During the latter part of the year 2010, I've done a lot of experimenting with new recipes and I've revived my interest in cooking again. The reason for this has been due to some health problems that I've had to deal with since April 2010. The doctor recommended that I should reduce my salt intake. I looked online for a diet that had reduced salt and found one from the Mayo Clinic.
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Using the Mayo Clinic guidelines I have made some major dietary changes. These included eating less salt, drinking more water and no longer being able to eat bananas and oranges due to their high potassium content. I have also reduced my carbohydrate intake which for me has been mainly rice. I now eat rice and vegetables in equal portions and I measure my food at every meal. I have been eating parboiled rice and brown rice instead of white rice. I have found how to cook brown rice successfully in the rice cooker. I have also been trying to eat some fruit each day. These have included apples, canteloupe and honeydew melon. Ideally I am supposed to eat a cup of fruit at each meal , something that is hard to do as I have always been lazy about eating fruits.
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I have also started eating raw foods from time to time. If I eat sandwiches I always use raw tomato, cucumber, bell peppers and red onion in my sandwiches. I also eat raw carrots. Sometimes its easier to just eat a sandwich than cook a curry! I have begun making fresh salads consisting of diced red onions, carrots,cucumber,green chillis and tomato seasoned with a little salt and pepper.
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According to recommendations from the Mayo Clinic, the overall changes in my diet were to incorporate more vegetables, fruit, beans, lentils and nuts and reduce my rice/ carb intake. The diet is mainly vegetarian but fish was to be eaten about 4 times per week.
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I actually began to use a cup to measure how much rice I ate and also how much vegetables I was eating. After making the changes to my diet it turned out that I was eating equal measures of rice and vegetables at each meal. I also increased the cups of water I was drinking per day and kept track of my meal times and how much fluids I was taking during the day. I have reduced my salt intake, I do not add more than a teaspoon of salt per pot of cooking. I have started squeezing fresh lime juice over each dish I make which makes up somewhat for the reduction in salt.This lead to many complaints from my Mother who said the food had no taste! But she also is now acknowledging that we had been eating too much salt in the past.
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Within a month or so of my new diet I started losing weight.It was quite amazing over a period of 6months I lost a total of 19pounds! I can now say I know the secret to weight loss. I want to lose another 10 pounds and I think I can do that if I incorporate exercise such as walking into my daily regimen.
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The Mayo Clinic had given sample meal plans and recipes for a heart healthy and reduced sodium diet. So I tried some of the recipes they had listed. Also at that time my Mother was away in Sri Lanka and I had to be responsible for all the cooking and packing my own lunches for work. A friend suggested I should try making my own sandwiches. So I went ahead and bought myself a ziploc container with compartments as a lunch box and took a ceramic bowl to work to heat up anything that needed heating like rice. In the past I had been putting plastic lunch boxes in the microwave to heat them. But I was now afraid of the plastics leaching into the food. I had never really experimented with making sandwiches. When I was a school girl my mother used to pack me sandwiches with jam and butter and later luncheon meats. However I no longer could use luncheon meats as I was watching my sodium. So instead I made healthy sandwiches such as tuna sandwich and Vege burger sandwiches. I had been taking the lazy way out by eating Vege delite sandwiches from Subway but that was costing me an arm and a leg each day.
For my own sandwiches I used a the same veges in the Subway Sandwiches: green capsicum, red onion, tomato, lettuce and cucumber. I used a non fat Mayonnaise for the sandwich as I was also watching calories. I should have included lettuce but I found it spoilt very quickly even when kept in the fridge so I omitted it from my sandwiches. I wanted to buy some cheese for the sandwiches that was both low in sodium and low in fat. I found a grated mozzarella cheese that was fat free however it had virtually no taste. The next best alternative was Swiss cheese which had 4g of cheese per slice and was low in sodium. In my new diet I was supposed to drink 3 cups of non fat milk or eat the dairy equivalent per day. I have been managing to drink about a cup of milk per day, better than nothing !
This diet also recommends eating fish 3 or 4 times per week, small fish like sardines are the best which I sometimes eat. I can no longer eat karawala (salted fish) due to its high sodium.
I also wanted to try making chicken salad sandwiches, so I bought chicken breast which I baked first in the oven and later made into chicken salad with mayonnaise and onion. For the bread I used a multi grain whole wheat bread.
This diet has also lead me to a love affair with beans and lentils. It has been exciting to cook a variety of beans/lentils such as kadala(garbanzo). black eyed beans, red kidney beans, whole green lentils and red lentils.I love my beans & lentils they have so much texture and taste wonderful as curries.
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I have also rediscovered pasta and have started cooking it from time to time. I always cook whole wheat pasta and never add salt to the cooking pot. Almost all of my pasta sauces have been vegetarian.
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Below are some of the new recipes I have tried so far.The majority of the recipes have been from the internet sometimes with modifications to the recipes according to my taste.If I had the time I would have loved to photograph the dishes and to do a separate posting for each of them along with the full recipe.
Wholewheat pasta with asparagus
Oven roasted red potatoes with asparagus
LowFat_Spaghetti_Carbonara
Date_walnut_cake
Cucumber raita
Black eyed peas with mushrooms
Chole Chickpea (kadala) curry
Jamaican-rice-and-peas
Wonton Samosas
Cucumber-sandwiches
Egg and Cress Sandwich
Vegan Steamed Wontons with Tofu, Bean sprouts & Baby bokchoy
Blueberry Muffins from a Betty Crocker Cake Mix
Rajma (Red Kidney bean curry)
Red Split Lentils With Cabbage
Green lentils with spinach and ginger
Aloo Methi (Potatoes with Fenugreek leaves)
On my to do list for the future are more pasta and bean dishes. My goal is to use up all the beans that are stored away in the house.
