Spending Your Money Wisely with Quality Food

Wherever possible, it is best to grow your own food. This is a help with the family budget. But many excellent articles of food may not grow well in your particular locality. They must be brought from a distance and exchanged for cash. If you are on a limited budget, how can you spend your money for the greatest value in food? This is a very practical question.

Foods which are manufactured and refined usually cost much more than those in the natural state. At the same time there is danger that some of the minerals and vitamins have been lost in the manufacturing process. In such a case you lose out in two ways, first, by paying much more for the product, and second, by the loss of essential elements from the food. This is not a wise way to spend a large portion of your money. Do not be carried away by all the glowing advertising material on the package or container.

Take the question of breakfast cereals so widely advertised today, particularly those flakes that have been coated with sugar. Such breakfast food is scarcely worthy of a place on your table and in your family budget. Dry cereals in any form offer less nourishment than do the raw materials from which they are made. Much of real value is lost in the manufacturing process. And when a sugar frosting is added, the effect on young children is far from good. That sugar coating is the worst feature of all. This excess sugar increases the possibility of dental decay and often results in chronic indigestion as well.

Cereals and similar products that are cooked at home are much less expensive than those that are already prepared. The same is true of breads baked at home. They, too, are more nutritious. It does take time to prepare such food. But in the end this saves money, and the whole family will be healthier and more satisfied.

People in well-to-do households may not have much trouble in selecting an adequate diet, provided they take the time to do so. Unfortunately, most of them do not bother. They just eat what comes their way or what is advertised over radio or television. This haphazard way of living is likely to result in serious deficiencies.

The family with limited means must be even more alert to the problem of selecting a diet that is suitable, but not too expensive. They must not allow themselves to be swept away by the flood of advertising so prevalent today. They must buy wisely and well.

Those who live in the country may find the situation a little easier. A small garden, with a few hens and a cow, may enable such a family to live far better than one whose means are not limited. Everything depends on the choice that is made.

Actually you can feed your family better than you think you can. But it does take a little planning. However, people who live on a well-balanced diet are naturally happier and healthier. Such a diet need not be an expensive one. In fact, there are many experiments in rats and other animals showing that a less liberal diet tends to promote a longer life. Many modern nutritionists believe that we live on only about half of what we eat. The rest only compels our hearts and other organs to work that much harder to get rid of the extra food.

Experiments at Cornell University seem to bear this out. A certain number of white rats were used. Some were allowed to eat all they wanted whenever they felt like it. Others were placed on special diets when they were in a rat's "middle age." Those rats which ate as they pleased lived 600 days or less. Those on the diet in middle age lived over 1,000 days. The oldest rat lived 1,400 days, and he never had a square meal in his life! It is not the quantity of the food, but the quality, that counts.

Planning Better Meals

Some people become confused over such scientific terms as calories, vitamins, minerals, and so forth. This is quite understandable. But don't let this scare you too much. Today you can balance your diet fairly well without knowing very much about these various terms. Without going into too much detail, you can reach a good middle-of-the-road plan that is almost foolproof.

During recent years nutritionists have worked out what is known as the "basic seven" food groups. If these foods are included in the diet each day, they will meet the needs of the whole family very well. One does not have to bother with all the endless details of a complicated diet. Just follow this basic plan.

These seven food groups are easily recognized. They should become the foundation of each day's meals. Some foods from each should be in one meal, others in another. But these essential things should always find a place at some time in the day. Other things may be added as desired. But it is best not to get too far away from this simple daily program. If any of these basic groups are missing in your daily planning, your diet is likely to be deficient in some things that are vitally important to good health.

The carb connection

Carbohydrates are a vital part of the human diet - they are our primary source of energy, and in their natural state they are turned into glucose to provide fuel for all the organs of the body.

THERE ARE THREE MAIN TYPES OF CARBOHYDRATES:

1. Simple sugars, or monosaccharides: glucose (blood sugar), and fructose (fruit sugar)

2. Double sugars, or disaccharides: lactose (milk sugar)

3. Complex carbohydrates, or polysaccharides: starches and cellulose (potatoes, rice, grains and dietary fibre).

The simplest carbohydrate of them all is glucose, which is assimilated immediately by the body. The more complex the carbohydrate's structure, the longer it takes the body to convert it into energy - so 'complex' carbohydrates are the slow burners, because they are higher in more complicated sugars and fibre and thus take longer to break down into energy-giving glucose.

