Inspired by Mary & Maggie, I have decided to write a blog post for "Food Day" which is tomorrow, 24th October.
If you have read my blog then you may have noticed that I have a tendency to lean towards healthy, home cooked foods, often vegetarian.
Oven Roasted Ratatouille
Butternut and Nut Butter Soup
Raspberry Jam Ice Cream
Bejewelled Risotto (Squash Risotto)
Apple & Blackberry Eve's Pudding
Asparagus Pizza (with homemade dough)
I get the majority of my veg from Able & Cole, it's fun opening my box of fruit and veg as the produce isn't always what I would choose to buy myself. I find I'm experimenting more with recipes and trying things I wouldn't normally consider.
My preferred supermarket is Waitrose because they support their farmers and suppliers. They have excellent meat, a great selection of specialist cheeses and often the more unusual ingredients that you can't find in the other supermarkets.
When
it comes to recipe inspiration, the web is obviously a fantastic
resource, however, I very much subscribe to the philosophies of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and I enjoy reading, browsing and cooking from his books.
I was brought up in a family where my father would strictly forbid the use of salt & sugar in food. At the time, as children, we thought my father was crazy...I mean, come on, was sugar really SO evil? My poor mother had to cook low fat and high fibre. We weren't allowed crisps, or sugar on our cereal. At that time and where we lived, (1970s & 80s in a Cornish fishing village) there was virtually nobody that shared my father's views. They seemed extreme and eccentric at the time but looking back now, I can see that my father was a free thinker - he sought out the facts, he came to his own conclusions, he didn't follow the crowd and most importantly he acted on his beliefs about food and health.
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| A photo of my father taken this year....not bad for a 70 year old man! |
My father and I have have never really seen eye to eye but I have to admit that he did bring me up healthily and laid the foundation to a life of eating and cooking in a way that means I am never overweight, nor do I have to struggle constantly with diets as so many of my other friends do. They were brought up on sugar puffs, white bread, crisps, pop and sweets.... while I had oats, wholewheat bread and natural yogurt...it seemed so unfair at the time but I am grateful now - grateful that I don't think it's normal to eat sugary cereals, fried processed foods and drinks full of E numbers and aspartame. Grateful now that I am content to eat a few nuts while the girls in the office need kit-kats to sate their cravings.
I'm not saying I'm an angel when it comes to food - I'll be the first to eat cakes, biscuits and chocolates (especially if they are homemade) but I don't feel deprived if I don't eat them and I don't have the urge to eat them everyday.
Now, I am bringing my children up the same way....home cooked healthy food, no crisps, pop, sugary breakfast cereals... they do complain sometimes but overall they don't seem to feel too hard done by. They are both very healthy, very sporty, bright and happy. The two of them are very tall with long, long legs - apparently this is not just genetic, the length of the femur being affected by the nutrition received via the mother during pregnancy and also the nutrition during the early phase of childhood. This makes me feel proud :-)
I'm not a total control freak - I don't deny them the trappings of the modern diet totally - that could cause problems later on. If they go out to a party where they all end up at McDonald's or if they go to a friend's house and get offered crisps, I don't make a fuss. I allow it because I don't want them to feel like they are not "normal".
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Hopefully I have sown the seeds to healthy and thoughtful eating patterns for when they have to go it alone. Hopefully they will notice how their minds and bodies react once they've eaten "rubbish food".
Hopefully they will know that they will put less pressure on the earth's resources by eating local produce and less meat.
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