If your eating habits are anything like mine, then you’ll understand how it’s only after you’ve had one too many of whatever it is you’re eating, that you probably should’ve stopped. The point is, our bodies weren’t designed to cope with the sheer convenience that we have today of getting food, and it requires conscious effort to stop eating as if the next meal wasn’t a sure thing. At any rate, here are a few things to think about during your next meal:

Red meat red alert:
It pains me greatly to say this, but according to this Time Magazine article eating red meat might be bad for your health, increasing the risk of colon cancer. Lower meat consumption is also be better for the environment, with one set of statistics showing that each kilogram of meat produced takes around 13 kilos of grain, 30Kg of hay and 200,000L of water! (Source)

Nip salt intake in the bud:
Nutritionists are advising Australians to eat less salt – the average Australian supposedly consumes twice the daily recommended intake of salt, which can lead to high blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease. One of the major culprits is processed food – they tend to be very high in salt content, even if it’s not savoury. Pro-tip: to see how much salt a product has, check out the “Sodium” entry in the nutritional fact box on the packaging.

Raw deal:
It may seem unintuitive, but your body may produce more energy digesting processed food than natural food with the same amount of calories (the science of which is very well summarised here). This is because the way calories are measured in a lab is very different to how our bodies convert food into energy. That’s before we even start to talk about what goes into processed food to help it keep longer without spoiling, and to give it an appealing taste and texture. If you think about it, processing and cooking are really just processes by which we make food easier to digest by breaking down fibres and other hard-to-digest materials. Therefore try to include as much raw, unprocessed food in your diet as possible.

Just cut it out:
Conventional wisdom says that it can take the brain up to 20 minutes to register that you’re full. Furthermore, there are scientific studies that demonstrate a link between calorie restriction and longevity (although these are far from conclusive). The takeaway from this is that it doesn’t hurt to simply eat less. It’s good for your wallet too :-)

It’s hard to think about all this when you come home from work tired and hungry, and not many people have the patience to stand around at the supermarket comparing the nutritional virtues between two brands of the same product. Still, a little bit here and there can add up. I’ve been trying to incorporate as many of the above into my diet as possible – all well and good, except my problem is that I need to exercise more (or even exercise at all)!

Jenny and I have been trying to eat more fresh fruit and vegies lately, even though it does mean shopping more regularly as produce spoils quickly (hence why it’s gotta be fresh!) Because there’s only two of us, this often leads to a lot of waste as we’re forced to throw out things that we can’t finish in time before it goes off. For example, we might only get through a couple of stalks of shallots before the moisture gets to them.

In light of this, we recently “discovered” a great little food-saving tip – one of those things which, once you hear it, you will think “that’s so obvious!” You know those little “Do not eat” silica gel packets that you find packed in with most dried foods? In a hand-slapping-forehead moment, I thought: instead of throwing them away, how about reusing them?

Silica gel – the camel of the kitchen
A quick Google later, and it turns out that those little packets are extremely versatile. Silica gel is a dessicant that can able to absorb 40% of its weight in water, and is the same substance that you’ll find in those moisture absorbers such as Damp Rid and Hippo. It’s odourless, non-toxic and therefore generally safe, however your insides are unlikely to be happy if you ingest the gel and it starts sucking up moisture (human beings are 70% water after all), hence the dire “do not eat” warnings.

Pop them into an airtight container of nuts or dried fruit, pasta, fresh herbs or anything else that needs to stay dry, and it will keep for much longer than it otherwise would’ve.

I also discovered that they’re recyclable: 15 minutes in the oven at 200°C will remove the absorbed water (or alternatively 2 hours at 120°C but who’d have the patience?) Having said that though, I’m not sure the regular packets that comes with food are designed to be recycled, so whether or not the packaging could withstand the high temperatures is cause for further investigation, although with the price of electricity these days, it may not be worth it anyway.

Other uses
Besides food, you can also use Silica gel to protect anything else that you need to keep dry, and prevent mold and mildew. You can stick them to the inside of containers, but be sure not to cover up the porous side of the packaging which lets the moisture in.