So why are carbs the bad guys?

Even though carbohydrates are a vital component of our overall health, there are certain carbs that serve no nutritional purpose whatsoever, and can even cause us harm if consumed too regularly and in large proportions. They are also the main contributors to the escalating obesity problem. So who are these enemies of our health and weight? They are known as refined carbohydrates.

The problems started the minute we began to process our food and strip out the fibre and nutrients from flour and sugar, to make them look appealingly white. In so doing, we made them nutritionally redundant. Food processing removes magnesium, zinc and chromium from flour and sugar - the three minerals that the body needs to metabolize carbohydrates properly. It also drastically reduces vitamins B₁, B2, B3, calcium and iron.

Junk foods made up of refined flour and sugar, plus nutritionally empty processed fats, colourings, flavourings and preservatives, make up 75 per cent of many people's diets. These so-called 'convenience foods' are 'empty' calories, which hurtle into the bloodstream, play havoc with insulin and blood- sugar levels and actually deplete the body of essential vitamins and minerals that are needed to perform other important bodily functions. Processed foods have also been stripped of their fibre content, which is essential for controlling insulin production and protecting the body against diseases such as diverticulitis and colon cancer.

Food Repair Guide: Baking Part 2

Swiss roll

If you are making a Swiss roll, then line the tin with greaseproof paper, but do ensure that you grease the paper well before pouring in the mixture. Try also to ensure that the oven shelf is level or all the mixture will run to one side. If it does, all is not lost, although it will be rather difficult to roll. When you turn the Swiss roll out, do so onto a tea cloth or piece of greaseproof paper that has been coated well with icing sugar. If not well sugared, the Swiss roll will stick to the cloth or paper and you will have a terrible time rolling it. If you have not greased the paper properly, you will also have a terrible time peeling it off, but patience will usually win the day. Do not worry if the roll is not entirely perfect. As long as you can keep about one third of it intact, that will do for theoutside and no one will see the inside. Dredge it thoroughly with sugar or icing sugar. Or, if it has really fallen apart, pre-slice it before serving so that no one can see.

Failed sponge cake

If, despite your best endeavours, your sponge cake, be it light or rich, is dry, crumbly, flat, lumpy or generally unappealing, do not throw it out. If you are desperate for a complete cake or dessert, cut the sponge into very thin layers, sprinkle each with a little liqueur if for a dessert, and layer very generously with filling so that the cake gets smothered. Then top or ice equally generously and no one will ever know. If you do not need the cake too urgently, keep it to make trifles, tipsy cakes or anything that needs a sponge base. Buried deep enough and soaked comprehensively enough, even the most revolting cake will become quite palatable. Alternatively, crumble it and use it as a topping. When toasted, the crumbs can be used as decoration for almost anything in need of disguise.

This does not apply only to plain sponges. Orange or lemon sponges would be a delicious base for any cream dessert, chocolate, coffee or even gingerbread can be used as a base for 'a trifle with a difference'. Indeed, coffee and chocolate cake could be sliced into fingers, thoroughly dried out in the oven and sandwiched together with some butter icing as biscuits. Any of the above could be used as the base for a baked pudding, but remember that the cake will be sweeter than bread or rice so reduce the amount of sugar.

Failed fruit cakes

Failed fruit cakes are just as adaptable.

Rich fruit cakes often get old and dry out. Do not abandon them to the birds. Cut deep slits in the top of the cake and feed with a mixture of brandy and sherry, or, if you do not want to be too alcoholic, a fruit wine or good fruit cordial. The amount you give the cake will depend on how dry it is, but you can always cut it in half and test the middle.

The same principle can be applied to lighter fruit cakes although one needs to be more temperate. A large quantity of fruit will soak up the liquid and make the whole mixture moist but sponge will merely become soggy, so the greater the proportion of sponge to fruit the less liquid it should be given. It is usually better to ice the cake after it has been — to conceal the tell tale signs.

