Tag: Special Diets

Midweek Low FODMAP special veggie chilli – A warming meal for chilly nights!

Wednesday evening – midway through the week and always a night to have something different. So I decided to trial a Quorn meal using Quorn mince. Here is the recipe

1 400g packet of Quorn

4 red bell peppers

1 tablespoon of garlic infused oil

1 teaspoon of cornflour

1 teaspoon of cumin

2 teaspoons of chilli powder (hot, hot, hot) if you prefer it less so, use less chilli! Watch this if you find spicy food tends to make your symptoms worse.

salt to taste

Slice the pepper roughly and spread on the oil, roast for 10-15 mins and then add to a food blender with a little water and blend till a smooth sauce is achieved.

Add this to a pan and then add the Quorn, spices and salt. Mix well

Cook for five minutes then add the cornflower directly to the pan.

Cook for 10 minutes and add salt to taste.

Serve with fresh boiled rice.

We are mid month and moving rapidly towards Halloween, and then plans for Christmas. Time seems to go so quickly and the nights are drawing in. It will soon be time to turn the clocks back and you really are aware that we are truly in Autumn. https://plus.google.com/118333009720408143699/posts/h1bkMSMDZt1

I remember how to do this by the rhyme – fall back spring forward, fall is an American word for Autumn but it does seem to work in reminding me which way to change the time. The date is 28th October this year – learn about time changes here:-

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/clock-changes/

I thought this card was very funny! From www.someecards.com

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Food, mood and improvement in gut motility? Low FODMAP, wheat free, dairy free, egg free.

So it begins, the Low FODMAP adventure – a tale of gut calming peace. Ready for the story? It began by eating out, but now I am happy to be home, then I can choose myself what to cook for my hubby and myself. Yesterday the weather had been appalling, back in the Pennines again and guess what? It’s raining again, not the raging downpours that happened over the summer, but a depressing drizzle – the drenching sort with no passion, it is so fine it may as well not be happening. But obviously it is, as my returning husband can contest, after going for a run he was soaked to the skin. Food and mood, now that’s interesting – shall we cook something to lift it? (Your mood that is!) Serotonin is a happiness chemical, it is made from tryptophan (an amino acid – building blocks of protein,) by your body and this chemical can lift your mood. It is also suggested that serotonin in the large intestine can help with constipation by increasing the speed the gut moves – some people with IBS-C are deficient, apparently. This seems to be one of the reasons why a low dose of antidepressants can be beneficial for IBS, it increases the amount of serotonin in the gut, thus increasing motility. Can this be done with food, I wonder? Food is better than taking pills, but we don’t have any evidence that food high in tryptophan can increase the levels of serotonin or improve a slow digestive system, so no point in taking this amino acid or foods high in tryptophan to try, until we do. See your doctor if you want to try a drug to help. It’s an interesting hypothesis though – don’t you think? I wonder if anyone will consider trialling it?

Meal

2 Mackerel

brown rice (120g)

2 tablespoons of pine nuts

1 sprig of mint

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt to taste

1.5 pieces of celery

Spray oil

Serves 3 people

Place the rice in a pan and cover with water, add a small pinch of salt, bring to the boil and cook till soft – this will take at least 40 minutes, watch the pan to ensure it doesn’t boil dry – boil a kettle and add more hot water to the pan if needed.

Wash and prepare the mackerel and grill for 10 minutes on both sides till cooked.

Put both the pine nuts and chopped hazelnuts on a tray and put in an oven to toast, watch this closely as it can easily burn.

Chop mint and squeeze lemon.

Add Lemon, mint and nuts to the rice and mix well.

Place the celery in a dish and spray with oil and cook in the oven for 15 minutes until cooked.

Serve and eat!!

Brown rice contains B vitamins, omega-3 oil is in the mackerel and both contain tryptophan – all nutrients suggested to improve your mood, but the main thing here is that this meal is low in FODMAPs, tasty and hot – what other reasons do you need to tuck in?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2652519/pdf/nihms76319.pdf

http://www.nuh.nhs.uk/media/11284/Food%20and%20Your%20Mood.pdf

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Low FODMAP on a budget – how to make the diet more affordable

One factor I have noticed about this diet is the likely increase in food costs, it is not possible to get gluten/wheat free foods on prescription in the UK. Free from food is expensive, no-one will disagree, so how can we make the Low FODMAP diet cheaper to follow?

