GAPS

Two Banting Meals…

 

 

Dogs and horses wake me up early and these days I have been eating breakfast a little earlier than my norm (which is anywhere between 10 and noon). The day started with lemon juice, salt and coconut oil in hot water, sipped on the stoep gazing at all the green around me and flowers burgeoning everywhere. Even the bees were up early and already collecting their gatherings for the hive. The dew was cool beneath my bare feet, such a refreshing feeling.

 

About three hours later I thought about eating. This was around 8 am. So this is what I concocted…

 

 

Turmeric-Spiced Egg Scramble with Coconut Kissed Thai-flavoured Chicken

This was a different take on breakfast. Well, it is the most important meal of the day and who said we had to have bacon with our eggs every day? There was left over cooked chicken in the fridge and I had run out of bacon, so creativity was necessary. The Thai green curry paste was an awesome addition with the coconut cream. I stir-fried two spring onions with the chicken and then added the paste and coconut cream. Truly good tasting!


Pork Medallions in a Creamy Mustard Sauce with Cabbage and Avocado Salad

Dressed with Olive Oil and Verjuice

This was a late lunch dish with a friend. The look on his face was so rewarding :) And there was not a starch in sight! Shows you that even non-Banters like Banting food! Two more non-Banters are coming for dinner tomorrow night, so I am already planning and scheming…

Keeping up with the Revolution…

(The Real Meal Revolution by Tim Noakes, Sally-Ann Creed, Jonno Proudfoot and David Grier)

 

 

 

 

 

Banting Big Breakfast Ideas…

 

I know it is difficult sometimes to think of things to eat for the Big Breakfast, so here are a few ideas you might like to try.

 

Bacon OR Chicken Livers OR Ox/Lamb/Calves Liver OR Pork Rashers OR Lamb Fingers OR Pickings from Bone Broth OR Steak with extra Butter. (Of course you can have any offal if you like it, brains would be good.)

Free Range Eggs OR…Well, eggs is eggs – OK, you could try ostrich or quail eggs for a change?

Avo OR Spinach, Kale, Chard (Silver beet), Beetroot leaves, Mustard Spinach, Pak Choy. Leafy things. Organic if possible. Try growing your own.

Moringa Powder to mix with your avo or greens. Or drink the capsules.

Coconut oil OR Butter, Ghee, Lard (Pork Fat) or Tallow (Beef or Lamb Fat) OR Schmaltz (Chicken Fat) OR Bacon Fat

 

There are many different ways to use these ingredients. Take livers for instance.
Chicken livers can simply be browned in butter or cooked with cream or sour cream if you are feeling luxurious. Ox/lamb or calves liver can be cut into strips and rolled in crushed almonds or almond powder, (or not!), and fried in coconut oil, butter or ghee. You could mix the cooked liver with scrambled eggs for a change. Chop bacon and do the same thing. Hey, you could even have left over fillet steak chopped up in the scrambled eggs!

 

As for the leafy things, try steaming, stir-frying, wilting, creaming, whatever, and eat them with poached eggs, fried eggs, mixed into scrambled eggs with bits of bacon, a spinach and feta filling for the omelette…get my drift?

 

Eggs I have mentioned. Fried, poached, scrambled, omelette, pizza type omelette with cheese under the grill, bacon and eggs baked in muffin tins, quiche type muffins filled with all the good stuff for breakfast on the run. If you’re not in a hurry and you have time to bake in the morning, pour melted butter over them for that extra rich flavour. Remember you can always add herbs to the quiche muffins. Oregano is particularly good.

 

I hope this helps spark some creativity in the kitchen. After all, if you think about it, breakfast is our main meal, so it should be the one that deserves the creative touch.

 

It makes me happy to cook and to develop recipes for everyone to enjoy, especially for the awesome Facebook group of which I am a part. Visit there and see what a great bunch of people they are, led by the indomitable Charles Lubbe and his very helpful team from The Big Breakfast Banting Debate.

 

Go Big Breakfast!

 

Omelette Roulade filled with Swiss Chard and Mushrooms

 

Breakfast Egg and Bacon Pizza in a Pan

 

Bacon, Eggs, Tomato, Cheese and Avo

Slow Cooked Ostrich Neck & Avocado

Crispy Bacon, Fried Eggs & Red Swiss Chard with Garlic

Pickings from the Venison and Beef Bone Broth

Green Eggs with Buttered Fillet Medallions & Heirloom Purple Tomatoes

 

Fried Eggs, Pork Rashers with Tabasco-laced Avocado

Creamy Chicken Livers with Fried Egg

 

Green Eggs, Bacon and Courgette Fritters

We’re Cooking with the Revolution!…

(The Real Meal Revolution by Tim Noakes, Sally-Ann Creed, Jonno Proudfoot and David Grier)

 

Day 3 Fat Furnace Fortnight…

 

 

The day started with a bowl of pickings from the beef and venison bone broth.