If a rich fruit cake really is dry beyond redemption, break it up in a bowl, add some suet and a goodly measure of liquor, leave it to soak for 24 hours, then squash it well into a bowl and steam it as a Christmas pudding. It will be a little crumbly and somewhat lighter than the standard, but many people prefer it that way!

Icings

The disaster-prone cook should steer clear of all but glace, butter and royalicing — fondants and their kind are for those with time and expertise to spare.

Glace icing

Glace icing is quick and simple but messy. It is not easy to get the proportion of icing sugar to liquid right to achieve `spreadability' without `runability'.

Always put whatever you are going to ice on a rack so that the extra can run off without getting stuck in a thick frill round the bottom of the cake. Arm yourself with a pot of boiling water and several metal spatulas or flat knives to smooth out the lumps. Inevitably, the wretched stuff will never quite cover the top of the cake in the first run, and when you add the next bit, the first will have dried and the whole thing will go lumpy. Only practice is going to perfect your technique, but smoothing with a spatula dipped in boiling water does help.

Always be ready to decorate or disguise the top with something other than icing — even if only gold and silver balls. Grated chocolate is a good alternative.

Marbling

Marbling the top, if it is reasonable, will distract the eye from any minor blemishes and is easy and impressive in itself. Run a little melted chocolate, or different coloured icing, in parallel lines across the top of the cake. Then, before it is dried, take a knife point and pull it across the cake top in straight lines at right angles to the first lines, thus pulling the lines into a feathered shape. Try it a couple of times on greaseproof paper before you launch into the cake.

If all fails and you make a complete mess of the icing, wait till it is dry, then scrape the whole lot off and start again.

Butter icing

Butter icing is the world's easiest, but it is very rich. Many people prefer to use shortening as the fat base, which keeps it much lighter. The only hazard with butter icing is to get enough flavour into it. Like brandy butter (which is, of course, only a butter icing) nothing is nastier than a butter icing that tastes like sweetened butter. Therefore, taste after you have followed the recipe. If you have used a particularly strongly flavoured butter, you will need more chocolate, lemon or whatever you are using. Never try to spread it straight out of the fridge.

Royal icing

Royal icing is also simple, using egg white rather than water or syrup to moisten the icing sugar. Add a little lemon juice to counteract the sweetness and do not forget a drop or two of glycerine to prevent it hardening totally. If you do have a cake with unglycerined icing, you would be better advised to saw your way through it with a bread knife rather than to try and cut it, when it will shatter and ricochet all over the drawing room and Great Aunt Ethel. Royal icing can always be broken off and replaced with a new batch. Use a small amount of icing to experiment with the colour.

Health Concern: FAT? continue...

How much Fat do you Need?

Very little. Just about any food you can think of contains some fat, and when your diet is made up of at least 75 percent vegetables, fruits, and grains with a few nuts and seeds but without added oils, fats, cheese, or butter, as in the Lifestyle Diet, about 15 percent of your calories will be in the form of fat anyway. This is all you need. The body is capable of making its own fatty acids from the foods you eat with the exception of linoleic acid, and the mere three grams you need per day is more than supplied by eating a couple of tablespoons of sunflower seeds or one small dish of oatmeal. Even leafy green vegetables such as kale or spinach contain about 10 percent of their calories in fat. It is hard to be fat-deficient. Studies of people put on very low-fat diets, even when as little as .7 percent of their calories are taken in the form of fat as linoleic acid, have shown no adverse physical or psychological effects.

Even official bodies have recently begun to recognize the need to reduce dietary fats for the sake of preserving health. The U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs recommended in its report "Dietary Goals for the United States" a reduction of fat intake from the present 45 to 30 percent as well as a decrease in sugar consumption to 15 percent of total calories and a corresponding increase in the consumption of complex carbohydrates—the fruits, vegetables, and grains that are the foundation of the Lifestyle Diet. For long-term health and beauty, you should make an even greater reduction so that only about 15 percent of your daily calories are taken in fat.

