For the Love of Our Home-Grown Berries!

Huge thanks to Food52 for pointing out that this week is Blueberry Week and providing a fabulous selection of recipes that champion these little dark balls of deliciousness and greatness! If you don't already subscribe to the Food52 newsletters, I urge you to do so now - it's inspirational!

However, if you live 'this side of the pond' I urge you to celebrate the incredible wealth of home-grown berries that are crowding our shelves right now - particularly strawberries, raspberries and blackberries (or brambles as we call them in Scotland).

Blueberries have 'bagged' a superfood spot - they are low in calories, high in fibre, chock full of immune-boosting vitamin C, offer good levels of bone-building vitamin K and are believed to contain the highest, health-protective antioxidant capacity of all commonly-consumed fruits and vegetables BUT how often do you find 'locally-grown' blueberries on your supermarket shelf? In my experience, occasionally, but not often, WHEREAS just yesterday, the minute I walked into my 'local', I was greeted by an overwhelming, almost 'jammy' and extremely enticing aroma of strawberries, grown only around 50 miles from my city dwelling so there was no competition - the strawberries won hands down for tomorrow's breakfast! Furthermore, the strawberries were around £5 per kg and the blueberries were around £11 per kg - not a difficult decision! 

I read somewhere that not only has the European love affair with blueberries come as a direct result of health reports hailing them as one of the world's most beneficial superfoods but also that we appear to be more than happy to gorge on them because unlike strawberries, they don't require any work - you have to 'hull' a strawberry and that seems to be too big a task for some - what?? 

Just so you know... strawberries, raspberries and blackberries all offer more vitamin C than blueberries and when in season and locally-grown, pack a health-protective punch not too far behind blueberries (particularly those poor little mites that have had to travel a good many miles over a number of days to get onto our shelves)! 

Bag your home-grown berries while you can - the season is short. Have them early doors with creamy-smooth yoghurt and a handful of nuts and seeds, top a couple of crisp breads with nut butter, berries and black pepper or add them to salads for lunch, whizz them up into a smoothie with a dollop of delectable crème fraîche or have them on their own when you need a little sweetness in your world mid morning or mid afternoon or make a spicy berry sauce and serve it with meat or game for dinner (delicious) or when nothing else will do... dip them in melted, deepest, darkest chocolate and tell yourself you are benefitting from even more superfood superiority! 

Lots Going On!

The new book has been featured widely in newspapers, magazines and online sites with more to come over the next month or two - have a quick look at my press page to see what they are all saying...

The free book competition I offered to those of you who subscribe to my newsletters was a huge success and rather than giving away just 10 books, I decided to give away 30 - I hope all the winners are enjoying it and getting comfortable with all the new recipes and fat loss tips! And the same applies to the hundreds who were not in the first 30 to respond with the correct answer. I tried to email everyone who entered but if for some reason you 'slipped through the net' - apologies!

And... huge thanks to all of you who have been emailing me with queries - I am working my way through them and promise I will get back to you very soon.

In the meantime, if you are heading off on holiday and have a horrible suspicion that you have left it a bit late to shed a few pounds, try a few Soup and Juice Days - they work a treat! Click on my slideshare presentation below which includes a few slides explaining 'how to make them work for you'!

A Cheering Glass of Red with Mr Buettner!

There is always someone out there trying to spoil all the fun isn't there? Particularly when it comes to the occasional tipple after a stressful day!

The 'can alcohol be part of a health-enhancing diet?' debate rages on and on and on and on... but my good friend Dan Buettner (no I have never met the man and I am well-aware that he probably doesn't know I exist but I like to call him my friend anyway coz I like what he has to say!) has obsessively studied the diets of those who live to a healthy and ripe old age in those countries known as 'The Blue Zones' and he tells me (through his research) that "yes, a glass or two of red wine - especially when consumed with a Blue Zones, plant-based meal­­ - is a good idea for most people" so I can't imagine for a second why I might decide to argue?

Of course, summer is upon us and many of us prefer a cool drink when the temperature has gone up a few notches but there are quite a few 'reds' offering a whole bunch of protective plant chemicals that lend themselves rather nicely to being chilled so try the following grape varieties: Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Gamay, Cinsault, Shiava, Grenache or ask your local wine merchant for advice.

NB: can I urge you to remember the bit about 'with a blue zones, plant-based meal'... ie: with a nutritiously-fabulous-every-colour-under-the-sun salad rather than a takeaway pizza! 

Chicken Soup to Beat a Cold is not just an Old Wives’ Tale!

A major study found that chicken soup helps to prevent the migration of inflammatory white cells into the lungs - this is pretty significant because cold symptoms are a response to the accumulation of these cells in the bronchial tubes. The amino acid cysteine, which is released from chicken during cooking, is chemically similar to the bronchitis drug, acetylcysteine, which is regularly prescribed in a bid to inhibit the inflammatory response but who wouldn’t opt for a daily bowl of deliciously-rich and comforting chicken broth versus a few hard-to-swallow pills? Not me! If you haven't already gotten into the chicken soup habit, start now, beat the colds and flu viruses that are all around us right now and be assured that great granny really did know best! Try my Chicken and Barley Broth - a fabulously-comforting concoction!