Health foods
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Shan't I enjoy cooking
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Kow wrote:I think the you only live once, eat what you like attitude is easy enough until you get past 40. Things change when you notice how stuff directly affects how you feel and your energy level.
Fair, but I'm asking an honest question: would folks still eat fastidiously healthily when they're 70, 80? I'm far off that I know, so eating healthy is what'll get me there, but I also want to enjoy my best years.
This assumes eating healthy isn't as enjoyable as eating like a pig, which may not be the viewpoint of others
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In your 70s and 80s (from the people I know) it's not a question of extending your life, it's about eating food that makes you feel well. -
I imagine that's somewhat true, but having been for a curry with my 83yo grandma many times, I'm also sure there's a degree of enjoyment going on.
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I don't think a curry is particularly unhealthy. It's more deep fried junk and processed fast food I'd be thinking of.
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The elderly like curries anyway, because as you get older your taste buds deteriorate so a good spicy curry can still hit the spot.
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True, on both counts.
The question still stands tho! What's the optimum spot on the healthy eating Vs trash scale? Keen to know opinions. I think a 50/50 is probably a good base level. -
nick_md wrote:What's the balance folks are willing to take? Every bit of healthy living for me is detracting from how I'd actually like to live. What are the gains folks are trading off against? I'm not trying to be an escape artist (contrarian) I'm just wondering what people's limits are wrt extending life Vs enjoying life.
I don't think I live healthy, I just try to avoid the actual harmful crap that the modern food industry creates.
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Yeah, I don't think healthy equates to health food fads. Eat plenty of fresh, home cooked food, reduce red meat, increase fruit and vegetables, reduce sugar, grease and alcohol, increase exercise.
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Plus, I think if you ditch the real awful stuff like kebabs etc you will lose the taste for them. DS excepted obviously.
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nick_md wrote:Kow wrote:I think the you only live once, eat what you like attitude is easy enough until you get past 40. Things change when you notice how stuff directly affects how you feel and your energy level.
Fair, but I'm asking an honest question: would folks still eat fastidiously healthily when they're 70, 80? I'm far off that I know, so eating healthy is what'll get me there, but I also want to enjoy my best years.
This assumes eating healthy isn't as enjoyable as eating like a pig, which may not be the viewpoint of others
Also this. I feel guilty, have less energy, feel worse about myself and know I'll probably get to spend less time with my children when I eat obviously unhealthy food.
Eating healthier food (and that can still be fried chicken, but fried chicken I cook) tastes better, leaves me feeling satiated when a fast food/convenience food wouldn't, has me feeling healthier, saves me money, and I enjoy cooking.
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Yeah, I get little to no enjoyment from junk anymore. Decent food is more satisfying on every level.
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That's one area I need to get better at. All I can really do from scratch is various chicken curries and pasta dishes.
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Same.
Eating healthier and cooking more at home is probably my main focus atm. Will give it a go, after today :eyes: -
Ah fuck this has reminded me I was supposed to take some breasts out the freezer for a curry tonight. Doh.
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nick_md wrote:True, on both counts.
The question still stands tho! What's the optimum spot on the healthy eating Vs trash scale? Keen to know opinions. I think a 50/50 is probably a good base level.
I tend to eat fairly healthily-ish during the week, probably too much butter and frying to be truly healthy, and pasta more often than is probably good for me, but I’ll cook from scratch almost every night, lunch tends to be tuna wraps which I add various salady things to, then at weekends I’ll tend to relax a bit more, usually starting with a supermarket pizza on a Friday. -
Couscous is probably the easiest grain to make, just boil water and pour over. You can go fancy by doing that in a pan and add some butter and fry it a little after.
Get some vegetables you like. Coat in oil, salt, pepper and a spice. Cumin is great, paprika can work, curry powder etc. Roasting in the oven is easiest and tastiest, and depending on vegetables you can only mess it up if you burn them. Cauliflower, broccoli, courgette, yellow squash, onion, tomatoes, carrots, chickpeas all are good options. Could probably add nuts and seeds as well. Just add to a baking tray and roast. But you can throw everything in a skillet and it'll work too.
If you want meat, you can also roast some chicken, or pan fry it. If you want beef, flank steak is a lot thinner and less fuzzy to make (at least I think it's flank). Season the chicken with something that goes with the vegetables. If you can get easy sausages like merguez go for it if you like them.
Halloumi is nice but I actually have no clue if that's good or bad cheese. Pomegranate seeds or raisins mixed in at the end are nice. Mint or cilantro works.
