Category: health

5 protein powders that don’t have sweeteners

1 Comment

Although deemed as ‘safe’ there is some evidence that sweeteners e.g. sucralose, stevia may have a negative impact on health. There is also solid evidence of the negative effect that ultra processed foods have on our health. Many people simply wish to pursue a diet that is as low in manufactured ingredients as possible.

It is possible to get plenty of protein from real food. However, protein powders can be a very helpful way to increase protein in your diet. This is particularly relevant for athletes, those wishing to increase muscle mass or reduce fat mass, and older people due to the increased need for protein.

It can be very hard to find a protein powder that is minimally processed and doesn’t have sweeteners. Out of a field of 1000s of protein supplements, here are 5 that I have managed to locate:


Naked Nutrition Naked Whey – Ingredients: whey protein concentrate

Wyldsson Naked Vegan Protein Powder Super Blend plain and unsweetened – Ingredients: organic pea protein, pumpkin protein & sunflower protein, flaxseed, chia seed, organic baobab, turmeric, cacao & ceylon cinnamon.


Sunwarrior Warrior Protein Classic – Ingredients: fermented brown rice protein

MyProtein Whey Protein Isolate unflavoured – Ingredients: whey protein isolate, emulsifiers (soy and sunflower lecithins)

My Protein Impact Whey Protein unflavoured – Ingredients: whey protein concentrate, emulsifier (soy lecithin)

To add some flavour to protein shakes, blend the powder with water/milk and add some fruit e.g. berries or banana, cinnamon, oats, honey. You can also make your own high protein milk or mix in to natural yogurt to significantly increase the protein content.

Other natural sources of protein include: eggs, chicken, beef, pork, lamb, fish, yogurt, milk, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds.

Sweet n Sour Vegetables

Leave a comment

The great thing about this meal is the abundance of vegetables, and the sauce makes them taste interesting and adds a whole lot of oomph. There are extremely good reasons for eating a lot of veg (other than “they’re good for you”). Each different vegetable provides a range of phytonutrients, the more variety you have, the broader the range of these immensely beneficial plant nutrients. Ideally, we should be aiming for 30+ plants a week. This includes the ‘super six’: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts/seeds, beans/lentils, herbs/spices. It sounds like a lot, but this one sweet n sour meal provides 10!

This recipe originally came from one of my daughter’s Home Economics homeworks during Covid lockdown. During that time she was difficult and fussy with food – in clinical practice we call ‘selective eating’. Amazingly, she gobbled it all up!

It is totally delicious and has become a household staple, so I thought it was about time that I share. The original recipe was for 2 people, so to serve 4 I’ve doubled the amount of veg but kept the quantity of sauce the same. I’ve also reduced the sugar by half. You can of course add in extra veg, or leave out what you don’t like. Depending on what I have in the fridge, I may add extra peppers, spinach or cauliflower.

Ingredients

Veg: 2 peppers, 2 carrots, 1 onion, 2 handfuls of broccoli, 2 handfuls of beansprouts, 2 sticks of celery, large tin of pineapple.

Sauce: 2 tablespoons cornflour, 1 stock cube, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp tomato puree, 2 tbsp white wine vinegar, 250ml pineapple juice, pinch of ground ginger.

For the method see picture above 🙂 I sometimes add some ready cooked chicken or tofu for some protein. Serve with brown rice.

Toasting

Leave a comment

It wasn’t until I started making granola a few years ago that I started liking pumpkin and sunflower seeds. To me, in their raw form ie. straight from the packet, they had an unpleasant texture and taste. However, when roasted in the oven with the other granola ingredients, they take on an entirely different personality – crunchier, earthy sweet, nuttier.

Interestingly, by roasting in the oven, grilling, or toasting in a frying pan the health benefits of the seeds are increased. Heating causes a process within the seeds called the Maillard Reaction, which changes the protein structure and nutrition profile for the better. So not only do they taste fab, their antioxidant capacity also increases 🙂

  • Raw
  • Toasted

Abundant evidence suggests that antioxidants from foods e.g. fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, nuts and seeds are needed to counteract the harmful free radicals which the body naturally produces during all of the millions of metabolic reactions and processes that occur in every cell of our bodies. Excessive free radicals contribute to chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, cognitive decline, and vision loss.

