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With the recent explosion of Gluten free products on the market, a recent study has found that quinoa and buckwheat is a better alternative to the traditional gluten free options of corn, potato wheat, rice flour and xanthan.

The gluten-free food market is now worth a staggering $1.6bn with the annual growth at 28%, according to Packaged Facts.

Traditionally going gluten free was the only option available to sufferers of coeliac disease but with the growing body of information on the effects of wheat and gluten in the diet, many people are adopting the gluten free lifestyle.

Unfortunately there are some concerns that in a bid to find an alternative to flour based products, the current alternatives may lack the nutritional depth of conventional wheat based products.

Currently corn, potato wheat, rice flour and xanthan had lower levels of antioxidants and polyphenol than quinoa and buckwheat.

Most importantly the study found that using other grains such as quinoa and buckwheat improved the bodies absorption of protein, iron, calcium and fibre.

Source: Trends in Food Science & Technology (2010, Vol. 21, pp 106-113)

With more and more people turning to soy as an alternative to dairy, for allergies, health reasons or general well being, there is a lot of confusion about this humble legume.

It’d great to see that most cafe’s know have a soy milk option with most supermarkets stocking this juice, it’s not technically a milk product, rather than a juice extracted from masticating soy beans.

There are great ways to introduce soy into your current diet, be it alternative products such as butter, tofu, cheese, yes cheese, custard and soy linseed bread.

Starting it’s life in Northern China and being part of the asian diet for centuries, only now are the benefits of soy really being understood by western society in the areas of:
1.Cholesterol & heart health
2.Breast cancer
3.Menopausal symptoms
4.Osteoporosis
5.Soy based infant formula

While soy isn’t the answer to the world’s nutritional problems, it does offer a host of great benefits.

When food is the closest to it’s natural state, ie not highly processed, then this forms the basic guidelines of what to eat.

Part of my daily diet includes eating a breakfast muesli called Kapai Puku that resembles bird seed with it’s natural mix of seeds & grains. Well this morning I was surprised to find that after lifting the strainer from the drain hole in the sink there was plant life. A seed left over from cleaning my muesli bowl had started to grow, pretty freaky stuff but a testament to how a product that isn’t processed can still nurture life.

Unprocessed foods, grows from sink

Quite often our foods are highly processed and undergo various processes of pasterisation, heating, extruding as well as chemicals being added for colour, taste, flavor enhancement, preservation, binding of ingredients, consistency, shelf life, transportation etc to create the end product. Well if a product can sprout a shoot after being in the most inhospitable environments, there mustn’t be much in the product other than all natural unadulterated ingredients.

This also applies to our fruit and vegetables that can also be submitted to a whole host of processes and chemicals to get them into your supermarket aisle all year around. A great example is garlic, I recently did an experiment whereby I compared organically locally grown organic verses the imported variety.

The results were as I expected, the imported version can last for months versus the local version that lasted about 4 days before sprouting shoots.

So when buying your produce or food, be careful of what you are really eating and avoid the highly processed varieties..

Well my special chick pea recipe was a hit at our social night. Generally when i cook I like to adopt the Julia Child’s style of cooking (a movie was released recently starring Meryl Streep).
It’s just thrown together with a lot of love and feeling you’re way around the quantities. generally unless it sa recipe that involves achemical reaction, it’s all about making adjustments, just like making the perfect coffee, the grind is never the same.

2 big hand fulls of salad leaves, spinach and those bitter variety
2 beetroots, cooked and sliced into the shape of a garlic glove
1 punnet of cherry tomotoes, not the mass produced style that are the size of a small apple
1 cup of cooked chick peas (soak overnight in water)
1 salad onion
1 packet of mung beans
Himalayan crystal salt & coarsely ground pepper
Mmm another ingredient, can’t quite remember

Salad dressing (placed poured over salad before serving)
Seeded mustard
Himalayan crystal salt
Garlic (local only)
Honey
White Malt Vinagar
Chilli
Extra Virgin Olive oil (I like Mount Zero, not paid for this plug)

So there you have it, my special boot camp salad recipe.

Well at boot camp this morning, I was embarrassed when I was talking about how I was up at 2am with my stomach bubbling like an old school Italian stove top percolator after eating 2 week old brown rice for lunch.

I must plead ignorance hear as my clients quickly informed me that rice grows bacteria very quickly, especially if the rice isn’t cooled immediately after cooking. So the maximum consumption time is within 48 hours, ideally within 24 hours.

Well this got a big belly laugh from the morning fitness crew. This is one of many funny fitness storys that will keep being brought up at our morning bootcamp sessions