Some of the vegetables and fruit allowed are not staple items, this also applies to the basic carbohydrates that are good to consider. It is important to have the full range of Low FODMAP foods to ensure you are receiving the full nutritional content in your diet your body needs to be healthy. But rising food costs are a problem currently, so help is required when you have been informed by your dietitian to try the diet to alleviate your IBS symptoms. So when shopping yesterday morning I thought about what to do to make the diet cheaper – here are some tips that might help:

1. Choose to buy in bulk, particularly the basic carbohydrates such as potatoes and rice.

2. If you have an ethnic supermarket close to where you live check out their prices for rice, they often have very large sacks of rice that are cheaper in bulk. This can mean a cost of £1.00-£1.20 a kilo – significant savings. Also check out bulk spice prices, again the saving can be substantial comparing with prices at the usual supermarket stocks. Some

supermarkets also are now providing bulk buy opportunities for rice.

3. Choose value items when buying fruit & vegetables, also some of the lower cost brand supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi can have occasional offers of half price fruit & vegetables so watch out for these.

4. Remember misshapen fruit & vegetables taste the same and have the same level of nutrition and may be cheaper to buy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/9572730/Wonky-fruit-and-veg-to-return-to-supermarket-shelves.html

5. Check out the offer shelves for items that are due to go out of date – it is normally obvious if fruit & vegetables are spoilt – check them thoroughly. You can make some real savings here.

6. Again check out for offers on free from items, they do occur and it is worth the outlay in time to watch for offers.

7. Base your diet on more cheaper carbohydrate basic foods, such as potatoes and make your own treats, this again may be cheaper than purchasing free from items.

8. Use your own flour blends, check out what is in ready-made wheat free flour blends and make your own this can also be better as some gluten-free blends do not always contain starches that are low FODMAP.

9. Utilise coupons, supermarket offers and trials of free from food items.

10 Plan your food for the week and shop accordingly.

11. Use as many UK basic food items in your diet as you can such as bananas, carrots, potatoes, oranges, lettuce, tomato (watch amounts if you are fructose intolerant,) cucumber, celery (1/4 stick maximum at any one meal.)  Also base your breakfast on cheaper own branded cereals – you can always add your own Low FODMAP dried fruit (a tablespoon or 13 g only) and nuts if you wish to.

12. If you do purchase wheat free bread, buy sliced, or slice it yourself and freeze what you don’t immediately need. This prevents wastage, also freeze other items you might not use initially. If you have a problem with resistant starches you might not want to freeze your bread – as freezing it can increase resistant starch content.

13. Utilise frozen and tinned fruit & vegetables, however be aware of what the tinned fruit juice is based on – you may be inadvertently adding a FODMAP to your diet, some have apple juice as a base.

14. Please don’t use ‘free from’ cook in sauces – these are generally not a great deal different from normal sauces, they may also contain onion and garlic. Make your own thickened with cornflour. Cornflour is simple to use to thicken sauces and it mixes into the sauce really easily.

15. Learn about your diet and look around the supermarket – the more expensive items will be on the free from shelves – alternatives may be available in other sections of the store.

16 If ordering on-line check out the delivery costs, purchase savvy to save on delivery costs.

17. Bulk cook recipes and freeze what you don’t eat.

18. Also make your own stock, when buying meat or chicken, cook the waste scraps and bones in water with a  carrot and herbs, allow to cool, skim off the fat and freeze in small amounts. Water from cooking vegetables can also be used in the same way if a vegetable stock is required.

19. Share bulk items with friends and family to share the initial cost in purchasing – using the principles of the co-operative society, originating in Rochdale and still a good ideal to follow when money is tight!

20. Even if it means that you don’t start the diet immediately, plan well, planning may be the key to ultimate success and a feeling of achievement when you can do the diet within budget.

Updated Jan 2015

 

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Breakfast – Low FODMAP

I have enjoyed staying at Bankfield House and although it was a little noisy up till about midnight, I really have no complaints to make about the room or facilities. The breakfast was the usual affair of cooked English or continental and a good choice was available. To follow a Low FODMAP theme I chose porridge, a banana, 1 tomato, bacon, egg & hash browns. Again this would not be my normal choice but I did enjoy it – I haven’t realised how much wheat I actually include in my diet until you begin to have to make alternative choices. When on holiday we usually eat a large breakfast and then go on till the evening meal, it is true that to breakfast like a king really sets you up for the day. I was so full that I even saved my banana for later.

