Egg TLC Sandwich

The TLC stands for tomato, lettuce and cucumber. To make, you need sliced bread, boiled egg, tomato, lettuce, cucumber and mayonnaise (optional).

If needed spread the mayo on the bread slices then layer the bread with the egg and vegetables.

Place a slice on top. Cut diagonally into triangles and voila your sandwich is ready.

Bon apetit!

3 Kg must go!

Put on 3 kg and trying to lose it so having fruits and vegetables during the day.

Lunch of grilled chicken and Vegetables.

Breakfast of green tea and smoothie.

Then orange segments and sweet n spicy kuli kuli (snack made from residue left after extracting oil from peanuts) to snack on when I’m peckish.

Smoked chicken and Avocado Salad

Vegetables and fruits are good for you because they help to move your bowels thereby preventing accumulation of toxins. You should have “five a day” that is at least three portions of vegetables and two portions of fruit a day.

You need:

Lettuce roughly torn

Cucumber cut into crescents

Tomatoes cut into big chunks

Avocados peeled and cut

Smoked chicken

Onions (optional)

Salad cream (or dressing of choice)

You do:

Simply combine the ingredients in layers and serve with dressing of choice. I love raw onions and so added it to just mine instead of the general bowl.

Bon appetit

 

 

How To Wrap Moi moi in Leaves

• First you wash the leaves

• Next cut off the stalk and arrange at the base of the pot.

• Then use a knife to slice of part of the stock attached to the leaf taking care not to tear the leaf as this will lead to leaking. Add this to the base of the pot

• Next you take 2 leaves, one big and one smaller and place the small one within slanted.

• Wrap one base to the right and the over to the left over it to form a cone or funnel.


• Carefully bend the base backward.

• Pour the moimoi mixture into it and then seal it by bending the top backwards like the bottom.





• Place carefully in the pot making sure the folded base is underneath.

• When you have finished with all the wraps, pour boiling water gently down the side of the pot and steam till set or for one hour. Make sure you don’t put too much hot water or it will seep into the moimoi and make it soggy.

• Be sure to maintain the water level throughout as if left unattended, it can easily burn.
• And that’s how you make moi moi in leaves.

What is a food allergy?

Food allergy occurs when someone eats food and gets ill or even dies because they are hypersensitive to the food. This is not because the food has germs in it but because their body adversely reacts to the food. The reactions could be from mild to fatal as in rashes, swellings, reddening of the eyes or skin, itchiness, difficult breathing, shock or death.

People could be allergic to any kind of food but below are popular ingredients that people are allergic to and the foods where they may be found:

Groundnut (peanuts): The nuts themselves, peanut butter, groundnut soup, ground nut candy and groundnut oil.

Nuts: Cookies, cakes, ice cream, marzipan, nut oils and flour.

Soya: in the form of milk, soya flour, tofu and in some vegetarian or meat products.

Milk: Dairy products like yoghurt, ice cream, cheese, butter and just plain milk.

Mustard: Mustard seeds, oil, paste, in salad dressings, marinades, curries and meat products.

Sesame/benne seeds: In the oil, tahini paste, shawarma, houmous and on bread.

Eggs: Cakes, pastry, mousses, mayonnaise, sandwiches and sauces.

Sea food: like fish, prawns, shrimps, oyster, scampi, mussels and crab. These could be in stews, soups and bottled products like fish, oyster, soy or Worcestershire sauce.

Gluten: Wheat, rye or barley flour products like cakes, bread, biscuits, pies and breakfast cereals.

Celery: Celery leaf, sticks, seeds, salt and the foods that contain them.

Not everybody has food allergies however if you do, the following tips are helpful:

• Avoid the food you are allergic to, don’t take chances.
• When eating out, ask if the food contains what you are allergic to.
• Cultivate the habit of reading food labels.
• When you are cooking for yourself, make sure you know the contents of condiments you are using like oils, dressings, relishes, chutney, pickles and sauces.
• When you are cooking for an allergic person, make sure you read food labels and if you have previously cooked with the incriminating ingredient, clear and wash thoroughly before further food preps.
• Treatment of symptoms is by anti-histamine or adrenaline medications. However this should not be administered without prescription from a doctor.