The only place I can find that sells them is eBay, where you get twenty 2g satchets for $6 (including postage), but of course it’d be easier if next time you find a satchet of silica gel lurking in your food packaging, keep it and don’t throw it away!

Korean food is notoriously difficult to make. If it isn’t some rare and exotic ingredient it’s a long and convoluted cooking process, which is a shame ‘coz Korean food is so darned tasty! I recently discovered a recipe for rabbokki (라볶이), which is kinda like a Korean version of bubble-and-squeak in that you can pretty much chuck whatever you like in there as long as you’ve got the basics (i.e. rice cake and chilli paste). It’s very easy to make, and uses ingredients that aren’t too exotic – although some of the items you’d still have to get from a Korean grocery store rather than a supermarket. This recipe serves 4 – it won’t look like much, but rice cake is very filling!

Ingredients:

• 300g rice cakes (the long tube-shaped ones, and not the oval-shaped sliced ones)
• 1 packet of instant noodles (minus the flavour satchets)
• 250g fish cakes
• 1 onion
• A few leaves of cabbage
• 4 tbsp gochujang (고추장 – chilli paste)
• 1tbsp brown sugar
• 1tsp garlic
• 1tsp chilli powder (or less, if you prefer less hot)
• 2 cups water

Method:

To start with, soak the rice cakes for about 15 minutes. While it’s soaking, cut the onion into slices, and the cabbage into rectangular pieces. Mix the gochujang, sugar, garlic and chilli powder in a bowl.

Boil the water in a deep frying pan, then stir in the gochujang mixture. Add everything else, and cook until the rice cakes are cooked and the noodles softened. Simmer until the sauce starts to thicken, adding more water if you like a bit more sauce, but don’t overdo it. It’s is supposed to be thick and gluey.

Serve and eat!

Variations:

• You can add up to an extra tablespoon of brown sugar if you prefer it sweeter.
• Feel free to chuck in whatever you like. In my picture you’ll see that I’ve got carrots in there instead of cabbage. Other suggestions: mandu (만두 – dumplings), spam, the thinly-sliced beef that Koreans use for bulgogi (불고기), seafood, bean sprouts, spring onion, etc.

Feel free to share your favourite combination in the comments!

A quick addendum to my earlier post on thrifty cooking: yesterday I noticed that the “4 ingredients” book also has an iPhone App that you can buy for A$4.99. The advantage that the App has over the dead tree version is that you can search for recipes by scrolling through an alphabetical list of ingredients (and although it’s called “ingredients” the list also includes categories too, such as “Breakfast”).

It’s also a funny co-incidence is that the App is “rated 4+” (as in the age classification, not the customer ratings).

Buy now from

MasterChef is finally over, and the Julie-rage is slowly subsiding. So what’s for dinner tonight? Coming up with tasty meals that are also easy on the hip pocket can be hard (who can afford to splash out on a bottle of Moet for cooking with like they were doing on MasterChef!?) I personally find it difficult to get inspiration from recipes books, because there’ll almost always be at least one ingredient that you don’t have.

I used to live in an apartment that was right upstairs from a supermarket so I could just pop down and grab something, but who has that kind of luxury any more? That’s where 4 ingredients, by Aussies Kim McCosker and Rachael Bermingham, comes in. This clever little book (and its sequel) compiles of dozens of recipes that use only 4 main ingredients. They do cheat a little bit and assume that you’ll have the basics like water, salt, pepper, etc. but very few kitchens would lack these (and if you do, you can nick some from a food court or something!) While they won’t win you any MasterChef challenges, the recipes do cover a wide variety of ingredients, and can be a good starting point to expand upon if you’re feeling creative.

The books also contain little humorous snippets of poems, quotes and the authors’ anecdotes to give it a casual, fun feel, like how cooking should be. Overall, a highly recommended addition to your kitchen library.

Compare prices on booko | Buy from Book Depository (Book 1, Book 2)