It's 5am and I got some deep stuff to talk about.

I went through a bit of a health scare yesterday/today. Ok maybe that's a bit dramatic. But it's been painful and uncomfortable and annoying. I had bad cramps which developed into lower left back pain that was similar to these bouts I had a couple of years back. I was never really diagnosed though my primary doc thought it might have been small kidney stones that resolved on their own. I was eating zero carb at the time and not drinking enough water, and eating too much dairy, so after eating some more carbs, drinking more water and sticking to high fat dairy only, it never happened again. (until POSSIBLY now, though  i don't know for sure). Anyway, during my worst pain, I started thinking..."wow we so take our health for granted when we're healthy"....or at least I do. I looked back on some things that happened recently that stressed me out, and thought...everything passes, everything changes. Some things are just not worth fretting over. One needs to focus on the important things :health, happiness, love, friends/family...
And as one who truly believes psychological stress/pain can manifest as physical health problems, avoiding negative emotions and stress is very important.

Anyway I'm still in a little pain. It's 4:30am in London town and I'm sitting at my computer desk listening to soul and typing away as quietly as I can, with a hot water bottle tucked between my back and the chair. But I'm feeling really happy. In a weird "I'm still a bit uncomfortable and I wish I was asleep, but am also feeling pretty amazing" kinda way.

I've vowed to never take my health for granted, and to be grateful each and every day that i am alive, and healthy. I have been a bit slack with my diet lately (overeating, especially on treats that although may be much healthier for you, are probably not good on a regular basis), and i haven't been meditating or spending time in nature etc as much as i want. I'm going to start focusing on living a much cleaner life now. I hope this feeling I'm feeling right now can be maintained. I'm sure I'll slip up sometimes. I'm only human. But I'll try, baby, oh yes I will. Because the pain of discipline is much better than suffering the pain of regret. (ofcourse this phrase doesn't apply to absolutely everything in life ;) )

And even if you are not fully healthy, you are alive. And living. You're able to read this post right now. Things could be so much worse. Negative thinking never got anyone anywhere, and it's a total waste of time. Sometimes we focus so much on what may be wrong or what we don't like, realizing life is all about balance. There are tons of  good things to focus on, we just need to find them! All of us have something to be grateful for, whether it's that we feel no pain in this very moment, that we can see and appreciate the lovely yellow daffodils that are springing up everywhere, that we have people in our lives we can count on, that we have a roof over our head and food to eat, etc etc..

Happiness is everything. What's life without it? I hope you, dear reader, can feel as blessed and grateful and wonderful as I am right now. Take care of yourself. Pass on the trans fat laden fries and sugar/wheat-bombs that is cake. You're better than that shit and you know it. Get away from that computer for a while. Go and appreciate the beauty of this world...the wonderful trees that try to keep our atmosphere clean, the colourful daffodils and roses and tulips and buttercups, the salt sea mist, the wide ocean, the wonderful animals and wildlife that coexist with us on this magnificent planet. Listen to your favourite music. Dance like no-one is watching, even if they are. Call your best friend/your sister/brother/mother/father and tell 'em how much you love them. Or better yet go hang out with them. Go study/work on that project you've been meaning to do instead of procrastinating, and reward yourself with a wholesome, happy thing/treat afterwards. Achieve your goals and dreams. Don't wait till tomorrow. Do it now. There ain't nothing you can't achieve. Quit makin' excuses. You can fucking do it. ↖

 Be healthy and happy and grateful, and realize that you are awesome. You ↓ and you ↑ and you → and you ← and you ↗ and you ↘ and you ↗ and even you!↙ 


It's past 5am, I'ma listen to this, then this and try and get some shut eye now.


Happy whatever-the-fuck-this-day-is, friends! :)

The girl who silenced the world at the UN for 5 minutes

I cam across this video recently. This young girl speaks about the earth and the environment, sharing, poverty, and greed.. It's quite saddening as you realize what has become of the world, but also inspiring. It's a wonderful speech. If only there were more people like her. If only more people listened to her.

Treat the Earth well ; it was not given to you by your ancestors, it was loaned to you by your children" - Native American proverb.

Outrageous!

The other day I went to the farmers market to pick up  bunch of grassfed meat and veggies. At the veggie stall, as I hauled my load of onions, squash, brussels sprouts and parsley to the front to pay, the guy asked me if I wanted a bag, as he picked up a nice cloth tote bag with the words "wonderful and wise" and a picture of a rainbow of vegetables on it. "Is it free?" I asked (not wanted to spend money on a bag I didn't really need). "yes! It is! No-one believes us" he joked. So i took the bag and headed home with my yummy food.