This is in line with the Pritikin and other low-fat, low-protein diets which have recently caused great interest in both the medical profession and the general public. Pritikin recommends a diet of 80 percent complex carbohydrates, 10 percent protein and 10 percent fat. Although a radical departure from the traditional British, European, and American dietary habits, regimens like the Pritikin diet can not only substantially reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar, but can also lead to an automatic weight loss and leave people feeling and looking years younger. Such a low protein, low fat diet can also literally beautify a woman both physically and psychically.

At first such a change takes a bit of getting used to, but soon it becomes second nature and the increased vitality, slimness, and good looks it brings you in a few weeks help make it an easy way to eat permanently.

When these are broken down slowly throughout the day, they provide the pancreas with a steady flow of glucose at a rate of about two calories a minute. When you eat something sweetened with refined sugar, the glucose poured into the system (say 100 calories or more all at once) suddenly soars. So does the production of pancreatic insulin in reaction to the insult. When this insult occurs repeatedly, as it does in the usual Western diet, with its average of two pounds of sugar per person per week, the blood sugar levels become depressed, then soar, then become depressed over and over again by a pancreas made trigger happy. In many people this leads to hypoglycemia or low blood sugar, with its corresponding fatigue and mental and emotional symptoms. It can also result in diabetes and in the development of allergic reactions to foods and to petrochemicals, which have recently been linked with diverse mental disorders as well as many acute and chronic forms of illness.

Repeated eating of sugar and products containing it can also result in deficiencies in the B-complex vitamins and an imbalance in certain important minerals. And just in case you are reassuring yourself that you, after all, only eat raw sugar, you should know that one sugar is just about as bad as another. Raw sugar does contain some of the natural vitamins, minerals, and fiber that are found in the sugar beets or sugarcane from which the sugar has been taken but raw, brown, and turbinado sugars are all still highly concentrated simple sugars which create the same metabolic problems as white sugar. As such, they are potential disease-makers. The Lifestyle Diet excludes every form of refined sugar—from chocolate to jams to packaged breakfast cereals with their hidden sweetness. It does allow a little honey for sweetening muesli (two tablespoonfuls a day) plus one tablespoonful of blackstrap molasses if you want it for its nutritional value.

The Vital Acid—Alkaline Balance

Another important aspect of any diet for super health and beauty is one that most nutritional systems completely overlook. It is the question of using foods to help maintain the delicate acid—alkaline balance in your body. For we can reach truly positive health—health beyond the simple absence of disease—and remain permanently healthy only when the foods we eat supply us with a surplus of alkaline-reacting foods. These include green and root vegetables, avocados, fruits (including citrus fruits which, though acid, have an alkalinizing effect on the body), seeds such as sunflower, sesame, and pumpkin, and yogurt.

Your body contains mineral salts. Some of them are alkaline and some are acid. In a healthy body the ratio between alkaline and acid is four to one—that is, 80 percent alkaline to 20 percent acid. To maintain this natural balance, you need only to eat foods which, when digested, produce alkaline salts in approximately these proportions. If, instead, you eat a diet that is highly acid-forming, as the typical Western fare is, then your body is forced to work very hard indeed to regulate the internal acid—alkaline balance and keep your blood slightly alkaline. Without this natural slight alkalinity, your body is unable to repair tissues and heal itself. Overacidity can lead to acidosis, chronic indigestion, irritability, nervousness, excess appetite, rheumatic and arthritic conditions, as well as skin problems and cellulite. Stress, too, is an acid condition. The acid- forming foods, which should make up 20 percent of any diet but no more, include meat, eggs, hard cheese, bread, cereals, sugar and honey, some nuts, and some fats. Coffee, ordinary tea (not green tea or herb teas), and alcohol are also acid-forming.

