Healthy Eating: Food and Health with Healthy Eating Recipes by Lucy Hyland at Food For Living

Friday 8th July

Check out my article in the Cork Independent this week on food and health or read below:

http://corkindependent.com/stories/item/2947/2011-27/Food-for-LIving—Finding-the-balance-this-summer

Finding the Balance this summer

Last year, I ran an ‘Eat real food this summer’ campaign where I showed everyone just how easy it was to make more nutritious and tasty versions of the food they would usually find in jars and packets.   All of those recipes are still available on www.foodforliving.ie. This summer, I’m going to find the middle ground – so what does this mean?

Cooking meals everyday is usually a dance between what is on the cupboard, what is in the fridge and what will take a reasonable amount of time! Sometimes we just don’t have time to make everything from scratch and that is where some jars, packets or tins come in handy. So over the course of the summer I’ll be using products that I find on the shelves of the grocery stores and supermarkets and will see how they can used with fresh ingredients to product quick and easy meals.

The question I get asked most often, whether it’s in my clinic working one on one or at a talk or seminar is “Is x healthy”. That question cannot really be answered until we look at the quality of x, how it’s been processed and what else we are eating with x in that meal or throughout the day.

I’ll be choosing the best I can find, taking all of the above into consideration. I’m going to start with smoked salmon. Although some nutrients are lost in the smoking process, smoked salmon is an easy alternative to fresh salmon as it does not need any cooking or preparation time. Salmon is an excellent source of Omega 3 oils which are great for heart , brain and weight health.

Salmon is one product I would buy organic or wild, as farm reared salmon can have higher levels of saturated fat and lower levels of Omega 3 oils. I find Ummera and Burren Smokehouse have excellent organic smoked salmons.

Smoked salmon with Rocket salsa

1 packet of Organic smoked salmon (100g)

Salsa
A bunch of rocket – finely chopped
1 red pepper – finely chopped
1 large red chilli – deseeded and finely chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
Freshly cracked black pepper

Mix the salsa ingredient together.
Then, either blend the salsa and salmon with some cooked wholegrain pasta OR serve salmon on a few slices of rye or wholemeal bread and use salsa on top.
Sprinkle with a little extra virgin olive oil to serve.

Wheat free, gluten free, dairy free, sugar free