Healthy eating charlatons

I hear you Brenda.

I so agree Brenda! If we listened to all the mixed messages about what is healthy then we would just end up more confused than ever!

Before bc I really struggled to ever maintain a healthy weight/diet. I tried everything over the years from Weight Watchers, diet shakes, meals delivered to your door, etc. None of them worked in the long run because I was trying to eat foods I did not like or could not make without a lot of effort or could not afford to keep up.

It has to be easy! It has to be practical and the food has to be what you and the rest of the family like. 

After bc I really wanted to make health my priority. I took it step by step, just like I had through treatment. I made small changes and got good advice from a nutritionist (someone who was not trying to sell me something!). She started with what my usual food intake was and worked with me to make small healthy changes.

It probably took the best part of a year to gradually make most of those changes. The end result is that I am healthy, I eat food I like and I have been able to stay at a consistent weight for nearly 2 years now. That is a first for me! I would definitely recommend seeing a nutritionist who won't expect you to change everything at once, or buy expensive supplements or special foods. Deanne xxx

I love you for saying what just about everyone is thinking.

I so completely agree and I must say I trully hate all those companies that supposedly sell healthy food.  "Healthy" my foot :(....

Couple of years ago I subscribed to Lite n easy and the first dinner almost killed me.  I am allergic to many preservatives flavourings and texturisers and after their so called healthy meal ended up in Emergency due to major allergic reaction.  Ingredients nothibg that I was allergic to so kust have been all the chemicals they shove into their food to make it taste better...

Healthy food laden with chemicals - no wonder cancer is everywhere....

I have decided to do my own "healthy foods" so instead of trying to be fancy and try buy things I have no idea how to cook I stock up on cabbage carrots lemon and beetroot (4 of the best foods ever for your liver detox - I have been living with congenital liver disease so this I am certain off and foguring if it detoxes liver then it is good for me cancer-wise). Cabbage and carrots make the best voleslaw and all I do for dressing is a simple vinegarette (oil apple cider vinegar salt) and I like to mix it up by adding some minced garlic and some mustard - chuck into a jar and shake well and makes great rather creamy dressing.  Beetroot I like to grate and add to the slaw or to cube and bake and then add some garlic lots of vinegar some oil and salt and pickle overnight.  Very yummy. Baked sliced eggplant pickles the same way and is very yummy.

Also I buy up on cauliflower and brocolli as both have fantastic healty properties and I eather steam them with few other veg, on their own or bake them with some nice bechamel and have them either as a side to some meat or fish or even as a main meal.  You can also just use them in a stir fry with heaps of garlic ginger some onion and veggies of choice like capsicum zucchini shredded cabbage mushrooms green beans etc

I have also been buying beans and making been stwes and one easy way to use up leafy green things including spinach is to just add them i to the bean soup after it is cooked.  Stir it through and just have it wilt from the heat of the soup (no cooking required)

The day aftet being diagnosed I did start buying all the green leafy things I could find but then 80% wilted or rotted in the fridge as I simply could not get inspired enough to cook them - too daunting.

I reckon keeping it simple like using the veg I know and basic quick recipes that are easy and fast to make is the way to go.  

I normally like to spend hours cooking but since the diagnosis simply find it there are better things to do than spend hours next to a stove.  There is only one life to live and it is to prescious to get anoyed over dumb generic advice like 'eat healthy' or to be a slave to food so planning to keep the food simple and healthy and to live it up. Sometimes I will just slice up carrots and celery into sticks buy up cherry tomatoes and niblle on the mix of the three for lunch.  Very yummy and filling and if you get some good chilly sauce to dip into can be sooo morish.

After spending years stacking on weight I have now lost 3.5kg In just 3 weeks just by making these small changes and loading up on the basic nice tasting veg laden meals instead of fried stuff or take away.

I am so with you - small simple changes are the way to go :)

There's some great ideas, thanks! I did find out easy to get foods which have an alkaline pH and are good for you are Almonds, Asparagus, Avocado, Beetroot and Broccoli and I do like all those things so that's a start. I've never been able to eat anything with garlic in it at all. It just upsets me something shocking so many recipes and sauces with that in for me aren't ok. I need an alternative.

Other good things I have a list of are banana, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin and apples. Bananas don't keep well in our Qld heat but the rest do pretty well in the fridge. My son is adding lettuce to his sandwiches lately so that's a start. If I could just stop him putting lashings of cheese on everything, we'd be a lot better off. Perhaps our diets are too complicated nowadays and we just need to stick to the same few boring staples and jazz it up here and there for the variety bit?

I've been eyeing off my overgrown plant garden lately and thinking maybe I could dig the whole lot out, add some manure and grow some vegs of my own? Never been real successful in gardening, I forget to water it. Now there's an idea, maybe we could start a healthy eating with recipes and a gardening group?

H! look up or go to your local library Taste of Life by Julie Stafford.

Also a book titled Foods that Harm Foods that Heal. It has an excellent section Cancer: How Diet can Help. Another section on supplements which is interesting reading and for the smokers it states that smokers process vitamin c faster than non smokers so smokers have an increased need for this vitamin.

Hope this helps!

Cancer Council also have dietary  leaflets 

Cheers 

Yeah just have lots of this particular type of lettuce in your sandwiches only to make it not taste like weeds you need a dressing and a healthy one without sugar is 14 dollars instead of 4. Tinfoil hat about keeping the middle class sugar dependent time? Hahaha. Seriously though, it shouldn't take this much effort and money just to eat how we're nutritionally supposed to every day. No wonder Jamie Oliver is always losing his mind. I'm surprised he even has hair, I would have been done with pulling it out long ago.

Hi Brenda,

Have you tried peeling your ripe bananas, then freezing them in pairs in small ziplock bags?  Delicious in Qld heat and better than icecream.  They taste just like the old Paddle Pops!  I learned this one from the grandchildren. Michelle x

I didn't know you could freeze banana. Learn something new every day, thanks.

Brenda5 I cut bananas into rings then freeze in ziplock bags... We toss the into green smoothes or you just add any other fresh fuit and blend away and makes the best instant icecream