To give you some idea of what it feels like when your body is too acid, think back to the last typical "good" breakfast you ate—processed cereal with sugar, perhaps an egg, bacon, white toast and jelly, and coffee. Do you remember the immediate feeling of stimulation followed in an hour or two by an unpleasant sense of jangly nerves or tiredness, so that by eleven you had to reach for another cup of coffee to keep yourself going? That is an acid state. In fact, this breakfast is made up of almost all acid-forming foods—the bacon, the white toast and the coffee, the packaged cereal, sugar and so forth. A far better breakfast would be a bowl of Birchermuesli (not the kind of muesli you find in supermarkets, which may be labeled "natural" but is chock-full of sugar) made from natural yogurt, a tablespoonful of rolled oats, a couple of teaspoonfuls of honey and a little cinnamon. On such a breakfast where the fresh fruit and yogurt, which are the alkaline-forming foods, balance the small quantities of acid-forming foods—the grains and the honey—to maintain the ideal ratio of 80 percent alkaline to 20 percent acid, you will find you can work well throughout the morning without suffering "acid rebound." Your body will also be protected against the unnecessary stress of having to work hard to rebalance the blood.

Forget the Salt

Recent studies indicate that the daily sodium requirement for a human being is probably not more than 200 milligrams a day, perhaps slightly higher in someone who performs great physical exertion or in nursing mothers. This small quantity is available naturally in foods alone—vegetables, meats and fish, fruits, and grains for instance—without our ever having to add salt to our foods. Where we do add it, not only when cooking but also at the table, the average sodium intake is thought to be more than twenty-five times that amount. Thanks to the research of Professor Lot Page at Harvard, salt—the ubiquitous substance which the ancient Greeks considered divine—has now been shown beyond all reasonable doubt to be at the root of hypertension, one of our most common twentieth-century illnesses.

Cut your Protein why no Sugar?

The case against sugar is a complex one. Besides the fact that refined sugar is a totally unnatural substance that has been stripped of its nutritional value—fiber, vitamins, and minerals—apart from the calories it provides, sugar in concentrated form is very hard on the pancreas. The pancreas, which is responsible for the production of insulin and therefore the regulation of blood sugar and energy levels in the body, has adapted through evolution to deal with a steady flow of glucose in small quantities such as those that result from the intake of complex carbohydrates.

One of the biggest beauty cons of all is the idea that if you eat lots of protein your muscles, skin, hair, and nails will grow strong and you will stay young. Like the old-fashioned high protein diet for building up athletic strength, it doesn't work. The human need for protein has been grossly exaggerated. At the turn of the century, respected opinion held that we need between 120 and 169 grams of protein per day. Then Chittenden showed in human experiments that far better performance and health were possible on fifty grams, a much lower amount. Another scientist named Hindhede set the figure at thirty grams. Then Oomen in Amsterdam and Hipsley in Canberra discovered a population in Australia which develop not only full health, but exceptional muscular structure and performance on a diet of merely 15 to 20 grams of protein per day.

Later in the United States, the American Research Council's Food and Nutrition Board agreed on a daily requirement of 70 grams for adults. One member of the board, named Sherman, described how this figure was arrived at. The evidence the committee examined indicated that a much lower amount was needed, somewhere around 35 grams, but there was agreement that if so low a figure had been set there would have been a public outcry, so a corresponding "margin of safety" was decided on and the 70-gram figure was published. But because the scientific basis for the figure was nonexistent, the word "recommendation" was chosen instead of "requirement." Current recommendations for protein intake hover about the 50-gram mark, although there is strong evidence now that we probably need even less.

Your body needs amino acids, the constituents of protein, for its metabolic processes, for growth and the repair and maintenance of body tissue. Proteins are made up of twenty-two different amino acids; all but eight of them your body can manufacture itself. These eight, which have to be taken in through your foods, are referred to as "essential" amino acids.

A large portion of a protein molecule is made up of nitrogen, and one of the important things about taking protein is that it helps keep a good nitrogen balance in the body, so there is as much nitrogen coming into the body as there is leaving it. This balance helps maintain body health and muscle strength, so that you don't go into what is known as a negative nitrogen balance, when you lose muscle tissue from your body. To keep your nitrogen right, 10 to 15 percent of your total calorie intake should be from protein.

