calcium, and other important stuff

... went to a bonfire party the other day. My friend has a lively and enquiring mind, and had cooked pumpkin soup for everyone - but a bowl of celery soup for me. She had made a chili curry - but along came a bowl of prawn salad for me. By the time platters of cake were being handed round, which I politely refused, J asks me if I'm on a diet. No sugar, anti-Candida, I mutter. At which point J and I begin the interesting task of discussing her own anti-Candida diet, which has succeeded. She is (mostly) free of Candida symptoms, eats a well balanced healthy diet which includes bread, sugar and alcohol. She says she listens to her body more, nowadays, and when things 'don't feel quite right' she just cuts down on the bread, sugar and alcohol for a few days til she feels better.

We had a similar history - loads of random, apparently disconnected symptoms of things that were slightly wrong, but nothing worth bothering the doctor with, followed by finding out about Candida, and coming to the inevitable conclusion that this is what we're suffering from. Then some research, and the devising of a suitable diet.

J drank rice milk, and a product called Oatley - I neglected to ask why! but presume she had a cereal she liked eating it with. She cut out caffeine, alcohol, bread, sugar, sweets cake & biscuits, fruit and fruit juices. She pretty much carried on eating most veg, apart from roots, I think. And she took a tablet of some kind. There are two reasons I'm blogging this - apart from the THRILL of meeing someone who's going through the same experience, and has a POSITIVE RESULT - one of which is the great CALCIUM debate, and the other is to reveal her 'party trick'

J's strategy for eating out at friend's houses

She told them she was on a diet. She said she was happy to eat her diet food while everyone else all around her ate delicious party food. J's eating-out food was a jacket potato, with tomato & cucumber salad - easy and simple for the hosts to prepare alongside the dinner.

Now, I don't have either potatoes or tomatoes or cucumber (J's named foods) on my list. But, there again, J has got rid of her Candida symptoms, so this obviously worked for her...


CALCIUM

J managed the very restrictive diet for 7 months and lost a lot of weight, as well as improving her general health. Not having a plan for how to end the diet, she went to her practice nurse. Who buried her head in her hands, and said 'Calcium: everyone on this anti-Candida diet forgets they need calcium.'

Well, this was one of the factors I'd forgotten to think about. I'd forgotten that I'm a woman of a certain age, that I risk suffering from osteoporosis, brittle bones, if I don't keep up with the calcium intake. I'd forgotten that if I stopped drinking milk and eating cheese I'd be depriving myself of a major source of this metal... it's a metal! I'd always assumed it was a mineral, for some reason.

So I looked up calcium. It's also present in high to good quantities in...

Celery, Kale, Spinach, Sesame Seeds, Fennel, Almonds, Broccoli, Parsley, Romaine Lettuce (foods not listed in any particular order).

I worked out that the goat's yoghurt I'm eating would provide all my weekly needs of Calcium if I consumed FIVE tubs of it. I've increased my weekly supply to THREE tubs, and can now enjoy lashings of yoghurt with all meals, and even have a dish for supper, or as a dessert. I now make sure my weekly veggie shop includes ALL of the above (I have been alternating spinach with kale, but now I make sure I've both in the fridge; I also make sure I buy fennel whenever available), to make up for the other two tubsful of yoghurt.


AND THE FIREWORKS
fizzed and sparkled for nearly an hour, felt like...


FEATURE THIS

This week I has mostly been trying not to shop, (International No Shopping Week), but fresh veg and yoghurt had to reach the house somehow... and, also, feeling even better ever since NO SUGAR CONTENT DAY.


QUICK LUNCH

ADUKI BEAN CURRY

Oil, goosefat. Garam Masala (I put two knife-blades worth in, but it should have been two teaspoonfuls for my money), stir til smells right. Add chopped root ginger, leek (about an inch per person), fennel, a few bits, celery (one stick pp), fry for a bit, not too long. Add one tin aduki beans, but not all the liquid. Stir well. Add spinach, don't stir. Put the lid on, and leave for about 5-10 mins. It's nicer when the celery and fennel are still a bit crunchy. Serve with goat's yoghurt (of course). I forgot, but it would have been more interesting still with mint or parsley chopped onto the yoghurt. I ate all of this. Add more veg and eat with some rice if serving two people. I just love aduki beans, they always feel good.



Pie, anyone???

Foods with No Sugar At All Day

All this going away...

Away again for a week - more coping mechanisms, or not, to report on...

Met an EX CANDIDA SUFFERER at a bonfire party - she also did it her way. Talked too much and picked up important info about keeping calcium levels topped up. More later.