For more information visit: food.gov.uk/allergy or www.nhs.uk/foodallergy

For a chocolate cake recipe for a lovely little girl with allergies check out http://afrolems.com/2013/12/03/guest-post-chocolate-vegan-cake-by-anaya/

TEN TOP TIPS FOR A HEALTHY WEIGHT

I got these tips from a leaflet made by Cancer research UK and decided to share. The good thing is that they are based on scientific evidence. To mention the obvious, maintaining a healthy weight is needful because being overweight among other things predisposes us to the risk of diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, arthritis and different types of cancers. These tips will help you take in fewer calories and burn more calories. When you develop them as habits then you are able to maintain a healthy weight. Keeping track of your progress has also been shown to help. Here goes:

1. Stick to your meal routine: Try and eat around the same time each day whether it’s 2 or 5 times a day, even if you like to snack, make this is at regular times daily.

2. Use reduced fat options:  Choose lower fat options of foods like dairy products, spreads and salad dressings where you can. However use even this sparingly as some may still be high in fat.

3. Walk off the weight: Cars, buses, etc. are good but you should endeavor to walk more. At least walk 10, 000 steps daily (you can use a pedometer to count) however you can break it up through the day. Hint: take the steps rather than the lift or escalator.

4. Watch your portions: Don’t heap your plate (except for vegetables) and think twice before taking second helpings. Hint: Fill your plate with vegetables, they are low in calories and help satisfy hunger.

5. Five a day: Eat at least five portions of fruits and vegetables a day be it fresh, frozen or canned. Hint: a medium sized apple, banana, orange, carrot or three heaped tablespoons of peas is one portion. Also having fruits or vegetables with every meal helps to reach “five-a-day”.

6. Have healthy snacks available: If you love to snack, have healthy options like fruit, vegetable or low fat yoghurt. This you can do by having already washed and prepared fruit and veggies at hand. Hint: have a banana instead of a chocolate bar.

7. Get on your feet: Reduce you sitting time by standing for ten minutes out of every hour. Hint: standing up in the bus or train burns extra 70 calories per hour. When watching TV, stand up during commercials to do chores like clearing up, washing dishes or taking out the dustbin.

8. What are you drinking? Water is life. Favour water over sugar-free squashes. Unsweetened fruit juice is high in natural sugar so limit it to one glass a day. Alcohol is also high in calories so limit the amount you drink.

9. Focus on your food: Concentrate on your food, don’t eat on the go or while watching TV. Eating at the table will help you focus on the amount of food you eat.

10. Read food labels: Be careful about food claims. Check the fat (saturates and trans-fat included) sugar and salt content on food labels when shopping. Hint: A low fat digestive biscuit has the same number of calories as the standard digestive biscuit at 70 calories. Check the fat and sugar content.

The sooner you develop these habits, the sooner you can achieve your ideal weight, good luck.

For more information visit www.reducetherisk.org.uk or go directly to http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/obesityandweight/tentoptips/ten-top-tips-weight-loss-tips-based-on-scientific-evidence

Food: Safety or Poisoning?

Food safety, food poisoning, what do they have in common? Food. And what do they not have in common? Health and illness. Health is wealth and well, illness is just plain awful. When you hear stuff like Typhoid, Salmonella, E. coli and Bird flu in the news, it reeks of food poisoning.

When you handle food in a safe way, the right way, your health is intact but when you are careless in food handling, you get poisoned by your food and so you get ILL!

As a fore warning, this article is quite lengthy. I’m sorry but what’s gotta be said gotta be said. And for the purpose of this article, you should know the following terms:

Food safety: All the right measures you take to ensure that your food is wholesome, free of germs and of good keeping quality.

Food poisoning: Illness you get from food. This usually manifests as signs related to the gut such as, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and sometimes fever.

Meat: Edible uncooked products of livestock, (and in this article) including fish.

RTEs: Ready to eat foods i.e. foods that don’t need to be cooked. This includes fruits and vegetables when they are eaten raw.

Handling: Here refers to elements of food management like washing, storage, refrigeration and cooking.