But when a greater percentage than this of your calorie intake comes from protein foods, then your body goes into a negative mineral balance and you start gradually losing precious minerals and trace elements such as zinc, calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, and chromium from your system. These nutrients, so easily lost from the body, are vital not only to physical health but also to emotional stability and well-being (more about minerals later). Wachmann and Bernstein of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard University investigated the high protein diet and came to the conclusion that the protein-rich (especially the meat-heavy) diet plays a strong role in the genesis of osteoporosis, a softening of the bones, particularly in women after menopause, caused by the loss of minerals. This is probably because of the high protein diet's tendency to leach valuable minerals (in this case calcium) from the system. And purely from the point of view of physical beauty, many of these lost minerals, such as sulfur, selenium, zinc. magnesium, and calcium, can make the difference between prematurely aging skin caused by a rapid collagen and elastin breakdown, nails that split, or hair in poor condition, and radiant looks glowing with strength and health.

Finally, the breakdown and metabolism of proteins in the body lead to the formation of a number of complex by-products such as urea, nitrogen, and ammonia, which can be toxic. These wastes need to be eliminated. This isn't always easy, and it puts great strain on the liver and kidneys. This is why, on the well-known high protein reducing diets, you are advised to drink large amounts of water in order to water down these poisons and help excrete them.

Why the need for supplementation? continue...

3. Sugar sets you up for low immunity and even PMT

Regular excessive intake of refined sugar and sugary confectionery such as sweets, cakes, chocolates and the like (in other words, anything other than raw, basic fructose or demerara sugar) could cause you to lose your magnesium (and other mineral) reserves. This often lies at the heart of PMT or painful periods. In addition, it has been found that the immune system can literally shut down for as long as six hours after eating a teaspoonful of refined sugar (The Immune System Cure, Prof. Patrick Bouic & Lorna R Vanderhaege). During this time you would of course be a sifting duck for any of the viruses cavorting around your body!

You know you eat sugar. Which means you need to supplement,

4. Life in general takes it out of you

It is not just a mailer of what we put (or do not put) into our bodies in terms of nutrition; it is also a mailer of what life takes out of our bodies. We are at the mercy of pollution, pesticides, fungicides, food additives and so many other harmful substances that we breathe in, eat and drink every day. Most of the chemicals used in our society have the ability to destroy the nutrients in our bodies. And if they don't do that, they have the potential to block the absorption of many very precious nutrients.

Which means that everybody living in today's world needs supplements.

5. Fad diets are devoid of nutrients

Drastic slimming diets (how many did you say you've been on?) or bad eating habits simply do not provide sufficient nutrients for the body. If, for the past 6 weeks, you have been eating less than 4 kinds of fruit, 6 cups of different vegetables, 3 varied types of protein, 6 varieties of starches and 3 teaspoons of unsaturated fat per day, you are probably nutritionally bankrupt.

You need a supplement.

6. Good weight loss relies on good nourishment.

By now you have heard it a zillion times: only a healthy body, functioning at optimum capacity, sheds fat effectively and manages to keep the fat off.

You will need a supplement now more than ever before.

Don't play guessing games with your nutrition

Many people tend to grab a book on nutrition, flip through the lists of nutrient deficiencies and say: "See, I have a zinc deficiency and that's why I'm sweating so much!"

Next thing you know they are taking handfuls of zinc tablets and hoping for a dry season.

This is risky, to say the least.

Ideally one should take a complete multi-vitamin and -mineral supplement such as Centrum. No nutrient acts completely independently of others. They all rely on each other in one or more ways to be fully functional.

Food still has it all!

We are often given warnings, especially by some companies that sell the 'milkshake' diets, that our food is toxic and poor in nutrient content. They imply that we will all be much better off drinking their shakes rather than eating what Mother Nature has to offer. Ha!

But then on the other hand, some food purists are forecasting that we are all going to develop all sorts of cancers and ambiguous genitalia because of all the chemicals in our foods. They stress that 'organic' is the only way to live. Well, that would be more than excellent, but organically grown produce is not always within reach of all of us, so what now?

Now we face reality. The truth is that not all chemicals and food additives are harmful. Some serve a very useful purpose. Another truth is that, although most producers use pesticides and chemicals in varying degrees, there are still more than sufficient levels of nutrients in fresh or frozen produce to justify their daily consumption! In fact, while the war between producers and food purists continues to rage, scientists have concluded that any potential risk from chemical residues is still outweighed by the benefit of the reduction in chronic diseases and nutrient deficiencies when adequate amounts of fruit and vegetables are consumed.

