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! 

I Don't Like Mondays and I Don't Do Breakfast!

How often have you read or heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? And yet most days, the last thing on your mind first thing in the morning is food! Are you risking your health? Are you setting yourself up for likely weight gain? Time for some informed clarification!

Yes, there are a number of studies out there that indicate that those who took part in various experiments and had breakfast every morning were less hungry throughout the day and therefore ate less than those who body swerved breakfast BUT - and it’s a rather big BUT - there are equally many studies that indicate that breakfast-skippers don’t eat more during the remainder of the day and don’t gain weight.

The most important advice I wish to pass on here is that it has a great deal to do with the following:

what you ate yesterday (particularly later in the day)

how hungry you are first thing in the morning

how the day ahead looks

If you can’t force down anything other than a cup of tea or coffee or perhaps some fruit juice first thing in the morning but know that you are going to have time for a nourishing mid morning snack, go for it. However, if your morning is likely to be full-on with little chance of any nourishment until lunchtime, a bit of goodly nourishment - whether it be first thing, on your way to work or once you get there - IS A MUST.

The biochemical reasoning behind this advice is that if you wait until the level of glucose in your bloodstream takes a dive, not only will you begin to feel a bit lightheaded and (god forbid) be a bit ratty with friends, family or work colleagues but you also run the risk of possibly grabbing and hoovering down the kind of quick-fix snack that will likely do little other than keep you going for an hour or so and probably add rather more than you wish to your fat stores!

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juices and smoothies

ham'n'eggs

fruity oaty breakfast bake

crisp breads

overnight muesli

salmon kedgeree

If you are following one of my diets that champion 3 meals a day with no snacks, breakfast is important and as long as you plan ahead, there are plenty of protein and fat-rich choices that you can either have before you go out the door or as soon as you feel hungry during the morning.

If you prefer my small meals and snacks throughout the day diet options, it's simply a matter of fitting your first meal/snack into your morning when hunger beckons. The only warning here is that you should avoid waiting until an energy dip starts to overwhelm you - be ahead of the game and all will be well!

the images above are some of my top-notch early to mid morning recommendations - and you can find them all on my recipe page

The Cleansing Properties of Soup

Hands up everyone who is fed up reading about the cleansing properties of soup! A good soup has always offered nutritional perfection in a bowl (a phrase I started to champion some considerable number of years ago but I am certainly not about to claim as my own as the Imperial Physician to the Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty beat me to it around 800 years ago!)

A truly cleansing soup takes time and patience, requires the very freshest of organic ingredients (and yes, you have to grind your own fresh herbs and spices) and is definitely what I would call a labour of love but if you are that patient person who has the time - go for it!

Alternatively, you may simply decide to get soup into your life on a more regular basis because it is delicious, nutritious, warming, comforting, satisfying, easy to transport, often very quick to prepare and there is no limit to the varieties you can concoct once you become a dedicated soupaholic!

If you find yourself debating the cleansing properties of juices versus soups - don’t! My advice is to mix it up and enjoy both. Despite what you may have read, juicing is not ‘out’ whilst soup is ‘in’, that’s just media and marketing hype. The bottom line is that the more vegetables you get into your day the better for health and wellness (aim for 7 and don’t beat yourself up if it’s only 5). And don’t forget to add 2 or 3 fruits into your juices and soups or have them as a snack with a handful of fresh nuts which deliver cracking good levels of protein and healthy fats.

If you are feeling a bit sluggish or suspect you are at risk of going down with one of the rather many viruses that seem to threaten us at this time of the year, have a go at my soup and juice clean up for a few days and benefit from the outstanding properties of both.