I decided to go to the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate Britain, no reproduction of any of these paintings can every do them justice as it is the light and reflection needs to be

Mariana by Millais courtesy of http://www.wye.co.uk

seen to be really appreciated. This was an excellent exhibition, but I have seen some of the paintings before in Manchester Art Gallery Most where most major artists are represented, including the great Pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt. We are lucky in Manchester to have these paintings available most of the time but some of them, one is ‘work’ by Ford Madox Brown, will have been loaned to the Tate for their exhibition. If you are in London and feel like visiting, I would recommend it!

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/pre-raphaelites-victorian-avant-garde

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Autumn thick warming roasted carrot and pumpkin soup, lactose free, milk free, egg free – vegeliscious!

Roasted carrot and pumpkin soup

600g peeled carrots, cut into 4 lengthwise

500g pumpkin

1 tablespoon of garlic infused olive oil

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 teaspoon of cumin

1 teaspoon of coriander

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1.2 litres of water

small bunch of coriander leaves (depends how much you like the taste.)

Salt & pepper

coriander leaves and nigella seeds to serve

Method

Peel and slice carrots and pumpkin and place in a roasting tin, pour in the olive oil and coat the vegetables well. Sprinkle on spices and mix well.

Roast till the vegetables are soft in texture.

Place in a food processor or blender, add the other ingredients and blend well.

Warm the soup again then serve with a sprinkling of nigella seeds and coriander leaves.

Serves 6

(approximately per serving)

Kcal 67

Protein 1.2

Fat 2.9

Carbohydrate 9.0

Fibre 2.8

There is some debate as to whether pumpkin is safe for the FODMAP diet – it contains mannitol – amount varies on where it is grown, the one I used was grown within 10 miles of home. If you have problems with pumpkin, or are on a FODMAP exclusion you could replace the pumpkin with more carrot and this should work just as well.

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Exploits in English preserves – rhubarb and ginger.

A saturday in September, a real autumnal feeling in the air. I love this time of year, it’s the time of year I chose to get married and we have some lovely pictures of our day amongst trees adorned with yellow, orange and red leaves. Anyway I digress, or reminisce or whatever! Back to the Saturday.

zzzzzzz

– I woke early with the cat pawing and purring for his breakfast, a real feline bon viveur. Much to my consternation he was back asleep within half an hour of scoffing his breakfast chow. Slightly embarrassing for a dietitian to have such a portly cat, but despite our efforts if we cut his food intake he goes and gets his own outside. He has arrived home with ham, battered fish and his favourite – sausages, which I suppose is slightly better than mauled dead wildlife.

What to cook today, I mused – after a trip to the supermarket, where I purchased 2 packs of rhubarb for the price of one, I decided to make some jam. I have some preserve jars and before coming home I also bought a packet of jam sugar. This is sugar with added citrus and pectin (apple pectin to those who need have problems digesting apples) this assists setting. In the past, exploits in jam making have resulted in disappointment, my last attempt was to make LOFFLEX pear preserve. This was probably a little too much to start with, as obviously, use of citrus fruit to enhance the preservation was out of the question. The jam was fine initially but crystallised over time, I’m not sure why.

Rhubarb and Ginger Jam

800g of washed sliced rhubarb (don’t eat the leaves!!!)

200 mls water

700g of jam sugar (for strawberries)

100g table sugar

2 inch (5cm) piece of peeled ginger chopped finely

Put the sliced rhubarb and ginger in a bowl and place in the microwave cook till soft, smaller pieces will reduce the time needed

Add the fruit mix to a pan with the water and heat, mash with a potato masher

Add sugar and warm till the sugar has dissolved (do not boil at this stage)

Bring the jam to a rolling boil and boil for four minutes.

Check the set by dropping a small amount of jam onto a plate, allow to cool and push the jam with your finger – it should wrinkle up, then its ready.

Put the jam in a sterilised preserve jar and allow to cool.

This took no more than 30 minutes – wow, easy!!! Apparently this is a jam not a preserve according to Wiki, something to do with the sugar content, oh well never mind  – it’s still a slightly sharp, but sweet jam and rhubarb is one of my favourite fruits. Yum, fine to have occasionally – our two jars are in the store cupboard, think I will open one at Christmas.

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