A yogurt dressing goes nice with it. Yogurt, grate garlic in, salt, lemon, maybe oil is a good start. Can add sumac, cayenne etc to spice things up a bit.
Find that a really easy thing to make. Buy the vegetables you like chopped if you want, leave the meat out if you don't want the splatter in your kitchen, the yogurt dressing is just really easy and the thread already said yogurt is healthy, not vegan though.
Having some things like raisins, nuts, olives, capers in the pantry is really nice as they do improve the just vegetables with a grain meals. And if you don't end up cooking throw them in your yogurt or just snack on them.
And if that's still too much work, just buying those frozen bags of vegetables and steam/ microwave them, then add spices after. Get microwave rice. Meat doesn't really have a shortcut I can think of right now. It might take a bit more time to read labels in the supermarket, but there are prepared meals and ingredients that aren't heavily processed and perfectly fine to eat if you want to cut corners. More expensive though, but if it's gonna replace take out, it should be fine. -
You could actually also add the roasted vegetables to a tomato sauce and leave the yogurt and still serve that with the couscous and have the same dish but totally different feel to it. Ras el hanout is a great spice mix.
I also fried onions, mushrooms and added kale last week and was surprised how easy that was. Mushrooms and kale both can be bought sliced/chopped so you mostly have to wait. Was tasty if you like kale and mushrooms. Works well with potatoes I'd assume.
I took me almost five years to go from cooking recipes to also being able to wing it, kinda. I find recipes always take more time, can leave you with unused things in your fridge / pantry that you don't know how else to use and can be really stressful is you realize you forgot something or did the order wrong etc. I will still use them, but I'm getting better at making them work for me. So I can see how going from not cooking much or at all to trying to make recipes won't work for everyone.
But you also don't need the recipes. Like I said in my previous post, it's fine to buy frozen vegetables and microwave steam them. Frozen shrimp is super easy as well. Microwave your rice. There's easy to cook and possibly also microwavable meat out there, you just gotta be really paying attention to the labels. There are minimal processed chicken sausages etc that don't really need any prep.
If you really hate the chopping but don't mind to pay attention at the stove, get things that help with that. There's slice and dice machines. It's just a bit more an upfront cost that you might not end up using. But hey, if you can get garlic/onion/celery/carrot finely chopped in there, you got a base for soups (add tomato paste or canned chopped tomatoes, add stock, add beans, add a leafy green as they mean no chops, add Parmesan or pesto) or a good base for pasta sauce. -
Brooks wrote:my alcohol consumption is not helpful.
Dries your face out and makes you look older.
Having recently found out I've high cholesterol I've cut right back on ham, pork chops and sausage rolls. I'd advise DS to never get tested.
I am running most days and doing some lifting, so that's helpful, but I've reached the age where I can't just shovel in any old shit. No more bags of fizzy laces at a time. -
Napolitana and garlic bread on the way, + a litre of pepsi. Tomorrow is a new day.
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If you're serious I'd be happy to help with easy to cook meal suggestions?
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Will be happy to have top recs for meals but tbh it's not like I don't know this stuff, I just choose not to atm. Maybe some suggestions will give me the prod to make a start eating healthier tho.
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Okay, give me a steer (country of origin, main ingredient etc) and I'll come up with a rec.
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Sorry, half joking. But basically it's like I said above, I'm not interested in cooking really, so don't have any steer to give, give me your best/simplest instead, gracias amigo.
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Ingredients for 1
Best cherry tomatoes you can get - 400g
Garlic (1 clove or more if you prefer)
Salt
EV olive oil
Pasta swizzles (whatever shape you like but small twist macaroni things work best).
Burrata cheese (1 ball)
Fresh basil.
Method:
Preheat oven to 200°c
Pick the leaves off the basil stalks.
Slice the garlic
Wash the tomatoes and put them in an oven proof dish.
Put the basil stalks and garlic in the same dish.
Sprinkle over a pinch of salt, a good grind of pepper and a good drizzle of olive oil.
Mix it all together and put in the oven for 30 minutes.
At the 30 minute mark you'll want to put your pasta on so get a big pan of boiling salted water ready.
At 30 minutes give the tomatoes a quick stir and put them back in for 10 minutes.
Cook the pasta until nearly done. A couple of minutes under the packet instructions.
Chop the basil while the pasta cooks.
Remove the tomato dish, pick out the basil stalks.
Tip in the pasta and basil, tear in the burrata and give it all a good mix. If you want you could add some grated parmesan to the top here now.
Put back in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.
Done.
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Cheers Goobs, appreciate it. I'll give that a spin in the week.
Escape - not there yet but give it time.
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