Friday 6 February 2009

Food Porn.

It's the only porn you're going to get on this Blog! :-p

I was looking at Richard Nikoley's Blog at http://freetheanimal.com/ and I couldn't help but notice all of the pictures of yummy food on it. When I mention to people that I am on an "Atkins-style" diet, they usually say "Oh, so all you eat is bacon & eggs and those expensive low-carb bars, right?" I have yet to buy a low-carb bar.

This post should give you an idea of what I eat. Some of my meals contain Burgen soya & linseed bread and even sweetcorn. These foods are relatively high in starchy carbohydrate, but my body can tolerate them thanks to Vitamin D.

The first picture is what I often (but not always, as variety is important) have in the morning. It's basically coffee with extra oomph provided by a 60cc scoop of powdered linseeds (in the storage jar) and a 60cc scoop of unflavoured whey protein (a milk protein). Vanilla flavouring, brown sugar & Splenda improve the flavour of this concoction, which has the consistency of wallpaper paste!


I do eat bacon & eggs but not for breakfast. I usually have it for lunch, accompanied by chopped onions & mushrooms microwaved with Lo Salt, Lee & Perrins & Extra-Virgin Olive oil. A big squirt of tomato ketchup gives me my third portion of vegetables! The whole lot sits on top of a slice of Burgen toast.


For afternoon tea, I may have something salmony. Here's a simple smoked salmon sarnie made with ~100g of smoked salmon and a couple of slices of raw onion.


I have a friend who hates the skin & bones in tinned salmon. As this is where a lot of the omega-3 fat & minerals are, I tried an experiment to see if I could disguise them. I blended a 213g tin of wild red salmon with a couple of dollops of Hellman's Real Mayonnaise & a little "juice" from a tin of sweetcorn. I then mixed sweetcorn with the salmon mayonnaise. I dumped a load of the salmon & sweetcorn mayonnaise mix onto a slice of Burgen buttered with Anchor. A little sliced tomato & cucumber completed the ensemble.


Sometimes. I just dump everything on a plate!


For supper, I usually microwave something meaty with something vegetabley. Here are some Somerfield "Best Ever" Pork & Chorizo sausages microwaved with chopped onions & mushrooms in a Lea & Perrins-based gravy.


Here's an Aldi quarter-pounder beefburger with microwaved chopped onions, mushrooms & English mustard.


Here's an Aldi chicken jambonette in a sun-dried tomato, balsamic & sweet basil sauce microwaved with peas & mixed veg. The sauce went everywhere!


Here's an Aldi lamb shank in a mint & red wine-flavoured sauce. The shank was in a bag, so the sauce didn't go everywhere when I microwaved it on the plate alongside the peas & mixed veg. The vegetables look a little strange as I microwaved them as they were with a little Lo Salt (and no added water), but they tasted just fine. Not adding any water means that there is no loss of minerals.


And finally, here's an Aldi pork shank in sweet & sour sauce cooked as per the lamb shank. Aldi have a lot of different varieties of chicken jambonettes, lamb & pork shanks and I will be trying them out as they are very reasonably priced.


So, can I spend the rest of my life on this sort of diet? Oh, yes yes yes yes yes!

If you're worried that microwaving foods destroys nutrients, see Do Microwaves Destroy Flavonoids?

6 comments:

Dr. Art Ayers said...

Thanks for some good nuts and bolts examples of nutrition. Use of Losalt brings up the subject of sodium and high blood pressure. I haven't looked into sodium-dependent hypertension at the molecular level, but the real issues appear to be sodium/potassium dietary ratios and more importantly, inflammation-based death of capillaries. My hunch is that salt-sensitive hypertension is just a symptom of chronic inflammation. Your diet solves hypertension by addressing both. The Losalt provides potassium and the rest is anti-inflammatory. After repairing with your diet, you are probably more salt-tolerant now.

Rosso said...

Thanks for sharing,

The skin and bones on salmon are absolutely no problem at all for me. The bones are soft and crunchy and the skin has no taste almost. Is that Anchor butter? I’m trying to work out how you managed to spread that beast on the Burgen? Mine is the anti spreadable variety.

Also consider doing a blog entry about your supplement intake with amounts and reasoning?

Nigel Kinbrum said...

I can eat salmon straight out of the tin, skin, bones and all, but a friend of mine (whose diet I'm trying to improve as it's utterly dreadful) hates skin & bones, hence my little experiment. It's amazing what a blender can do. I use both Anchor Spreadable (spreads onto Burgen bread straight from the fridge) and Anchor (for use on Burgen toast which is harder and warmer).

Supplements? I shall put my thinking cap on.

Nigel Kinbrum said...

Apart from omega-6/omega-3, calcium/magnesium and sodium/potassium, are there any other dietary elements that need to be consumed in a reasonable ratio?

Anonymous said...

Suprised at the amount of microiwaving food going on for someone so health aware.Microwaving changes the molecular structure of proteins I believe they are banned in russia?China for this reason.
Great blog thanks!.

Nigel Kinbrum said...

Hi Anonymous. Heating proteins by any means denatures them (i.e. changes their 3-D structure) which makes meat tender.

Is there any specific structural change that's bad for health that you are aware of that's only caused by microwave energy and not by heat in general?

Microwaving veggies with minimal water preserves minerals & some nutrients compared to boiling in water and throwing the water away. According to Effects on food and nutrients, you win some, you lose some.

Cheers, Nige.