Have at last done something I've been promising myself I'll do for a long time - have a whole day where the foods I eat have no sugar in them at all. Briefly, meat, fish, kelp (a seaweed), quinoa (good stuff, but not so attractive solo), and spelt, an old fashioned grain which I've never cooked before. All of these foodstuffs are listed as containing no sugar. Whatsoever. It's so stringent, and not at all fun. I could never quite bring myself to do it.

The reason is because, to put it delicately, my tummy growls a lot. Like having a little dog sitting on my knee. Not. But as noisy as. This has been happening to me over the last five years or so, and I've been politely ignoring the racket, hoping it would go away, pretending it was normal... I don't care whether it's a sign of old age or not, I don't like it, it's noisy and obtrusive. When I checked out the candida symptoms, there it was, along with bloating, gripey pains, etc., etc., and I was also beginning to get the gripey little pains. No further details will be published. If it's happening to you, you know enough and you want to get rid. If it's not happening to you, you don't want to know.

Now, although many of my candida symptoms have disappeared since I started this treatment, many of them are still present, simply lessened; the growly tummy, for instance, has become a remote gurgle (I should get out more - or maybe not). I've been making allowances for this - this is a two year treatment, after all, but decided in August I would have a go at a complete starvation day - for the Candida, that is, not for me. I bought in stocks of Spelt, Quinoa and Kelp (unfortunately, I could only obtain powder), and planned to do this for one whole day. Starting with Spelt porage for breakfast. I even wrote up dates on the calender, when I'd be at home all day. Somehow, on those days, the prospect of cooking up a lumpy little grain for breakfast never appealed. Neither did fishy green kelp powder to sprinkle over it. So, I kept cancelling them.

In the end, it happened almost by accident. Week away (of which more later), followed by weekend with friend, when we ate roast dinner with five vegetables, lamb steaks, cooked breakfast (scrambled eggs for me), and I invented a new fried rice dish (probably been eaten in the Orient for thousands of years, but there you go). She packed me up with a picnic for the way back - hummous, rice, sesame seeds, yoghurt, with celery sticks to use as edible spoons. My journey got longer and longer, with many detours. I had to stop at a motorway service. To use the cafes would be a waste of money. I carried on driving til I reached the oasis known as M&S SIMPLY FOOD. It is indeed just that. I bought plain poached salmon, and a packet of prawns in oil and spices, no sugar or vinegar. I ate them in the car. There was a packet of prawns and a slice of salmon left over by the time I got home. And, at my friend's, I'd found instructions for cooking spelt grain - just boil in salted water for 20 minutes.

More importantly, when I arrived home, I realised the fish supper had been a no-sugar one - and I wasn't hungry. So I decided to start counting the hours from just after lunch time on Monday. When I got up on Tuesday, I was approx 19 hours away from having eaten food with sugar in it. Simple! all I had to do was another 5 hours. In the end, I ate Spelt Porage with yoghurt, followed by late lunch with more salmon and prawns, followed by a dish of yoghurt later on, and a hot sardine supper. The kelp got sprinkled onto the yoghurt. Very late Breakfast next day was porage, by which time I'd done nearly 48 hours of eating foods with absolutely no sugar in them. I could have eaten anything - steak, chicken, different fish, lamb, don't let my heavy diet of fish put you off!

My stomach has calmed down. A lot. I'm back on my normal diet now, because the above regime is lacking in vitamins, minerals and variety. It makes my normal diet feel luxurious, and a privilege to be eating. I'm seriously considering making the non-sugar event a regular feature in the calendar, though - as again, I feel better for it.


THIS WEEK, I HAS MOSTLY BEEN THINKING ABOUT... how unfair it was to spring my diet on the cook less than a fortnight away from the week away... with a bunch of other people who I knew would also be on strange diets...


RECIPE - FRIED RICE SUPPER

Heat Olive / sesame oil in frying pan: add left over cooked rice, make it crispy.
Add chopped celery, cloves garlic and ground cinnamon. Add egg, and a good shake of sesame seeds, salt & pepper. Stir in the egg as it cooks.

Before serving, add chopped parsley. And yoghurt, if you like. You can make this for two - all the anti-candida stuff, serve it up, leave some rice in for the next person and add all the sugary items...

We got back around ten, my friend ate oatcakes and cheese & tomato, I made egg fried rice, it was good! No pic... so here's someone else on a very weird kind of low-fat dairy-only diet...

Lunch, Tapas style

This diet! Some strange eating habits... Lunch today, tapas style, on one small plate after another... the left overs in the fridge before friends come over for supper, and one of them stays overnight...

Course 1
2 x oatcakes with organic butter. Yum. Eaten while preparing...