Upon further inspection of the bag, I noticed it urged me to search the words "wonderful and wise", so i googled the term expecting some wholesome, crunchy company with good values and ethical concerns at heart.


How wrong was I.


Turns out "wonderful and wise" is an ad campaign by Lurpak for their new 'Lurpak lightest', a low-fat spread with the following ingredients. Butter (27%), water, vegetable oil (19%),  lactic culture, milk protein, salt (1%) , preservative (potassium sorbate).


Their advert  shows lots of fresh vegetables and real food, with the Lurpak lightest at the end. At first I was confused. How on earth are they linking fresh veggies with a fake processed food made with vegetable oil?! Vegetable oil being a highly processed item made by subjecting seeds to high heat and pressure, chemical solvents (including hexane), bleaching, deodorization, and other unnatural horrible processes that render the fat toxic and foreign to the human body. They are trying to equate this crap to food that is wholesome and healthy so people think that this spread is healthy. Such deception!! Real butter, full of vitamin A, E and K, carotenoids, healthy cholesterol, saturated fat, butyric acid, etc is healthy. Fake processed low fat spreads with only a tiny bit of butter? Far from it!


The second thing that outraged me (even more than the above since I know food companies lie all the time), is that Lurpak had the nerve to advertise their crap in my local farmer's market?!! It's insane. I go to farmer's markets to avoid greedy/selfish/lying food companies, advertising and mass produced food. Yet here, my market has sneakily been infiltrated by the very company farmer's markets are supposed to stand up against. 


I decided to email LFM (London Farmer's Markets, which many markets in London belong to), outlining my feelings on the matter, in the hope others will contact them too, and they can make a move to get rid of this type of product placement. I've copied my email here below.  I would urge anyone else in London to contact LFM and make your opinion heard!

Hey
I am emailing about a cloth tote bag I got for free at one of the london farmer's markets. The bags say "wonderful and wise" on them, with the instructions to search the words. So when i got home I googled "wonderful and wise" and was disappointed to see it was an ad campaign for Lurpak low fat spread. I think this flies completely against the face of what LFM stands for - local REAL food. I am very disappointed that you would allow such companies to infiltrate London's wholesome grassroots farmers markets, and I am sure many LFM customers would agree. Would you please look into removing this blatant product placement from your markets, so Londoners do not lose faith in the local/organic/ethical food movement. I avoid supermarkets to avoid being bombarbed with industrial, processed 'food', so please don't bring it to the farmers markets.


Thank you




UPDATE! - I received this reply:


Thank you for your email.
We didn't give Lurpak permission to give out their bags, the company
approached farms directly so the first we saw of it was when they
appeared at market at the weekend. It goes without saying that we will
be having words with whichever marketing company approached our stall
holders and we certainly don't  want to see them on stalls again,

(name omitted)
London Farmers' Markets


So it looks like it wasn't LFM that condoned this but some of the farms instead! That's even more worrying to be honest. Nevertheless, it looks like LFM are taking care of it! :D
(linked at kelly the kitchen kop)

Super Duper Fat-bomb Ice-cream

Fat is where it's at.


So I found this recipe over at Whole Intentions a while back and thought it looked too good to be true. Ice-cream made of just butter, eggs and coconut oil?! No way can that be legit. But it was. There's pictures and everything! And I'm sure you'll agree it looks marvelous.

One problem though.

When I finally got round to making it I failed abysmally. Okay well it wasn't exactly 'abysmal'. But it certainly didn't look as good as Paula's. It was grainy and clumpy and not smooth at all :(. It did taste good though.  The first time I made it, the fat probably got too cold too quick because it started to clump in the blender. The second time I mixed it manually and it still came out grainy. Not one to give up I just had to try it a third time. But with one change. Instead of using whole eggs I used just yolks (something I contemplated doing before I ever made it, as you can see from the comments). And it worked a whole lot better! A lot smoother and creamier.  Now don't be fooled, this isn't exactly like regular cream based icecream. But it's definitely a good substitute, especially if you're want something higher fat (keto icecream!) or are on a diet that restricts dairy proteins. I still want to have a few goes at the original recipe (maybe blend for longer?) as I really want to achieve Paula's results. But for now, this will do :)

Super duper fat-bomb ice-cream (don't you just love this name? :P)

Ingredients
3 T coconut oil
1.5 T butter
2 egg yolks
stevia to sweeten
fresh vanilla seeds
rice syrup (optional)