That said, simple things like handling meat separately from fruits, vegetables or other RTEs are not so simple and so they have to be sung like a mantra till everyone hears. I see the way some people handle food and it makes me cringe. And then when you talk to them they defend themselves by saying, “Disease no dey kill African man”, “God dey” or “Everybody will die one day”.

Growing up, I remember how my father (who was so health conscious because he worked in a hospital) used to handle meat. Because of him, we treated meat as if it was a weapon of biological warfare in a Hollywood movie. Trust me, he was that dramatic.

And so the bio-containment routine went thus: when shopping, the meat was to be put separately or at the bottom of the shopping bag and not close to the RTEs. When we got home, the meat would be placed in a bowl to prevent its drippings from contaminating other groceries and then the shopping bag washed with soap and water and hung to dry in the sun. He would then ensure that we washed all other things before the meat and that if the sink wasn’t clear, the dishes were done, the sink was cleared and the dish rack was moved safely away before embarking on the bio-containment task of washing and cutting the meat. You then had to fetch the water for washing the meat before commencement so that you didn’t drip and contaminate the general water storage container. And then when we finished storing the meat safely away, we washed the knife, chopping board and whole sink thoroughly with sponge, soap and water before resuming normal duties.

Now even though this kitchen drama sounds laborious, trust me, it is worth it. And even if it doesn’t sound so, the rudiments of food safety/food poisoning are not so hard. It’s not rocket science, neither is it brain surgery, it’s basically this and here it goes:

Bacteria and or their toxins are basically responsible for food poisoning. In many cases, these bacteria are gotten from the faeces of animals (sometimes humans). Contamination of meat by faeces therefore could occur during slaughter whereas contamination of vegetables could occur when animal faeces are used as manure or by cross-contamination when contaminated meat is handled with vegetable.

Basics you should know:

• For food poisoning to occur any of these four factors need to be in place; time, temperature, moisture and suitable food.
• Meat in its raw form serves as a potential source of food poisoning.
• Milk may also be a source of food poisoning. However this is not of great concern when powdered milk is used except when it has been reconstituted.
• Eggs can be a source of contamination especially due to bird faeces on the shells.

Way forward:

• As a general rule handle meat and eggs separately from fruits, vegetables and other RTEs.
• If they were not bought properly washed, wash them well after purchase, drain well, package and then refrigerate. Make sure you refrigerate each item in the correct compartment of your fridge/freezer so that they get the ideal storage temperature.
• Fruits and vegetables should be washed extra well till squeaky clean since they are usually eaten raw.
• Ensure that there are no drippings from the meat/fish as this serves as a major source of cross-contamination.
• Cook your meat well. Generally, for Nigerian cuisine, this does not pose a problem for if anything, we err on the side of overcooking meat. However if you have epicurean tastes and are open to trying new ways of cooking then for rare meat cookery as in steak, you should ensure your meat is clean however for communited meat like sausages and minced meat ensure that the meat is well cooked and not rare. This is because contamination for steak is basically on the outside and the heat gets to handle it however for minced meat, contamination could be anywhere in the center of the meat and so the heat has to get to its core.

On a closing note, know that bacteria are the criminal and you are the accessory to crime if you propagate them.

Food in the News!

# Tinned food can’t replace fresh – but it can be just as good

Can we find ripe tomatoes in the dead of winter? In the words of that most irritating of builders, yes we can. It is Canned Food Week. Last year sales of canned food rose to £2.4bn, with nearly all of us – 99.2%, apparently – buying some kind of food …

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/apr/16/tinned-food-fresh-just-as-good

# USAID Head says changes needed urgently on US food aid programs but …

WASHINGTON — The head of the Obama administration’s international food aid efforts says a proposal to shift the way food is delivered abroad could help an additional 4 million starving people. But there doesn’t appear to be much support for the idea …

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/usaid-head-says-changes-needed-urgently-on-us-food-aid-programs-but-congress-not-on-board/2013/04/16/9440bb3a-a704-11e2-9e1c-bb0fb0c2edd9_story.html

# EU tests show 1 in 20 beef meals tainted with horse

BRUSSELS — Thousands of DNA tests on European beef products have revealed extensive foodfraud across the European Union, with almost one in 20 meals marketed as beef likely to be tainted with horse, the European Commission said Tuesday.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iN-yRZEnXonRb3IbWAFqaIuzqOkw?docId=CNG.c74657324e588ecbbd0f1548fb0b5819.131

Food News!