Course 2
Sardines, plain, mashed up with sesame seed oil and heated in the microwave for 6 minutes... with salt and pepper. They had gone crunchy on the top, don't know why - I did put a plate over them. Chopped parsley on top.

Course 3
Scrambled eggs, done ever so slowly while the sardines prepared and eaten. Add cold butter straight from fridge, and dusting of paprika.

Course 4
Spinach, cooked in the hastily cleaned egg pan, with water and salt. Strain, and add plain goat's yoghurt and cinnamon. Chop the spinach. Eat with a fork. Surprisingly, YUM. And I don't like spinach.


Cinnamon...
Is one of the top spices recommended for the campaign against Candida. I'm not surprised it's full of natural protection against yeasts and moulds - the cinnamon tree originates in Asia, an area of the world from which many of our major foods have come. High humidity levels mean that trees and plants have developed their own protection system agains air-borne yeasts. Cinnamon is the pounded from the bark of its tree, the 'skin' most exposed to infection.

Spinach...
apparently contains an ingredient which reduces and possibly reverses macular degeneration in the eye. So, although I hate, loathe and detest the taste of spinach, it's now a vile vegetable which I consume on a regular basis, for medicinal reasons.

No pic, I ate it all too quickly.

Top recommendation: the spinach, yoghurt and cinnamon. Imagine being able to eat that on buttered toast.... mmmm....

Away with the fairies

Just been away for ten days. Four days self-catering. Five days on a group-holiday with one person cooking evening meals for us. One day with my daughter. One night in a hotel.

Self-catering - well, a bit restricted, didn't have my usual range of spices and herbs to cook with. Found myself with a large quantity of foodstuffs to carry home - a new bottle of olive oil, a small packet of rice, a large packet of porage oats, a jar of salt. Next time, going to devise a travel pack - small bottle of oil, small pot of salt, a small jar of mixed spice. Evening meals were fried fish, rice, broccoli and leeks. Lunch was oatcakes, salad and hummous. Just can't manage without hummous! For the journey, hummous, celery sticks, dry oatcakes. Some avocados featured - breakfast on the last day, with scrambled eggs, an emergency during the week, and emergency snack in the hotel. Almonds also featured.

The group holiday: this involved lots of careful planning - on the part of the organisers. I phoned them up, sent a list of the foods I can eat, and a list of the NOs, and a MENU (the most useful thing to do, gives the cook a projected outcome for meals). The cook was wonderful; the venue has a policy of making everyone feel at home, and she really did make sure I had plenty to eat at the big, communal evening meal. Breakfast was porage as usual. Lunch was oatcakes, hummous, hardboiled eggs, salad. Whenever we went out for the day, the cook made sure there were eggs for me. For the evening meal, she cooked me a separate dish every night. I ate broccoli, leeks, tuna fish, chickpeas and mixed beans all week!!! and picked up some new ideas. On the last night, she did a fennel leek and celery bake, with steamed broccoli and runner beans, and additional pumpkin seeds. One night there was a bean, leek and tuna bake - with added goat's yoghurt and chopped parsley. I loved the new idea to me of saute'd leeks with ginger. And there was a delicious chickpea herb and lemon bake - the rest of the group had theirs with onions, the cook very kindly did me a separate one without. And there was always salad. The only items I did take were almonds (kept these in my handbag!) and two tubs of goat's yoghurt, which I put in the fridge. One tub does me for the whole week, but I knew people would help themselves, and I didn't want to make a fuss, so I provided two, and it worked! (Not many people are brave enough to try goat's yoghurt - or go back for a second time).

The Hotel Breakfast

This was odd. They didn't offer porage, so I felt a bit short-changed on my breakfast! I ordered two fried eggs, and ate them with some extra butter. Then I took three pats of butter up to my room, spread them onto oatcakes for a second breakfast. But they did supply a pot of hot water and two thick slices of lemon. I didn't feel too embarrassed about eating the two eggs by themselves - my fellow travellers comprised a group of cyclists talking about how much they'd been drinking on their holiday and ordering poached eggs, albeit on toast.

My Lovely Daughter

Cooked chick peas with garlic & leeks, served with watercress. I left the olive oil with her...

Lots of Walking

So, in spite of the fact that I was eating loads of food and never once went hungry, I lost 5lb in weight! A stone and a half since May, and friends are all beginning to notice properly - the ones who've known me since I was slim all recognise I'm back to me old self, which is a real pleasure to have relfected back to me. Please, try this at home!