 

 

 

 

After that my next meal was an Omelette filled with Bacon and Mushrooms and about 6 cups of black rooibos tea! It was at a restaurant but I did not inquire as to what oil they were using, but it was a filling meal. The bread remained in its cloth covered basket and I resisted the temptation of coffee. It is getting easier now. I must admit that I was sorely tempted to have coffee with cream but my commitment held strong.

 

I was not that hungry as night arrived, so this is what I made:

 

 

 

Crispy Skins from Chicken Thighs and Heirloom Baby Tomatoes

I do love them skins! The rest of the chicken is packed away in the fridge waiting for tomorrow. A chicken salad sounds good, yes?

Late night (I stayed up way too late as usual) called for a snack and so I had venison salami slices. Just enough and not too much. Now my eyes are rapidly closing and I must away into the arms of Morpheus.

A Beautiful Banting Day …

And from Scotland…

 

Sister’s day was a little different to mine!

 

Banting day 3 from Scotland

 

I fear that I am on rebellion 101!! I don’t like green tea, I miss my Ceylon tea with low fat milk.

I don’t like my bacon done in the microwave and I cannot use my kitchen.

I am so indoctrinated into eating low fat high fibre that I find fat off-putting.

 

I, believe or not, am laughing through all of this because I have a sense of humour and I realise that I have probably chosen the worst week in my life to start Banting….a member of the household is very ill, I have no kitchen as the AGA is in but the cupboards and shelves and plumbed goods are only going in today and they will be finished tomorrow (I hope).

 

My microwave is in the laundry/scullery which has been called the galley kitchen, but I am too fat to slide past my lovely svelte partner in the galley!!

 

The knives and forks are in the passage, the butter and meat etc is in the fridge in the kitchen on the other side of the house….so actually it is very much a case of laugh while you can. If I can survive this I can survive Banting! And all this without a glass of wine…the only whining I am doing is at the top of the page!!

 

The up side is I already feel lighter and smaller, and of course I am peeing like a well hydrated horse!!

 

Breakfast this morning was bacon cooked in the microwave (don’t you hate the idea of all those little nuclear molecules dancing around creating some kind of fission to cook your food???)

Egg with organic coconut oil. Organic! What’s the point if you are going to nuke it anyway…please see lightness and laughter, no criticism in this!

Spinach added, served with loads of cracked black pepper.

2 eggs, 3 rashers of bacon and a handful of spinach.

The breakfast was very tasty, and I am sure that I will only have a late lunch or supper now.

 

I got a note later to say that my sis had lamb and broccoli soup tonight. I think that’s pretty cool, and I am proud of her for hanging in there in the middle of what must be pretty nightmarish!

 

Tuna salad was my supper and it was more than adequate. I dressed it with some olive oil and verjuice and sprinkled a little Tabasco over it. Yumness.

 

Marching on with The Revolution!…

(The Real Meal Revolution by Tim Noakes, Sally-Ann Creed, Jonno Proudfoot and David Grier)

 

 

The Banting Journey continues…

 

 

How am I feeling today? Strange, slow, thoughtful. It is day 2 (day 1 was not FFF legal) of the Fat Furnace Fortnight and I am probably going through some kind of detox, Herxheimer reaction, that sort of thing. Although I have been Banting for quite some time now – this is nearly the end of my 4th month – I did go through a time of putting on a couple of kilos over the holiday season but it came back down fairly quickly which makes me realise it was more than likely water weight.

 

It is coffee and dairy that I think helped the weight stall. This is the 2nd day without coffee and I am choosing to drink rooibos tea since it has no caffeine. Green tea may well be good for me but I don’t want to indulge in any caffeine during this fortnight. I want to see how my body reacts, so I am being uber good! I am having a teaspoon of coconut oil in my tea and it tastes just fine! It is certainly a good way to take in the requisite two teaspoons a day … and it is cheap lip-gloss!

 

Breakfast:

 

Three Egg Omelette with Mashed Avocado and Moringa Powder with Bacon Bits

 

A Forkful of Goodness

A good breakfast with good fats really helps keep the munchies away!

Until the next post, keep on Banting!…

 

 

 

 

Banting with a Sister Across the Seas…

 

It is amazing what accountability does to one’s whole demeanour. My sister needed some encouragement to go the Banting way and I was so happy, I jumped at the chance to mentor and accompany her. I say mentor only in that I have been doing it for 4 months and have lost 14 kilos and am so in the groove now, it feels solid, and it is a treat to help anyone to achieve something at which we are both working.  This is not unlike going to gym with a buddy. You can talk the same language about muscle building and toning, groan and moan when you are taking strain, appeal for help when you need a lift, and generally be there for each other. Here we talk nutrition, weight correction and general health.

