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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

Obesity and people’s health is becoming the new marketing frontier for food companies.
Products that bring weight management, that make you feel better, have more energy and help the digestive tract are going to be big movers on the supermarket shelves.

Numerous companies adding nutrients, bacteria and minerals to our highly processed foods in order to win the sale, with Omega 3 and anti oxidants topping the list.

Recently Kelleggs made some crazy nutritonal claims that “Now Helps Support Your Child’s IMMUNITY” right on the front of the cereal box with the added claims of 25% of the daily value of antioxidant vitamins A, C and E.

Together with Kellogg’s, Groupe Danone and Nestle are getting into the nutritional bandwagon with creating additives that make there products more nutritionally appealing.

Danone have Dannon Activia and DanActive Yoghurt are leading the charge with there Probiotics, the healthy bacteria that are found in your gastrointestinal tract. Once again there is limited research to support the benefits of probiotics and more importantly the different strains of probiotics.

It’s a shame that as a society, we are increasing becoming more reliant on the avalanche of processed foods that large food vendors are happy to produce to satisfy demand.

Ultimately clever marketing and development of new products will persuade unsuspecting consumers to make choices as to what they consume, be it food closer to it’s natural state or the processed variety from food companies.

After a finding by the Food Safety Agency in Germany have found that Red Bull contains 0.4 micrograms of cocaine per litre, Red Bull has been banned from 6 German states.

It is reminiscent of how Coca Cola was also found to contain cocaine at the turn of the 20th Century.
While it is considered to be within safety tolerances, the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection and Federal Institute for Risk Assessment sought to extend the ban on Red Bull.

Red Bull made a public statement that the levels of cocaine were attributed to the “use of a decocainised coca leaf extract in the product.”
Well the stimulant must come from somewhere apart from the caffeine.

“Decocainised coca leaf extracts are used as flavouring in foodstuffs around the world and are considered to be safe (eg FDA Gras Status, Council of Europe). Red Bull Cola and other foodstuff containing such extracts may therefore be sold legally.”

At this stage Coca Cola has not made any statements whether they use a decocainised coca leaf extract in their products.

Even though the cocaine may be in miniscule quantities, it may be interesting to see whether this level of cocaine is what give Red Bull it’s wings:))