The Difficult Bits

Watching all the other people in my group eating roasted vegetable rissotto. It was agony! I love rissotto!!! The very big dish of tiramisu being handed around was quite tantalising, though I could comfort myself with the knowledge that it could never be as good as my friend J's tiramisu. A big vegetarian curry on the last night, with glistening naan breads, was likewise hard not to dip into - I was especially grateful for the treat of fennel and celery bake with pumpkin seeds that night, and I'm going to try that one myself.

No food pictures (have you ever tried whipping out your camera and flashing away at a plate of food in front of other people? Yes? I'd rather eat goat's yoghurt!!!) so here is sunrise over a sea...

Feature This

... this morning, I am mostly thinking about... sausages and homemade damson sauce with mashed potatoes and baked beans... awwwh!!!

And then there's all that weight to be lost...

May '9 - started gradually giving up on all things sugary. Progress was slow. I also began taking supplements, something I normally avoid, to make sure I was topped up with everything I needed. How did I decide what I would take? I read Gillian McKeith's book, You Are What You Eat - especially the chapter which lists symptoms of deficiency, and what to take to cure them. Weighed myself once. This is the starting point for my diet.

June '9 - was meant to start the sugar-free diet but kept postponing it. You know the kind of thing. I'll wait til after this visitor, this party, this festival, this big day out...

July '9 - got bored of preparing for the diet, and realised I would have to do it, regardless of special events. Psyched up by eating 'farewell foods' - last vanilla custard, last tin of rice pudding, last chocolate, etc. Planned my meals, shopping lists. Put all the forbidden foods into a big box. A friend of mine calls it 'The Naughty Box' - I don't open it unless to get out the coffee and biscuits for visitors.

July 22 - started the anti-candida diet.

August '9 - Weighed myself. Reduction: 7kg or 1 stone one and a half pounds. Over three months, this is about a pound a week. My clothes fit me better, and I've probably dropped a size; I can wear the jeans I bought five years ago. And all this without exercising.

September '9 - by the end of September, I had lost a further 2lb. It's bound to level out. My aim is to lose another stone by next May; I'm sure if I stick to the restrictive diet and indulge in some exercise as well, I should be able to manage that. And keep the weight the same from then on.

The 'diet' I'm on restricts the foods I eat: I don't restrict how much I eat. Well, I do, in that I try to keep to 1600 calories a day, the right amount for my gender and age bracket. Which is a bummer. What I mean is, if I'm hungry, I eat more; if I'm not so hungry, I make sure I eat to match that feeling. The opportunity for snacking is reduced; the snacks I allow are celery, hummous, oatcakes, tahini paste, butter, almonds (not supposed to eat too many of these). At meals, however, I eat as much as I want. I measure out the meat or fish, and the rice, but when I'm hungry, I just cook more rice, or porage oats if it's breakfast time. Vegetables I let myself have unlimited access to. Eating more at meals helps me to cut down on snacks. When I have a day out, I eat a very big breakfast; this cuts down on wanting to buy chocolate, etc. Nowadays, I find myself really looking forward to the evening meal; my 'treat eating' is to make this meal as interesting and luxurious as possible, and I put a lot of time into preparing it with care. On days when I don't have time, I have to be very careful, as it means I'll start craving for the instant sugar-high fixes that modern life provides so easily. Fortunately, I don't live within walking distance of any shops, so taking the car out for a midnight sugar-fest just doesn't happen.

And that's it! That's how I lost over a stone in weight over four months, without any exercise, and without going hungry or depriving myself of good food.

Enjoy,

Derwen Hen


FEATURE THIS

This week I have mostly been thinking about eating ... Crispy Duck Rissotto.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Fish curry

(I invented this for that timeless reason: the fish I'd defrosted slightly too early didn't smell off, but didn't exactly smell good.)

Sunflower seed oil
White fish
Garam Masala
Garlic, 3 cloves
Celery - chopped fine

Saute all ingredients in the oil, ensuring spices evenly distributed among pieces of fish.
Add stock (fish stock is good - disgustingly, just boil up the head, tail and spine of the fish for a couple of hours, with a cinnamon stick. Or whatever flavour you want it to have. Allspice is good.) and simmer for twenty minutes.
When the curry is 'dry' - all liquid boiled away but before it starts sticking to the pan - add goat's yoghurt and warm through without boiling again.
Serve with turmeric rice,
chopped dill and vegetables to taste (I ate spinach).

Once again, it tasted a thousand times better than the photo looks...

My Lovely Daughter

... was helping me to download photos, and show me how to add links, gadgets, and generally faddle about with the blog... she chose the picture of the Japanese Flower Tea and the unusual new title and subtitle... she was very excited about it, she said it would encourage me to maintain a positive tone on this, my blog, and refrain from, well, from the other sort of tone... She is good!