 

Sis and I have both had weight issues most of our grown-up lives. We both suffer from the apple shape, insulin resistance marker tum and are both very keen cooks. This has led to many calories over the necessary and the proof is in the size of our clothes. Too big! In the past we have talked about doing a project together which involved writing, and what better project than this. With this we can reach and teach others as well, those who are walking the same journey to Oh-So-Sassy!

 

I have been on go-slow for a fortnight now. Not stalled, but the weight loss is crawling along. I decided to start at the beginning again in order to make sure my system is truly changed and is a roaring fat-burning furnace! So I am joining my sister with that goal in mind for both of us. She will now have the delight of all that water weight loss in these next two weeks. Hopefully I will drive those ketones on and out and stoke my furnace once again.

 

The first two weeks are what I call Austerity Fortnight. A bit like Atkins induction when I did that some years ago, except no dairy, no nuts and lots of fat. Nothing but eggs, fish, poultry, red meats, venison…anything under the protein column on the Green List in The Real Meal Revolution by Tim Noakes et al, and vegetables from that same list. That’s it. And of course fats. Coconut oil, butter, ghee, lard (pork fat) and tallow (beef and mutton fat). Drinks include water water and water, herb teas, preferably green tea or rooibos/redbush with a slice of lemon and/or mint, and ginger tea which I make with slices of fresh ginger steeped in boiling water which I keep in a flask and drink as needed. Another drink I keep on my desk from which I frequently sip, is filtered water with apple cider vinegar. The benefits of ACV are too numerous to mention here, so I will save that for another post. Just believe me when I say it is good for you!

 

The Sisters Day 1:

 

 Lamb Fingers with Kale and Egg Scramble spiced with Turmeric, Black Pepper and Cayenne

This was my meal number 1 in the mountains of Limpopo Province and Sis had eggs and bacon and a grilled tomato in Scotland. We will both be making bone broth tonight, mine in my slow cooker and hers on her new AGA! Bone broth is my chosen top-up food or snack mid-afternoon if I get the slightest bit peckish. I decided that bone broth was the easiest way to keep my fat intake up without having to even think! So instead of a cup of coffee or tea, bone broth is it. And water, or have I said that already? :)

 

We leave 6 to 8 hours between eating because we eat breakfast to satiety. This I learned from my mentor, Charles Lubbe from The Big Breakfast Banting Debate on Facebook. Eat until you are FULL! And he means really full. By the way, if you ever want a really good Facebook Banting Group you cannot go wrong with Charles’s The Big Breakfast Banting Debate. He has all sorts of good information at his finger tips and the support is awesome.

 

Tonight’s meal for me will be a handful of spicy beef meatballs, salad dressed with olive oil and lemon, with a gorgeous mix of broccoli, cauliflower and courgette, while Sis will be eating pork with crispy crackling and buttered spinach for her supper in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

This in from Scotland:

 

What a fabulous idea. Ever since I moved to Scotland I have felt quite far from my sister, and now we have the same goal! What a pleasure, and the fact that I have been on a different diet and not really lost a thing, and that M has lost 14kg’s means it works. Sure I am in trepidation, my basic lifestyle has been vegetarian most of my life, but I do enjoy meat. I have been eating low fat EVERYTHING and was surprised to see what a challenge it is to find full fat milk/cheese/yoghurt in the shops.

 

So now for my comments very quickly! I am not properly prepared for the austere 2 weeks, the only thing that is working in my kitchen is the new AGA, the worktops have not been installed and I have bought loads of cheese! I have also not been able to get into the kitchen to put the pork roast into the AGA! There are workmen sanding the bamboo work tops so I cannot do anything. I might land up having cucumber and boiled eggs for supper tonight. I have learned my first lesson in Banting, BE Prepared!

 

I did walk to the butcher and buy some lamb bones for a broth which I will put in the oven when the workmen have left. The broth is a basic one, a few sticks of celery, a carrot, 6 black peppercorns, an onion and a clove of garlic.

 

My tea of choice will be green or ginger tea, I am not really keen on herb teas, but will aim to try some new ones soon.

 

I love it! Here’s to our journey to Slim and Healthy…

Rocking with The Real Meal Revolution!!!

 

 

 

 

Banting, Budget and Bone Broth…

 

Hello fellow Banters!

 

Today I am going to sing the praises of the humble bone broth. Cheapest way to fill your tum. This morning I bought some meaty venison bones from the local store. Venison has to be organic, right? I was so excited I bought 5 packets, they were R17 each. Bit by bit I browned two packets of bones in coconut oil in a heavy bottomed pot until they were smelling really good. I then added filtered water to cover, an onion studded with 3 cloves, a stick of celery and a carrot cut up in chunks, two bay leaves and about a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. After bringing it to the boil I turned it down and left it to simmer for about 3 hours or more.

