Organ meat for lunch!

This does not sound like the sort of thing that you would want to eat for lunch, but is tasty, but very rich.

Fried lambs kidney

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 lambs kidney
half an onion shopped small
2 large mushrooms chopped small
Large knob of butter
1 rasher, rind removed and chopped small
Dash of fresh cream

Method

Melt the butter in a thick bottomed saucepan.
Fry the onions, mushrooms and bacon until soft.
Slice the kidney down the middle and cut out the hard core
Chop the kidney into small pieces - about 10mm
Add the kidney to the pot and continue to fry until cooked. The kidney only takes about 4 minutes.
Add the dash of cream and stir the pot vigorously to scrape the caramelised bits off the bottom.
If you are not eating low carb, this would be great on a piece of toast. Otherwise, just tuck in.

Vitamin D3

Low carb has been a great revelation for us. We have lost weight, feel better and are not constantly 'feeling peckish'. We have found another important factor in health and its importance is much greater than I would have thought.

We watched a video from our friend Ivor recently. In it he talks all about vitamin D3. We used to get it from the sun, but living in Ireland does not provide enough of that. So we need to take supplements. I have started taking 4000 IU per day. My wife is starting with 3000.

You should satisfy yourself that this is the right thing to do, but as with all of Ivor's work the evidence is overwhelming. Much of modern medicine exists on a thin layer of evidence, so to come across something this concrete is great.

We will be looking for the best source of D3 pills over the coming months. The most recent ones we got were from Holland and Barrett and Boots. Both are the chalky type, so we are looking for liquid tags next. And based on the doses we are taking we need more than 1000 IU tabs.

Here is Ivor's video. It is well worth a watch.

Fighting Cancer with Diet

This is a great video on the impact of diet on cancer patients. It focusses on cancer treatment rather than prevention. Compared to the severe effects of many cancer treatments lower carbohydrate diets and intermittent fasting see like a small price to pay for such big benefits.

Baseless pizza for lunch

I find that having eggs for breakfast means that I am not ravenous by lunch time. A tin of mackerel and a few raw carrots is usually plenty to get me through to dinner time. This is a nice alternative when we are at home and can use the grill.

Just put enough olives for one on a piece of tin foil on the grill pan. Cover it with plenty of good melting cheese. Cheddar is fine. Grill it on high until it is bubbling. It's deliciously salty and filling. Very low carbs too. Sun dried tomatoes have quite a bit of sugar in them, but adding one or 2 chopped up is nice occasionally. You can also add capers, anchovies or artichokes to this, but don't over do the ingredients or it will get a bit muddled.

It is kind of like a simple pizza without the base.

Low Carb 'Crumble'

This is not typical low carb stuff, but it is a desert with only the sugar from the fruit and no added sweetener. Great in the autumn when there are cooking apples and berries in abundance.

You can use frozen or fresh berries just pick whatever type you can get.

The seeds are best slightly toasted. Put them on a tray in the oven for a few minutes when you are cooking something else. Experiment with the times until you can get the toasting just right this way. Let them cool and put them in an airtight container. Use within a couple of days. Sesame, pumpkin and sunflower are good.

Makes enough for 1 person.

Ingredients

Half a cooking apple
Handful of blackberries
Tablespoon of Greek Yogurt
2 tsp of mixed seeds

Method

Peel and slice the apple into a microwave proof bowl. Add the berries and a splash of water. Microwave on full power for 2 minutes. Give it a good stir and another minute on full power. The apple should be fully broken down. Add the seeds and the yogurt. Mix the whole lot up.

The seeds give it a lovely crunch and the fruit is nice and tart. Not too often with this one as there is quite a lot of fruit sugar in it. Only when the berries are in season is best.

More than a pinch of salt

This article in the Irish Times suggests that the advice to minimise your salt intake may be incorrect. The number of people surveyed was 100,000 and the study went on over nearly 4 years. This may be another accepted piece of dietary advice that may have to go by the wayside. Along with these:

• Saturated fat is bad
• Sugar is just calories - you will burn it off
• Plenty of sunblock to avoid skin cancer - your vitamin D levels will be so low as to need supplementation
• Eat plenty of whole grains
• Eating meat causes cancer

and now

• Keep your salt intake low

It can be difficult to know what to believe with so many conflicting reports, but the results that most LCHF dieters see speak for themselves. It is the only diet I know of that gets easier with time. Rather then the starvation ones we are more used to.

The low carb breakfast

T

This breakfast is pretty standard among low carb people. I had thought that making an omelette first thing in the morning was a bit of a hassle, but it only takes a minute or 2 to get this on the table and it is delicious and filling. I find I am not as hungry in the morning on low carb anyway, so sometimes I have a cup of tea and a bit of a read before I make this. We don't have eggs every day, but at the moment it is about 5 out of 7.

French omelette with fresh tomatoes

Ingredients

3 eggs
Large knob of butter
Salt and pepper
Tomatoes

Method

Place a small non stick frying pan on high heat and add the butter. As that is heating up whisk the eggs gently in a bowl. Season them. Once the butter foams up add the eggs to the pan. Immediately start to draw the cooked egg in from the edges to the centre. This moves the cooked egg away from the hot surface and so prevents it getting overdone. It also allows the raw egg to run down onto the pan and get cooked. When no more of the raw egg flows down gently fold the omelette over on itself. Give it another few seconds to cook through and you are done.
Serve with the tomatoes.

This keeps you full all the way to lunchtime with no need for a snack.