Avoiding foods for fear of consuming artificial chemicals will definitely result in a high-protein diet, as well as a diet high in fatly, sugary foods. The inevitable conclusion of such a diet is obesity and the resultant long-term diseases related to it, as well as malnutrition. Besides, sugar, starch and meat products are not free from added chemicals. So there, Eat your fresh produce!

Salads: sink or swim

Salads don't guarantee leanness. You can and probably often do, go right over the top with what goes into your salads. Again, establish beforehand what your intention is when you want to eat a salad: is it to be a meal on its own, an addition to the main course or a starter?

Most salad ingredients offer abundant nutrition and very few kilojoules. A large, 100 g pack of lettuce leaves contains a humble 67 kilojoules. Other green vegetables such as baby marrow, green pepper, cucumber and broccoli contain (on average) around 100 kilojoules per 100 g. Thus, enjoying a medium-sized salad bowl filled with a salad made of these ingredients, dressed with an oil-free dressing, will provide you with no more than about 140 kilojoules. This is a real bargain in the healthy slimming stakes. But go one further and dress the salad with two tablespoons of a simple, basic vinaigrette (oil and vinegar) dressing. Instantly you have 'bulked out' your salad with an additional 840 kilojoules - kilojoules you cannot taste as you would taste say a slice of rye bread or a baked potato (that you could enjoy with your salad), and kilojoules that cannot make you feel any fuller.

The plot thickens more when you take the sink-or-swim decision to add delicacies to your salad: cheese, meat, eggs, oily fish and olives. When you want to add any or all of these delicacies, go light on the dressing. Use an oil-free dressing. Furthermore, regard this kind of all-in-one salad as a meal rather than an addition to your meal. In that way you will balance the scales and not experience that sinking feeling when you weigh yourself the following day and find that you have consumed far-far more fat kilojoules than you were aware of. Even a simple, mixed vegetable salad, if dressed heavily with an oily or creamy dressing, will cause your kilojoule intake to soar and your once-crisp, fresh salads to be drowned in fat limp and unappetising.

The bottom line is this: if you choose to have something light such as a salad, keep it light.

Desserts: the big guilt trip

Desserts tend to evoke more feelings of guilt than any other item on the menu. And we know the reason why: most desserts are laden with fat and/or sugar and dessert is not really necessary to satisfy the appetite. It is the proverbial 'cherry on the cake'. Many of us have the mindset that we are only entitled to dessert if we have been 'good'. And very few of us ever feel that we have been 'good', because we feel that being overweight is already a symptom of being 'bad'. So we don't really feel entitled to it, but we have it anyway; it's irresistible; we are addicted to sugar. Then we feel bad about having had it and the guilt trip sets in, a guilt trip that can only be alleviated by some chocolate. By then we feel we are in so deep already that we might as well go all the way - another example of the vicious obesity cycle in full motion!

Follow a few simple rules about dessert and banish the guilt.

• Regard dessert is part of the menu, not 'over and above' it. Then, plan your menu accordingly, bearing in mind that the sugar and fat content of the dessert must make up part of the total intake of fats and carbos of the meal. In this way you will create the correct balance.

• Trade in sugar for fruit. Many fruits offer an abundance of natural sweetness, reducing the need for extra sugar in the recipe.
• If your recipe requires sugar, go for fructose. It is a natural fruit sugar with a very slow GI, thus keeping your blood sugar levels more even and thus preventing a further sweet craving later on.
• Trade in cream for yoghurt. Even Greek yoghurt contains much less fat (and therefore kilojoules) than cream. It also tastes cool and refreshing on the palate, ideal after any meal.
• Trade in ice cream for frozen yoghurt or sorbet. The fat content and therefore the kilojoule content is much less.
• Bear balance in mind. A heavy meal warrants a very light dessert - such as sorbet or fruit salad with yoghurt - and a light meal might justify the enjoyment of a small portion of richness - such as cheesecake or chocolate mousse.
• Don't have an all-or-nothing approach. It leads to a feeling of being deprived and that leads to bingeing. Have some - but just a little - and enjoy it without any guilt. Remember, guilt trips could cause hunger pains!