 

For lunch I had the marrow from four bones and a soup cup of bone broth. It was so delicious I went back for another cup! Of course it is up to you as to what herbs or spices you add but it was the simplest combination and it was so flavoursome. I removed no fat and drank it the way it came out the pot.

 

Afterwards I poured the remaining stock and bones into the slow cooker and added more water to cover and another squirt of ACV (it helps to draw out the minerals from the bones) to cook overnight so that that the flavours really intensify and it becomes a rich, nutritious broth.

 

I truly believe that bone broth can make the Banting diet more accessible to those who are on a really tight budget and they will be getting great nutrition from it. I for one will be using this as a standard beverage/food on my Banting Journey. It is filling and tasty and that is what counts for me, and it has no carbs as I strain out all the vegetables and drink only the broth. The meat and gelatine on the bones is tasty and good for you, so indulge! I do :)

 

In fact I had the meat that fell off the bone this morning for breakfast around 10.30. The slow cooker ROCKS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just

Banting – Why am I Doing This?

 

 

My food life is becoming very interesting, what with all this Banter! It keeps me on the edge of my seat of addiction (read carb addiction) as I try to remember why I am doing this.

 

Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?

 

I have been at first plump, then overweight, plain fat and finally obese during most of my 64 years. For a brief, shining moment, with the help of a bariatric doctor who gave me injections and a 500 calorie diet, I was thin. Without going into all the psychological possibilities of why I might have eaten my way out of stress or depression, (I would spare you that) I am totally and utterly convinced that my weight gain is from carbs. Mostly breads, grains, starchy vegetables, legumes…and too much red wine. Mine was not a sugar addiction. I never liked Coke or fizzy drinks and got onto the vegetarian whole-foods wagon while in my early twenties in London. They were after all, “healthy” peace and brown rice hippie days.

 

When, after seven years of vegetarianism, I returned to my carnivorous ways, unfortunately the carbs came with me and so did the weight gain. I had a hysterectomy and put on weight, I gave up smoking and kilos piled on and then I just ate more and the kilos finally overwhelmed me. Of course I was eating more and more carbs and not doing too much exercise. I had become insulin resistant, had leaky gut syndrome and was pre-diabetic. Pharmaceutical medication was suggested which I refused as I am more into supplements and holistic healing than that which Big Pharma offers. I believe that food is indeed our medicine. But what food? I knew it needed to be natural, real food, but up until lowcarb I believed that brown rice, whole wheat pasta and beans were natural and healthy.

 

In the early turn of this century, I turned to Atkins and successfully lost 16 kilos and put on 22 when I gave up on the diet. I cannot remember what turned me, but I really missed bread and potatoes. I liked quinoa and millet, good alkaline grains, but they were only used when I entertained and needed some healthy grain or seed to put on the table. Pasta was a rare food but I did so enjoy it when it was put before me. “Healthy” seed bread, rice cakes and crackers, those were my quick go-to foods if I needed to assuage my hunger in a hurry. A main meal at night was the ubiquitous meat, starch and veg…and red wine.

 

I recognise my addiction to carbs and wine, but the memory of a good sourdough bruschetta topped with olive tapenade or delicious chilli coriander pesto still haunts me. This is the one thing that made me fear going back to a lowcarb diet. Every time I would try it out again, I made it to the second day and then sometimes not. Just plain freaked out. All I could see coming were extra kilos that would pile on if I ever dared to go back to eating bread.

 

What convinced me to change my food lifestyle again were the scientific facts put before me in The Real Meal Revolution. That and my brother’s success with the diet, (he of bygone bread and pizza making fame). Perhaps I am also a little better armed at this point in my weight shedding journey. My focus has moved from only weight loss to being healthy and I have continued to research alkaline diets, paleo, primal, GAPS, ketogenic, raw food and Ayurveda. My journey has led me to this juncture and I am now searching for as many Banting-friendly recipes as possible to fill the carb “hole” in my taste memory. Coconut breads, Atkins rolls, seed crackers, pasta and pizza made from cauliflower and the list goes on. This is a Banter’s search for tasty substitutes for starch and sugar comfort food carbs. Without those replacements I do declare I might fold.

 

I am still in favour of chlorophyll rich vegetables and green juices and I do think about the acidity of meat and the mucus forming properties of dairy but right now I have my sights set on doing this right according to the Banting way, which should be for life. I need to make it so for the sake of the years still left me, to enjoy life on this planet in good health.

 

So I shall eat fat and soldier on…

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