Kitchen Garden Forum

If you REALLY want to confuse 'professional' dietitians talk about CLAs. They are found in RED meats and FULL fat milk.

These are wonderful 'fats' as they

A) Aid weight loss
B) May reduce the risk of heart disease, due to lowering Blood colesterol and Blood fats
C) Have an anti-cancer effect (for breast, skin, rectum and colon cancers)
D) May help to reduce osteoporosis due to improving bone strength

As we have been recommended to cut down on 'animal fats' as they are saturated, we are now recommended to eat 3g suppliment of CLAs per day!

For those of a technical mind try the link below

http://www.lipidworld.com/content/2/1/6

I'm with Richard P with regards to milk. For 13 years I had milk delivered direct from the farm 200 yards away...you'd have to milk the cows yourself to get it any fresher. It had not been pasteurised, let alone homogenised. There was never any problems with it's keeping quality (I have left a bottle in the fridge when I went on holiday for a week and it was perfectly drinkable when I came back) I will be interested to see if my daughter is already immune to TB when they do the test next year (assumming they still vacinate kids for TB at 14 and it hasn't been cut like the visits from the 'nit nurse' so kids are constantly being reinfested with the little beasts every few weeks!) My daughter always had less time off school for illnesses than her friends. Unfortunately, the farmer wife has now given up her milk round, so I have to buy 'processed' milk now and it has a strong cooked taste.

With most foods the quicker you can consume it and the less processing the better.

Keep them coming, we are doing well. I would just like to say that although I launched this baby I did it on behalf of all forum members so let us all address the group, not me personally in future. If there is a particular problem to tackle I am willing to do what I can about it but as I see it apart from group name and status it is a joint venture.
Allan

If you want to make juices, smoothies, soups etc. with the whole fruit and veg, (apart from the stones in plums, apricots and suchlike) there's a fantastic piece of kit from the States called a Vita-Mix.

I have no connections with the company - I'm just a very happy customer.

The liquidiser has a 2 horsepower motor and the blades go round at 381kph (neither of those are spelling mistakes!). It's not pretty to look at, but you can put whole raw veg in and make hot, cooked soup in 4 minutes. Whole fruit comes out as sorbet in less than 1 minute. So, when you make a smoothie or a juice, you use all the fruit - skin, seeds, stalks. You can also make drinks and soups with fruit and veg straight from the freezer.

Up until this year, they were only imported through a few companies and cost twice the price here than in the USA. Now the makers have established a UK distribution system. They went to this summer's Good Food Show for a practice run and are booked into the winter ones.

Apart from being ugly, they're not cheap (about £360) but if you want to boost your fruit and veg intake, and include the fibre, you'll use it at least once a day.

I`ve put some health information on general chatter under the post entitled "beans fo the girls" hopefully it will be of use to women (and men who live with women)
Seedling

I`ve put some health information on general chatter under the post entitled "beans for the girls" hopefully it will be of use to women (and men who live with women)
Seedling

sorry about that- there seems to be an echo
Seedling

I have just read through all the interesting contributions to the "healthy living" topic and want to add my two-pennies-worth: isn't it a case of the golden middle way? We grow almost all our own vegetables all the year round, but can't grow any fruit (too far north, high up and exposed) and don't have any animals (too tying), so we buy organic fruit, meat and eggs - we don't drink milk. We have no TV, a very small, economic car (in fact, I don't drive and walk to the nearest shops, 40 minutes away). This way of life obviously wouldn't suit everyone, but so what? We are old, but healthy and fit and don't mind a bit that our neighbours buy all their food at the supermarket. Life would be so boring if we all did the same thing ......

Monika
Thank you for your contribution.
I have to take exception to the use of the term organic if that is the only qualification of some of your purchases. As regards its use on the forum it has been debated many times before so I shall not go over that again in any detail but I think it is fair comment to say that its meaning in the context of what the home gardener means by it and its application to products as offered in your typical supermarket are poles apart. It gets totally ridiculous when even extended to fizzy drinks.The only thing that one can guarantee about such supermarket offerings is that the prices tend to be higher and the benefits arguable.I don't like the indiscriminate use of what I call buzz-words, no single term or combination of terms will give you infallibly the best choice.
Having said that there are some buzz-words that tend to be helpful, such as local if it means fresher when that matters, maturer inasmuch as tomatoes for example are ripened on the plant.Once again there is a glaring exception, the banana is not grown commercially in our climate and is a popular and very important addition to our diet.
Seasonal is very important, one won't get local produce out of season and imported produce will have clocked up many air miles and have lost a lot of nutrition. However our best purchase for sultanas happen to come from Australia and why not if brought in bulk by sea.
Another generally reliable pointer is if the food is traceable back to the producer who has his/her reputation at stake.
One pointer of my own, eat as much unprocessed food and in as much variety as is possible at any season.
I won't go on, there is much more that can be said and I have made my basic point.
Allan