Putting an organic label on ordinary foods can trick shoppers into believing that they are healthier, taste better and have fewer calories

# Organic food

In blind tasting trials, the majority of the “food snobs” couldn’t tell the difference between organic and “normal” food and many preferred the “normal” food. The same results were observed with the “bottled aster snobs” when compared with tap water.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2302835/Organic-food-labels-trick-thinking-food-healthier-tastier.html

# Obama proposes end of monetized food aid

JOHANNESBURG, 11 April 2013 (IRIN) – In a major development, President Barack Obama has proposed an end to the sale of US food aid in developing countries, with options for buying food locally and cash transfers, among other radical reforms to the …

http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97833/Obama-proposes-end-of-monetized-food-aid

Food In The News!

# Food Festival Aims To Promote Insect Consumption

Grasshoppers: It’s what’s for dinner. Or at least it could be, if organizers of a food festival to be held next month in London have their way. While they’re not commonly eaten in the West, insects are a nutritious and environmentally friendly part of …

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/05/food-festival-aims-to-promote-insect-comsumption/

# Are Women The Secret Weapon In The Battle For Food Security?

The notion that gender equality can play an important role in reducing hunger and malnutrition has gained increasing traction in development circles. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation claimed in its 2010-11 State of Food and Agriculture report …

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/mar/05/women-secret-weapon-food-security

# Food Security Attainable in Nigeria with Local Resources, Says Don

In the lecture entitled ‘Close to Nature’ the professor of Food Science and Technology said that nature has been tailored to meet the food needs of human beings and therefore the absence of foodsecurity constitutes an aberration from the course of nature.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/food-security-attainable-in-nigeria-with-local-resources-says-don/141252/

# 3 Die After Eating Poisoned Food

TRAGEDY befell the Umoro Eziala village in Umuohiagu community of Ngor Okpala Local Government Area of Imo State, when three members of a family died after eating oil beans suspected to have been poisoned.

 http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/6619-3-die-after-eating-poisoned-food

# Dangers Of The Malicious De-marketing Of Local Food

Ever heard that wheat meal is healthier food than the popular local staple Eba, which is made from the homegrown cassava? Or that Semo, which is prepared from bleached wheat flour, is a lighter meal than pounded yam derived from the popular local West …

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/dangers-of-the-malicious-de-marketing-of-local-food/141242/

# Food Allergy Advice For Kids: Don’t Delay Peanuts, Eggs

Infants at risk for food allergies should be gradually introduced to suspect foods to build up tolerance, according to new recommendations from a leading allergy doctor group. WSJ’s Sumathi Reddy joins Lunch Break with a look at the evidence. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324662404578334423524696016.html

# A Decadent Chain Of Food Loss In The Hunger Capital

Food waste may seem like the decadent bad habit of the developed world, but even in Kenya, where millions of people go hungry every day, more food gets produced than is consumed. Developing countries share responsibility with developed nations in …

http://www.nation.co.ke/Features/DN2/Food-down-the-drain/-/957860/1711302/-/luuas7/-/index.html

# A Vegetarian Food Tour In Shanghai

Ask any vegetarian who’s been to Asia about the food and they will tell you something along these lines: “I told them I was vegetarian and they offered me chicken” or: “I ordered vegetable noodles and they came with bits of pork in the broth” or even …

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/mar/05/vegetarian-food-tour-in-shanghai

# The Decline And Fall Of Food: How Our Greatest Fuel Source Became Our…

Ever since the first meal took place, about four billion years ago, probably the most powerful driver of the behaviors of all living things has been the need to find, use, and store energy. Of course, reproduction has always been a concern as well, but …

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/03/05/the-decline-and-fall-of-food-how-our-greatest-fuel-source-became-our-greatest-health-threat-podcast/