So I use the toasted seeds everyday in a variety of ways, not just because they’re healthy, but because they taste really good and add interesting textures too. Try them in granola, sprinkled on salads, in yogurt, in my superfood salad and happy carrot recipes or just as a handy snack mixed with some raisins or dark chocolate chips.

Leave a comment

My cousins and aunt got me the best present ever for my birthday last week. A variety of boxes of tea bags and a bar of Dairy Milk chocolate, thriftily sourced from their kitchen cupboard. We like to think we’re a bit like the Royal Family with our gifting eccentricity.

I’m not one for hyperbole, but the box of Celestial Cinnamon Apple Spice has totally knocked my socks off. In all of my 44 years, it’s the first herbal tea that I’ve tasted that has any sort of intensity to the flavour. If ever there was a “hug in a cup” that smacks you in the taste buds, this is it. It makes a wonderful change from coffee (there’s only so much one can drink before the caffeine has me bouncing off the walls like a loon), peppermint tea (meh), and water (boring, just so boring).

It’s always a bonus when your food/drinks have health benefits. Some studies have suggested that the compounds in cinnamon have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and antimicrobial properties, and that they might offer protection from cancer and cardiovascular disease, among other like type 2 diabetes, PCOS and Parkinson’s Disease.

No matter, I finished a box of 20 in less than a week, so had to source a new supply. Locally, I found some in Sostrene Grene (bizarrely, we have a branch of this adorable Swedish gem of a shop in Bangor), you can also find it in Iona health food shop in Holywood and from amazon.co.uk.

Have a nice Sunday, see ya!!

Katsu Curry

Leave a comment

I remember my first visit to Wagamama’s in Soho c. 1994. In the days before the internet with online reviews, its credentials were confirmed by the queue on the wooden stairs that descended in to the bright basement. “Have you been here before”, was our brisk greeting as we were seated at a long bench in the starkly decorated, minimalist restaurant. Dining elbow to elbow with strangers to eat Japanese food was a relatively new concept, and an exciting/eccentric/weird experience for a Belfast teenager.

Fast forward nearly thirty years, and my love for this Japanese fast food restaurant that serves fresh, tasty, decently priced dishes has not wained. There are now 130 Wagamama’s in the UK, with two near me in Belfast. My kids are equally taken by Waga’s – including the fussy eater (halleluja) – whose go to on the menu is the chicken katsu curry. (It could be worth mentioning that the word wagamama (わがまま) is Japanese for “self-indulgent”, “self-centred”, “disobedient”, or “wilful” and is most often translated by the brand as naughty child).

The Kastu Curry is Wagamama’s most popular dish, and was bought 2.5 million times last year. If you ever sit near the service point it is hard not to notice the stream of Katsus being ferried out to diners. There’s even a mini kids version which comes complete with shredded carrot and cucumber, keeping parents happy that they’re getting their veggies.

You’d think that it would be hard to replicate at home. The rice and chicken component can be very simple – use ready cooked packet rice and shop bought breaded chicken fillets. Of course you can prepare these from scratch yourself using basmati or jasmine rice and bread-crumbing/crushed corn-flaking chicken breasts.

It is also possible to buy Katsu curry sauce in a jar, however this homemade adapted from the original Wagamama recipe is far superior.

  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 2 garlic cloves peeled and crushed
  • 1 inch piece of ginger peeled and finely chopped
  • 100ml coconut milk
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tbsp mild curry powder
  • 300ml chicken stock
  • 1 onion finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon plain flour
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce

Soften the garlic, onion and ginger in the oil over a medium heat. Add the turmeric and curry powder, stir for about a minute. Add the flour, mix for another minute. Add the chicken stock a splash at a time, stirring to make the sauce. When all the chicken stock has been added, stir in the coconut milk, soy sauce and sugar. Allow to bubble for a few minutes, then blend with a stick blender (or whizz up in a foddering processor, I use my Nutribullet).

