If you need a quick healthy snack why not eat some baked beans straight out of the can – cold. That’s what our Prime Minister, John Key, does when he’s too busy to stop for a meal, according to the latest Watties Nutrition News. He’s made a wise choice too. Baked beans have plenty of protein and fibre as well as iron and folate. Half a 420g can provides half the recommended daily intake (RDI) of iron and quarter the RDI of folate. Eat them with some vitamin C-rich food such as tomatoes, orange or kiwifruit to enhance the iron absorption. Baked beans’ low GI (glycemic index) means they release their energy slowly which keeps you feeling full for a long time. And the soluble fibre helps reduce cholesterol levels.

Baked beans (plus other dried or canned beans and peas) also act as a prebiotic. Prebiotics are like food for the healthy bacteria in our digestive system. Eating some baked beans provides food support for the good bacteria in their fight against the bad bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract. Yes, there really is a war going on down there!

The New Zealand Cardiovascular Guidelines suggest that people eat 4-5 cups of legumes (baked beans, dried beans, lentils, chickpeas, dahl, tofu, tempeh or fortified soy milk) each week. This doesn’t mean you need to eat baked beans every day. Try some of the other foods too. Variety is always the key to good health. If you have been avoiding baked beans because of their potentially anti-social effects, start off with just a few and allow your digestive system to slowly get used to the extra fibre. Small and often is better than a lot occasionally.

Come on – if the PM can do it, so can you!

PS: Our PM has recently been on the David Letterman Show in the US  — Click here for his top ten reasons to come to New Zealand.

“Why don’t you write about quinoa,” one of my friends suggested. Great idea, I thought, but I have no idea how to cook the stuff. So about a month ago I bought a pack of white quinoa (there’s red, white and brown to choose from) and it languished in my pantry until two days ago. This is the story of how not to cook it…

Follow the instructions on the pack – that’s a good start, I thought. So I mixed a cup of quinoa with 2 cups of water, according to the instructions, and simmered it until the water was absorbed – similar to cooking rice. I ended up with a gluggy beige mess! Then I tossed it, rather heavily, with roast pumpkin, roast beetroot, feta cheese, cucumber and tomato and served it to my family.  It was certainly not a good food combination but they gallantly tried it. Needless to say they didn’t ask for seconds – and we all had Weetbix for dessert!

The next day I went out to lunch at Richmond Road Cafe – a fantastic cafe in Grey Lynn, Auckland. On the menu was Chicken Quinoa Salad. I later found out that it’s one of the most popular dishes on the menu. Here was my chance to experience quinoa as it should be – and it was great! Red and white quinoa mixed with just a few almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and cranberries, and served with slices of delicately cooked chicken. It was subtle, delicious and not a hint of glugginess!

I just had to ask the head chef how she did it. The lunch rush was over and Sharna Pito, head chef at the cafe, kindly chatted to me about how to cook quinoa. “Cook it like pasta,” she explained. “Lots of boiling water, lightly salted. A cup should take about 4-5 minutes. Drain it well and it’s ready to use.” So that explains why mine hadn’t worked. And what about flavours to put with it? “I think nuts, seeds and dried fruit work really well with quinoa,” Sharna told me. “And a light vinaigrette dressing using citrus juice or white wine vinegar. Balsamic is far too strong for it.”

Fantastic! A five-minute chat with an obliging expert has saved me hours of quinoa cooking disasters. I can’t wait to try it out in some summer salads… or perhaps I’ll just pop back to Richmond Road Cafe for Sharna’s latest quinoa creation, and a glass of their ginger, lemon and elderflower tea – heaven!

Related:

Quinoa: A Healthful Alternative to Rice – Ingredient swap – Revolution Health

Breakfast quinoa with clementines, sour cherries and pecans

Black quinoa salad — Salade de quinoa noir

Quinoa Bananna Bread recipe

I have fond memories of the Cadbury chocolate factory in Dunedin, NZ. They offered free tours of the factory which I and my fellow starving student friends would attend – with just one thing on our mind – the free samples! In the early 80’s they were particularly generous and we would come away laden with enough chocolate to keep us munching for at least a couple of days.

But my rosy memories have been ruined this week. Cadbury’s are replacing some of the cocoa butter with palm oil to cut costs. All the media attention seems to be on palm oil’s effect on the environment but I am disappointed for a different reason: yet another food is losing its authenticity. Oh, I know palm oil gives the chocolate a smooth mouth-feel but when I eat chocolate, I want to eat real chocolate made from cocoa butter, not vegetable oil.

We do this with so many foods – water them down, bulk them out, add some flavouring to make them taste like the original food – all to make them cheaper so we can stuff more in our mouths. Then we feed it to our kids and they grow up enjoying these less than natural flavours. When they become adults why would they want to pay more for real juice, real bread, real chocolate?

No wonder we have a serious problem with obesity. We’re doing the exact opposite of the French secret to staying slim. In true French style, I can satisfy my chocolate craving with a couple of squares of dark, flavonoid rich, real chocolate. But with the sweeter, cheaper stuff it’s easy to gobble up half a block before the guilt light flashes on. And when you read about the health aspects of chocolate, they are talking about real chocolate made with cocoa butter.

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Related:

KFC dumps palm oil

Cadbury leaves a bitter taste

Palm oil blend to replace cocoa butter?

Finally got ’round to photo’ing my hummus. For my recipe, click here …