Method
1. Melt butter and coconut oil. Let cool to room temperature (so as not to cook the eggs)
2. In a seperate bowl whisk the egg yolks then pour in the fat and mix till emulsified
3. Add stevia and vanilla, then freeze (I froze mine directly in the bowl) for a few hours
4. Let thaw slightly and enjoy (topped with syrup if you want)

Happy new year and Fooooood

Happy new years! :D
Oh wow, has time flown. My two much appreciated weeks off for christmas are over, and I spent most of the time enjoying time with friends and family, cooking, eating and learning. Not a bad end of the year! ;)

Now I'm not one to make new years resolutions. The way I see it, if you want to make a change in your life, do it NOW, don't wait till the next year! On the other hand I suppose a new year sort of feels like a fresh start...like a new period of time...where some people find it easier to forget about previous habits and start afresh. Plus since lot's of other people are making changes I guess it's easier to run with the crowd.

That said, December was a pretty 'let-myself-go' month, Diet-wise, fitnesss-wise, and productivity-wise.
So I'm back on the bandwagon this week..hoping to get stronger, burn some fat, get a little bit closer to my dreams and goals, do some more travelling, do more exciting stuff, meditate more, start yoga, get my knitting for charity project off the ground, paint more, get better at German, learn to drive...and...gosh that's a helluva lot right there! But yeah, I have a lot to achieve. There's no time limit, so I'm taking each day as it comes.

I'll start this year off by posting my Christmas dinner meal and  some treats I made during the last days of 2011. Treats that  I probably won't be indulging again for a while, but that were definitely worth it. :D

First.. Christmas dinner, which was a little different this year. I found a Jamie Oliver recipe for 'empire roast chicken' months ago which made my mouth water so much I had to save it to make for a special occasion. Here is the recipe used. Instead of a whole chicken I used chicken legs, a partridge and a pheasant! Paired with spicy 'bombay' potatoes and an indian style sweet and spicy gravy, it was the perfect feast for 8 hungry people.

During the holidays I also had another go at making a delicious Japanese fermented food. It involved culturing some rice with aspergillus oryzae bought from G.E.M cultures  to make koji. Then I used koji and some freshly boiled rice to make amazake, which is sweet and pudding like. The whole process seems long and complicated, but honestly...it's pretty easy!

I used some of the amazake to make this 'quick' kheer which is an indian rice pudding flavoured with cardamom and saffron. My version uses rice couscous instead of regular rice (so ready in 5 mins!) and coconut milk instead of regular milk.
I simply boiled some homemade coconut milk (yes! By juicing fresh coconut in a champion juicer) with a few saffron threads and crushed cardamom, added a spoonful of amazake, some rice couscous, and boiled till soft. I finished if off by topping it with coconut cream that melted into the pudding. So good...

The other treat I made was a chocolate chestnut torte with my surplus of chestnuts. The original recipe calls for this to be baked, but I tried it uncooked (just putting it in the fridge to harden) and much preferred it this way..It was much more 'melt-in-the-mouth'.. No pics unfortunately as I was a greedy bastard and scoffed it for breakfast this morning..XD

Ingredients
50g dark chocolate (I used 82 %)
50g butter
50g whole chestnuts, boiled and mashed with a bit of water
1 small egg, seperated
sweetener
 Method
1. Melt butter and chocolate together, and let cool
2. Add chestnut puree, sweetener and egg yolk and mix thoroughly
3. Beat egg white until stiff and fold through
4. Put in fridge for a few hours OR bake/steam for a warm cake.

Oxtail Stew and a Winter Challenge

UPDATE: I'm taking part in a blog challenge this year : The 5th Annual The Dark Days Challenge, which is all about local cooking. I noticed that I'd been pretty slack with eating local lately, so what better motivation than joining a blog challenge?! :D Every week I'll try and post one meal made mostly (or entirely) with local ingredients. I've started a little late because when I signed up I was put in the Lower New England/Mid Atlantic group (though I live in England, UK!) so was confused about whether I could take part but apparently I can, yay! I just happen to be the only English participant hehe. But no worries, I look forward to showcasing the wonderful local food England has to offer! :D. My first local meal is my oxtail stew:

Mmmmmm....Oxtail stew....(*cue Homer-Simpson-like drooling)

This has got to be one of my all time favourite foods/meals. You just can't beat oxtail! It's rich, tender, melt-in-the-mouth, gelatinous, meaty...deliciousness.

Technically it's a 'winter-dish' ; warm, comforting, perfect to dig into on a cold night. But I even make it in Summer. Call me crazy, but yeah, I have the oven on the whole day during Summer. Seriously, it's worth it!!