The original recipe says to sieve the sauce rather than blending to make it smooth, but it seems such a shame to remove the awesome goodness and flavour of the onions, ginger and garlic. Sure, it’s a diversion from the original recipe, but very much in keeping with the “naughty child” ethos of the Wagamama name, ha ha!

Also, by keeping the onions and garlic, as well as the turmeric and curry spices you will be making your gut microbiome very happy 🙂 and that’s a very good thing.

Homemade muesli

2 Comments

This recipe came from a horse racing journalist, Dominic Prince, who embarked on a mission to loose 5 stone to see if he could pull on a pair of jodpers to become a jockey himself. It is high in fibre, so filling you up, good for protein also helping you to feel full up and to aid muscle repair and growth, and it’s choc a block full of nutrients – vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Nag's muesli

4 servings

100g oats

50g flaxseeds

4 tbsp sunflower seeds and/or pumpkin seeds

4 tbsp raisins

4 dried figs/dates/apricots, chopped

200ml milk (or apple juice)

100ml yoghurt

1 tbsp runny honey

2 apples, grated

Milk or yogurt to serve

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5. Spread the oats out on a baking tray, place in the oven and toast for 20 minutes. Leave to cool. (The oatmeal can be toasted well in advance and stored in an airtight jar).

Combine all the dry ingredients with the milk or apple juice, yoghurt and honey, eat immediately, or leave to soak for an hour/overnight if you prefer the oats a bit softer. Stir in the grated  apple; it will be quite thick at this stage. Serve with extra milk or yogurt.

8 reasons why you should drink coffee (and when you shouldn’t)

Leave a comment

When I’m asking my patients about what they eat and drink through the day, they often shamefully ‘confess’ that they are coffee drinkers. The good news is that coffee in reasonable amounts might be one of the healthiest things you can do.

unknown

Scientific research shows that in the short term, caffeine increases alertness, concentration, vigilance, improves mood, reduces perception of pain and increases time to fatigue when exercising.

For long term health benefits, coffee has anti-cancer, anti-obesity, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory properties.

New research shines some light on the mechanisms behind these health benefits – it seems that there are links between coffee and the health of the gut microbiota. Higher coffee consumption is associated with increased richness and evenness of the gut microbiota in the lining of the digestive system, and higher relative abundance of anti-inflammatory bacteria.

8 fascinating coffee and caffeine facts: 

  1. Caffeine is absorbed rapidly and totally in the small intestine in less than 1 hour
  2. Caffeine is broken down in the liver by an enzyme called cytochrome P450 oxidase. Depending on your genetics, some people have more of this enzyme than others, therefore this affects sensitivity.
  3. It can help the bowel to contract – helpful for constipation, not so helpful if you are prone to diarrhoea!
  4. In women, the metabolism of caffeine is slower during pregnancy, as well as when taking oral contraceptives. This means that the effects of caffeine isn’t broken down by the liver as quickly, so the effects are felt for longer.
  5. Cigarette smoking doubles the rate of caffeine clearance by increasing the liver enzyme activity. This means that the effects of caffeine wear off more quickly. This may be one of the explanations for the higher rate of caffeine consumption among smokers.
  6. Coffee reduces the absorption of Levothyroxine – this is a common medication for hypothyroidism which should ideally be taken on an empty stomach
  7. Excessive caffeine intake may increase ‘unstable’ bladder in women i.e. suddenly being desperate for a wee
  8. The belief that coffee is dehydrating is not true for habitual coffee drinkers. If your body is used to drinking coffee the effect on urine output should be minimal (unless your bladder is sensitive to caffeine – see previous point). Obviously if you drink a lot of any fluid you are going to wee more).
cup-latte-coffee

Any negatives of caffeine to be aware of?

  • Increased anxiety – many people with depression/anxiety/stress find that coffee can make it much worse
  • Insomnia – if you are sensitive to caffeine, you may need to to keep coffee for the morning
  • Abdominal cramping and diarrhoea – common in people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

So, it’s best to know your own body and how much caffeine you can tolerate. If you have a good tolerance, limit yourself to 4-6 cups per day (maximum of 2 cups if pregnant). If you suffer with diarrhoea, anxiety or insomnia, then try cutting coffee out for a few days to see if this helps!

Right, time for a cuppa!!!!!