Hello I am Caspar, a registered nutrition advisor, allotment owner (11b Facebook group, feel free to join) and home cook. I hope to give you back the power of health by eating plants that are in season to the country we live in, plus showing you how the thermal energies of foods can give us a better balance.
contact me via federation page or telephone
I will talk about your ‘constitution’ this could mean, tall, slim, overweight, muscular, to someone that feels the cold or suffers in the heat. I will indicate the time of year and type of person that will benefit.
We will look at the way we cook, bake, steam, roast, boil, stir fry, grill and raw as these also have an important effect on our bodies.
Health issues such as diabetes and blood pressure will also be addressed.
The focus is plant-based ideas to make dishes and drinks with health information to encourage you to make better diet and lifestyle options.
If I have one motto it is this: Greens, Beans & Grains. These three words will give our dishes a balance of vitamins, minerals, amino acids (protein) and lots of fibre; each making up a third of the plate.
Many vegans and vegetarians often fail due to a feeling of fatigue normally because they are lacking an amino acid or grain and therefore B vitamins.
Greens, means all vegetables, leafy kale, white root parsnip to red fruity bell peppers.
Beans, means (not Heinz) green lentils, pinto beans, black beans, chickpeas, black eye peas and many more that you wish to add to your diet. They contain proteins, carbohydrates and fibre.
Grains mean, whole grain brown rice, millet, quinoa, wild rice, oats, barley, spelt, rye, buckwheat. – carbohydrates are not the enemy they give us lots of energy.
White wheat flour, pasta and cuscus are not included, neither are wheat noodles, as they cause bloating and post-meal tiredness
Sporting activities, cycling, running, swimming, weight resistance exercises will all benefit from a cleaner vitamin, mineral and fibre rich diet. We recover better.
Protein taken alone such as milk or meat is not as well assimilated by the body, we need the micro minerals from vegetables such as magnesium and zinc to make digestion work properly.
With my focus on Grains, Greens and Beans, you will get all the protein your body needs plus a lot more!
We will also be using some essential fats, from, extra virgin Spanish olive oil, nuts and seeds, and some coconut oil. Some of the elements in these fats are not made by the body so we must get them in our diet.
Changing the way we think about the Food we have always Eaten.
Protein and Anti-oxidants What do they do for Us?
I have always eaten what I feel is right for me; I remember picking the runner beans in the garden in the summer as a young boy. I remember as in my late teens, and twenties I wouldn’t be interested in eating fast food. But like most of us where we live shapes our diet. And in the UK that means a diet very similar to that of other North American cultures: lots of milk, animal fats, processed cereals and excess of sweet drinks. In my 30s I became Lactose intolerant. So no Dairy! This has actually been a very good thing!
But as I have been discovering not all of these things are good for us long-term. E numbers are good example, we know that they are not good but that’s it. What is not good is that these modern preservatives actually kill our stomach flora, so cause digestive problems, also cause skin problems, headaches and can be linked to carcinogens.
In the book the China study, Doctor T.Colin Campbell spent over 40 years compiling information with both animals and humans and the basic discovery is that milk casein promotes cancer growth. You should read the book. They found that animal proteins act differently to vegetable proteins, even if the cancer is established the consumption of vegetables reduced the growth and improved the life of the patient. The book explains that our diets in the west are 20% or more of animal protein, all meats, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, cheese etc. and if we reduce that to 5% or less we can see improvements in liver health.
The book explains that breast cancer is also linked to animal proteins and animal fats, again the basic idea that in the west the rich diet of milk provokes the early start of menstruation whereas a vegetarian diet postponed the start by upto 8 or 9 years reducing the estrogen levels buy half. As you can start to see the China study is a huge source of data that is vital in understanding our bodies.
Increasing our consumption vegetables then will help our long-term health and will also provide higher fiber diet that will also help move unwanted carcinogens through our system. Part of our diets is to provide us with, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals as well as making us feel satisfied and energetic. All vegetables have quantities of these elements; we don’t need to eat like we have been. Just look around and you see people bloated from eating the wrong foods, they mostly don’t know it the wrong food. The food industry is a huge machine and we are stuck with it. But people are starting to make better food choices.
We might not live longer with a better diet but we will live better. We can boost out defenses and immune systems with root veg like garlic for example. One of my favorites is Black Garlic it has been fermented like wine to produce a sweet, soft, dark cloves that have 5 times the vitamin E content. I won’t get into an anti-oxidant discussion but that is to say that all the colours of fruit and veg will supply us with a high level of anti-oxidants that help us fight against age.
Now I’m nearly 40 years old and people say I don’t look it and don’t feel like it either I am also the fittest I have ever been with the lowest body fat I have ever had. So thinking about what we are eating is hugely important. We might want the latest gadget and spend a lot of money on it. But I would rather buy organically grown fruit and veg and reap the health benefits, now and later.
So what does this mean to us triathletes? I guess it means that as well as looking to see if we are overtraining we should be looking to see if we are over eating animal proteins. Most bodybuilders are interested in growing big muscles fast and eat a lot of animal proteins and whey supplements but as a triathlete we need to stay fit and healthy for long periods of time and we need more anti-oxidants to fight the damage of hard training miles. Another very interesting study by Dr McDougll is well worth a look. He takes a more scientific approach it's not just vegan or vegetarian. this is his FREE BOOK
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