So, this is really simple to make (no recipe required per se), and involves simply chucking a bunch of stuff in a casserole dish (a Le Creuset  is my favourite, but use a crock-pot or any other dish suitable for stews), and filling it with a mixture of water and red wine.

I usually make it by separating the parts of one whole oxtail, marinating it in a few tsp of turmeric powder for a few hours (or just put the turmeric directly in the liquid), then covering with water, a 1/4 bottle of red wine, and some crushed rosemary. Bring it the boil then whack it in the oven for 3 hours. Then add some chopped celeriac or swede, greens (kale and chard are my fave), brussels sprouts or any other seasonal veg that I like, and maybe a few cloves of garlic if I'm in a garlicky mood. Back in the oven for two more hours or until tender. Done. The only thing to do next is tuck in with a fork and spoon for the delicious broth, and don't feel too bad about eating the entire oxtail in one evening  :)


My local food sources
Grassfed Oxtail - Wild beef (from Borough market)
Kale and chard - Wild country organics (from Notting Hill farmers market)
Swede and brussells sprouts- Ted's veg (Notting hill farmers market)


I'm submitting this to Fight back Fridays and Dark Days Challenge

Frankenfoods

I stumbled across this picture a few days ago. It made me laugh. But at the same time it  inspired me to write about frankenfoods (merely the sight of the word Monsanto stirs up some anger inside me that inspires me to spread the word about how evil they are... haha) 

Ok, so most people have probably heard about GMO foods but don't know too much about them. Genetically modified foods are foods where the DNA has been manually modified - usually a gene is added - in order to give the plant new traits that it wouldn't have in nature. It's a step beyond selective breeding, with  possibly disastrous consequences.

The safety of GMO foods is unknown. There is lots of stuff on the internet about the hazards of GMOS and I'm not sure if ALL of it is true, but I'd rather be on the safe side. Messing with nature never turns out to be good. And anyway, many 'studies' that people quote in order to argue that they are harmless are either seriously flawed or funded by the very companies that are screwing up our food (Monsanto). 

To give you an idea of the lengths such companies go, they genetically engineered crops like corn, soy and cotton, whereby the only herbicide that could be used on them was Roundup (made by, you guessed it...Mon-fucking-santo!). So they convinced farmers that these spankin' new seeds would have higher yields and reduce labour costs and basically transform their lives. But then the farmers had to buy all these Roundup chemicals in addition to the seeds. Furthermore, they had to buy new seeds every year. And what happened? The crops failed. And number upon number of farmers committed suicide.

Oh yeah,  then there was that other story about two fox news journalists who did a research piece on Bovine growth hormone. When Monsanto found out about it they tried to make the journalists change the story, but when they refused to lie, Monsanto pressured Fox to fire them. Friggin' insane huh? Read here for more details. These money obsessed companies should NOT be allowed to mess around with my food. With anyone's food.

That isn't the only problem of GMO crops. Not only have they failed in their promise to 'feed the starving' and ensure a more stable food supply, there's evidence that they may be dire consequences to health of animals and ecosystems. Here's just a few..

-One study  on genetically modified peas had to be abandoned after it caused lung damage in mice, while other studies have shown GM foods cause organ failure in mice.

-GMO crops can increase allergic reactions, as allergenic proteins from one food could be transferred to other foods

-Genetically engineered rBGh given to cows in the US to increase milk yields also increases infection and risk of birth defects in cows. The effect on humans is likely to be increased cancer risk as the milk also has increased levels of IGF-1 which may increase cancer in humans

-Messing around with genes and plants could create superweeds

- There's evidence that genes from GMO foods might transfer to gut bacteria 

And the list goes on...

The scary thing is, GMO foods are now pretty widespread, especially in the US. It is said that about 70% of foods in the grocery store contain GMO foods. That shocks me. I am lucky to live in Europe where consumer opposition has meant that GMO foods are banned. However there are still some examples (although more regulated than in the US) of GMO crop growing in Europe, especially Spain. Furthermore there is widespread feeding of GMO crops (like soy) to animals, which are then eaten by humans. This is one of the reasons why I choose to buy organic food as much as possible; the organic label guarantees that there are no genetically modified organisms involved in any part of the food's production.

But even then, there's the risk of cross pollination of GM crops with non GM crops, which will be more likely if GMO crops become more widespread.  It's sad that governments have allowed this to be unleashed on the world without first strictly testing that they are safe. 

But hopefully as more people become aware of what is going on behind closed doors, we can put a stop to this madness! 

The institute of responsible technology has lots of info, and if you want to know more about how you can avoid GMOs check this guide out.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday