Snack attack

I went to pick up my eldest from pre-school last week and was shown the perfect example of the effect low blood sugar.

He’d had a brilliant day, so I was told, joined in all the activities, helped tidy, sang songs and ran in the garden. He’d eaten “very well”: toast for breakfast, pasta and a flapjack for lunch, pitta and fruit for tea… As soon as I walked out my angelic child turned into some sort of wild beast that barely responded to human communication. Cunning as I am, I knew this would happen so I had brought him a snack. A really cool one as well (forgive the pun), I had brought him a homemade ice lolly since the weather was so scorching. That kept him occupied for a whole 5 min and then disaster struck: he was hungry and he wanted food NOW! I started by gently explaining to him that I didn’t have any but that I had prepared him green pasta (spinach, basil and feta sauce – it’s bright green and looks like ET made it, hence the appeal) and that he could have it as soon as we’d be back. He looked at me dismayed and began to stomp his feet and demanded food NOW, which made his little brother chuckle with gusto, which didn’t help. He was now enraged by my appalling mummy skills and by his brother “making fun of him”. He was refusing to walk, so I pointed out to him that he had just gobbled an ice lolly so the world wasn’t that bad after all and that the quicker we’d get home, the quicker he’d eat. I guess I should have known that getting into an argument with a hungry 4 year old is pointless but the mum in me was getting slightly poodled off. There I was in Exeter, so close and yet so far from home, walking away from my little demon who was shrieking at the top of his voice. After ignoring him long enough, he yelled, tears streaming down his little face, that he didn’t know how to stop crying… He just needed a cuddle I said and we finally got back to feed the ravenous beast. He polished his pasta, then looted the garden of all the strawberries and finally was back to his normal self.

This was pretty bad but not unseen when he comes back from pre-school because he’s been on a sugar roller coaster all day and when I pick him up at 5.30pm he’s crashing. Of course, he’s also tired from having had such a busy day but I’m convinced that he wouldn’t have been half as bad had he eaten properly. That day, apart from a bit of tomato sauce on his pasta, all he’d eaten really was wheat and sugar, barely no protein or vegetables so it’s no surprise really. I’m not having a go at his nursery because they’re pretty much all the same and at least there they don’t eat those turkey twizzler thingies. I guess it doesn’t matter so much in pre-school but it does at school – how can kids concentrate after having pasta and garlic bread followed by sponge and custard? Despite Jamie Oliver’s best efforts, I think the menus of most schools in the UK are still poor and are not conducive to focused learning. I’d love to see more protein and more vegetables on the menu as well as fewer puddings, which are fine now and again but not every day.

So today when I pick him up I’ve decided to come armed with something that will satisfy the appetite and taste buds of my ravenous beast but also something that is fairly nutritious… so I give you my chocolate cookies.

I made some the other day and they were a success, although I might tweak them next time. The chopped nuts kind of get lost in the sea of nut flour so I think I might swap them for dried cranberries next time, if I can find some that aren’t covered in sugar. I think it would add an interesting chew to the texture as well as some more sweetness, which would go well with the dark chocolate.

Ingredients:

180g ground almonds

40g coconut flour - I use Tiana because it’s easily found

120ml coconut oil - I use Nutiva as I found it the best value for money

40g coconut nectar

2 eggs

1tsp bicarb

½ tsp salt

1tsp vanilla extract

100g dark chocolate chopped - I used a 72% one from Sainsbury’s nothing fancy.

100g toasted hazelnuts, chopped. Do try cranberries or other dried chewy fruit instead. 

Method:

Add all the dry ingredients in a bowl, apart from the chopped nuts (or berries) and chocolate and mix well. Mix the eggs and oil together and gradually add to the dry mixture. Then add the chocolate and nuts/berries. 

Roll the mixture into small balls, flatten with a fork and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 15min.

As you can see, I was lazy and used my Kitchen Aid instead of doing things by hand. This is why I didn't mix the eggs and oil first but do it if you're doing things by hands or you may end up with clumps.

Ta da!

Be more organised than me and buy some baking parchment, it makes your life easier.

I made two batches, so 24 cookies all in all but I think I'll make them  a bit smaller next time.

Voila!

Update: I did try with cranberries (couldn't find unsweetened ones) and raisins and it was better, slightly tangy and chewy. I'm not a fan of sweetened cranberries so next time I'll try dried apricots, I reckon that'll work really well against the dark chocolate. I also entertained the idea of using less chocolate but then ended up adding the lot in - can there really be too much chocolate??

Chocolate dessert

As promised here’s my marvellous paleo chocolate dessert. It’s very easy to make and quite versatile: folding in a couple of beaten egg whites would turn it into a chocolate mousse and would increase the protein content, freezing it for 30min/1 hour turns it into a sort of ice-cream – don’t leave it for hours as it becomes too hard.

Ingredients:

·      1 large ripe avocado

·      1 can of coconut milk

·      4 tbsp of cacao powder

·      2/3 tbsp of agave syrup depending on how sweet you like it

·      1 tbsp of coconut flour

·      1 tsp of vanilla extract

Method:

Add everything to a food processor and blitz, add a bit of water to loosen it if you find it too solid – some coconut milks are more liquid than others so it depends on the brand you’re using.

Adding a bit of coconut oil would help it firm up and would make it suitable for piping onto cakes.

You can see, my coconut milk was quite "dry" so I ended up adding 2 couple of tablespoons of water to loosen the whole thing. 

My eldest son said it was "yummy-yummy" and trust me, he isn't one of those kids that choose to have smoked mackerel pate with olives for lunch... If the little rascal likes it, it must be pretty good.

PS: I added some cacao nibs on top as they're delicious and add a little crunch.

Paleo report

So it’s been more than two weeks I embarked on my paleo journey and I’ve come to report on my progress.

I was a bit sceptical at first, I mean I’m French and what do French people like to do? Apart from moaning, liberally shrugging things off, walking about with a jumper casually slung over our shoulders, bathing in garlic, torturing poor frogs and je ne sais quoi d’autre, French people eat bread and lots of it. I suppose living in the UK made refraining myself from indulging in the delectable pleasure of eating a crusty and yet soft baguette made it easier. No offence guys, but a slice of Hovis’s finest ain’t as tentalizing.

So the long and short of it is that it was easier than I thought. Since it’s not a diet in the strict sense of the term, there’s no real sense of denial and you don’t find yourself thinking about food 24/7. Ok, you can’t eat carbs or dairy and the first few days you notice something is missing but it’s fairly short lived and then what is striking is the lack of hunger. Because the meals shift from being high in carbs and moderately low in fat and protein to being low in carbs and high in fat and protein, they are much more filling. You have to get used to pilling on more vegetables than you’re used to though, don’t treat them as condiments or worse as decoration as I often see, they should form the bulk of your meals.

Because of the high content in protein and fibre (from all those vegs), meals take longer to eat, which again participate to the feeling of satiety. It’s easy to hoover a mount of rice in less time that your brain can keep up with and tell your stomach that actually it’s had enough.

You have to be organised though, you can’t improvise yourself a caveman overnight but I guess this is the rule number one of most diets: start prepared. Do your shopping, fill up your fridge, plan what you’re going to have in the morning and identify the meal that is going to be the hardest to change. I knew breakfast was going to be hard for me, of course I could have had eggs or sardines as I often recommend to people or even soup or chicken as people do in some countries but let’s not forget where I come from… La France, and what do French people eat for breakfast? No, not snails. Croissants, bread, brioche, cereals… all the stuff that a true cavewoman wouldn’t eat. So I had to come up with a plan that would avoid my falling over the first hurdle and I did. I came up, after wandering on lots of paleo and ordinary food sites, with a sort of paleo muesli, which is basically lots of crushed up nuts and seeds, a grated apple, some fresh banana, berries and a dash of coconut milk (recipes and pictures coming up). It’s lovely, not too faffy to make and so filling that I go from 6.30am to 12.30pm without really needing to eat.

There were some slip-ups I have to confess. They were mostly due to having ran up of paleo friendly food and lack of time rather than feeling deprived and needing to eat carbs. Now than I come to think of it there were mostly breakfast related: not having any nuts and just not wanting to have eggs or being rushed out of my feet having pack the kids off to nursery and a sense of can’t-be-botheredness about having to crush my nuts and seeds for my super muesli. So I sneaked some toast in a couple of times and I also had some noodles for lunch and a piece of tart. The noodles weren’t my fault to be fair: I ordered a salad that looked pretty cool (chicken, cucumber, bok choi, radishes, peanut and other vegs with noodles) and I thought I’d just eat the vegs and chicken and leave the noodles. However, what I got was a plate of noodles with two (two!!!) leaves of bok choi, a couple of radishes and 4 strips of chicken. See what I mean about treating vegs as condiments? So it was either starve and be a cow to everyone or get on with it and eat the damned noodles. As for the tart, we had friends over I just didn’t want to bore them with my paleoness and also I thought it might look a bit suspicious not to eat the tart I had made (and it was a pretty good tarte tatin too, so it would have been a shame not to try it…).

What I struggled with was variety. I’m what some might call a “chickentarian” in that the only meat I eat is chicken. Why? Too long a story, I will leave it for another time. I eat a little bit of fish too but frankly not enough this is something I ought to work on. So it’s probably easier if you’re a regular meat eater but even then, you have to be creative if you don’t want to keep eating some meat with vegetables on the side at every meal.

It’s also fairly expensive. Bulking up meals with grains or legumes is much more affordable and these days God knows that counts.

When it comes to taste, there were both successes and disasters. One Saturday evening I was stuck for inspiration for dinner, my husband suggested ordering a pizza…. Instead of giving in, she says polishing her halo, I made one for my husband and I attempted a paleo version for me.  I found the recipe on some site or another and given how people were raving about it, it sounded promising! I can’t remember the exact recipe but it involved eggs, coconut flour, lots of herbs and ground flaxseeds. It took a while to prepare and frankly wasn’t worth it. It was a bit eggy and a bit mealy and lacked that crisp quality of a proper pizza base.

Thankfully, disasters like the pizza were far and few between and I mostly ended up with scrummy meals such as my paleo muesli, stuffed tomatoes, chicken bolognaise, date balls and chocolate dessert. I especially perfected the chocolate dessert (for the blog, of course) and my (almost) 4 year old couldn’t get enough of it – little did he know it was made with avocado... I haven’t been organised enough to take pictures of everything but I will in the next few days/weeks and I’ll post the recipes too.

Back to the serious stuff, did I notice any difference in the way I felt or looked? Yes I did. I don’t often weigh myself so I can’t be sure but I think I’ve lost some weight. I can feel it in my clothes and given that my little one is 8 months and that I’m going on holiday in August, I can’t say I’m disappointed… What was the most noticeable though was the way I felt: I felt great. I honestly did, which was very surprising given what big changes I had made to my diet. I feared I’d be cranky and hungry but I wasn’t and I actually felt a lot crankier and hungrier when I was eating a more normal diet. It really struck me the other day when I was sitting in the school assembly for parents evening, it was almost 7pm I hadn’t eaten anything since noon and yet I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry nor was I feeling faint or shaky. This would not have happened if I had eaten a sandwich for lunch, I would have needed an afternoon snack and I would have been starving and close to eating my neighbour’s hand by then! Interestingly, my slip-ups were very costly in terms of energy: I felt rotten and completely flat. The few times I had toast for breakfast I was ravenous and grumpy by 10.30am and that tarte tatin almost sent me to sleep – I found it very hard to control my blood sugar and really got me thinking about the opioid-like effects of carbs, the potential impact of that blood sugar rollercoaster on the pancreas and the side effects of hyper insulinemia.

One negative was that I felt like an outcast socially, it wasn’t easy going to a restaurant without planning where to go and modifying what I was having and it was difficult to have people round, although I know this could change if I stick with it for long enough as I’ll get used to new recipes. So I guess this brings the next question: will I stick with it? Yes, but… only 80% of the time. I can see the advantage of paleo in terms of energy and weight loss and I know that’s only scratching the surface as it is also thought to benefit performance and inflammation related ailments but to me food isn’t just about nutrients and vitamins. It’s also a pleasure and a social activity. I like pizzas, I don’t want to eat another eggy flaxmeal pizza! I’d rather carry on not having pizzas very often but have the real deal when I do fancy one. I don’t want to never eat a baguette, as this is my culture we’re talking about and I feel really strongly about my roots. That doesn’t mean I’ll ditch my super muesli for white baguette every morning but now and again, I will walk to Waitrose on Sunday morning, buy a stonebaked baguette and savour it with salted butter and a cup of black coffee.

The key word was now and again for those who’d got lost in my rambling by the way.

Bon, c’est fini pour aujourd’hui. Next time, recipes and pictures, I promise.