all the adults in my life were too stubborn to try. As I’ve been trying to follow a plant-based diet anyway, having a medical reason to give up dairy can only encourage me to be healthier.

The real surprise in my allergy test is that I can’t eat gluten. I’ve long suspected that bread is not good for my skin, but I assumed it was the wheat I was reacting to and not the gluten. This piece of information, I believe, is the key to me solving my food problems. It means I have to give up my beloved oats and replace them with buckwheat and quinoa. I can no longer eat couscous or drink beer, but if I don’t eat gluten then the hope is that my body can begin to repair itself and I can re-introduce some of the other foods into my diet.

When I first signed up for the allergy test, I was apprehensive and worried that I would just be faced with another ‘grown up’ telling me I was lying or trying to get attention and that really there’s nothing wrong with me. What I found, however, was a caring professional who genuinely wants to help me turn my life around. I’ll keep you posted on how the diet changes go.

The more scientific answer to why soya milk 'flocks'

Whilst doing some research for another post, I got a bit distracted online and came across the answer to a question that I asked last year. When I first switched from dairy to soya milk I found that the milk always looked like it was curdling in my coffee. Through experimentation I discovered that this doesn't happen if you allow the coffee to cool a little before you add the milk. According to the So Good Soya Milk website, this is because coffee is acidic. The two main factors that will cause the milk to separate are the temperature of the water and the strength of the coffee. They do also warn that some percolated and filter coffees are so strong that they will always cause the soya milk to separate. My top tip is to try The Co-operative own brand organic fairtrade filter coffee. It's the only one I've found (so far) that you can add soya milk to straight away, you don't even have to let the coffee cool down. It makes my life a lot easy when I'm in a rush to get my flask ready for work. My morning routine is now: Get up at 5am(ish), put the oatbran on a low heat, fill up the coffee machine, go get ready for work, and when I'm done breakfast is all done and I can fill my flask up straight away.