The Daily Blog of Helga van Niekerk

2-46pm

I raided my fridge and food cupboard today, pulled out and photographed my top ten low carb staple foods.  I am sure that all Low Carb fundies will have their own list, which will most likely contain a few of these. Starting with breakfast…

EGGS

My routine weekday breakfast is 2 eggs with about a quarter of a round of feta cheese and a knob of butter. I’ve shown photos before of eggs scrambled in a cup, eggs, scrambled in a bowl, eggs cooked in a microwavable egg cooking thingy. I’ve boiled them and had them as an omelet. Eggs anyway are good. Buy them free range.

CHEESE

As mentioned above, feta cheese always gets added to my breakfast eggs. This began because I didn’t have salt at work and eggs without are a bit bland, so I began adding feta cheese. I soon discovered half a round of feta was way too much and now add a quarter. It’s perfect. Cheese is a good for LCHF, but I would caution to not use too much dairy if you are struggling to lose weight on LCHF. Cutting back on dairy may help in shifting those stubborn kilos. Also, cheese is processed & we’re trying to get away from too much of that as well. I don’t eat a lot of cheese but add it to salads and grab a bite if I’m feeling peckish. Of course, Feta makes it better!

BUTTER

So the knob of butter gets added to my eggs which makes them creamy and a little more filling. I add butter to veggies as well and use it in frying. Always good to have butter. If you have been a margarine person all your life, time to ditch that!….

AVOCADOS

If my standard breakfast is going to be eggs, my standard lunch is going to be avocado pear. I usually chop one in half, longways, put the pip half back in the fridge, peel the remainder, add salt and pepper and balsamic vinegar and savour every mouthful!  My family love Avo, so I’ll add it to salads as often as possible. I’ll sometimes also just serve it alfresco on the side of a plate of food. Never had a complaint yet!

SALAD INGREDIENTS

These are always available in my fridge. If I’ve had a busy day, a multi-ingredient salad becomes the main vegetable at dinner time. I add anything and everything, from raw veggies and seeds, to nuts and sometimes a taste of fruit. The family love it!

FISH

Tuna salad, or tuna on it’s own is fatty, filling and fabulous. Mike, who is not carbohydrate intolerant and therefore does not do low carb, loves tuna and pilchards. He will pack pilchards onto toast and that way he gets healthy fats and great doses of Omega 3s. Heart healthy stuff, I tell you!

OILS

In my food cupboard there is always olive oil and avocado oil. Avo oil is great added to salads. It also have a natural sun protection factor in it, so feel free to use it on your face! It’s a great moisturiser and has no scent. Balsamic vinegar is my primary salad dressing, along with olive oil. I just love it! Keep it in the fridge to prevent it going a bit rancid.

I cook a lot with coconut oil. This is a better oil in which to fry food because it’s smoking point is higher than olive oil. Olive oil’s properties actually change from good to bad when heated to smoking point, so you don’t really want to use olive oil for frying. Best to use olive oil as a salad dressing or if you want to use it in a stir fry, put it on the food and then put the food in the pan. Don’t preheat it. Sunflower oil is to be avoided – it contains the omega 6s that you are trying to avoid.

CHICKEN FILLETS

While I don’t have these routinely in the freezer, I find them most versatile. I will cook them on a griddle and serve them in a variety of ways. Chicken burgers…Mike will have a bun (or two). I may have one. It’s the healthiest way of making a burger. I may cut them into strips and then add mushrooms and cream. Or I may toss the strips into a salad.  We actually have a couple of these left over from Saturday and I’m thinking of making toasted chicken-mayo sandwiches for tonight (for the bread-eaters). For me, I’ll take the chicken mayo mixture and add avocado to it and serve it (to me) in the avocado shell!

NUTS

Mike loves to snack on nuts. We buy the raw and recently a packet of mixed nuts. You do need to be careful, however. Nuts are moreish and can add a stack of calories to your intake! Nuts also contain more carbs than you imagine and need to be treated as special and not a staple eat-as-much-as-you-like snack. Peanuts usually are processed in sunflower oil, so try raise your budget to accommodate a healthier nut. Avoid roasted (any kind of) nut for the same reason.

And finally,

CREAM

This is my coffee companion. I mainly use cream in coffee. I don’t have too much. If I’m after dessert, I’ll add cream instead of ice cream  and I’ll also use it for sauces.

My low carb staples…(in a nutshell!)

The Easter weekend has come to an end, but I have taken this week off. Tomorrow, my brother – Julian, Mike & I drive to Swellendam for three nights. Julian saw someone this morning who said he had been to Swellendam. Julian asked him what there was to do in Swellendam. The guy replied, ‘absolutely nothing!’ Ha ha! We’ll soon find out how true that is. One thing there is to do in Swellendam and that’s visit my beautiful children! AND there is a golf course in Swellendam! So that’s two things already! I imagine that tomorrow’s blog will be written in Swellendam. That’s the future and I can think it, but only God knows it.

God has many attributes which make Him God. His perspective is very different to ours because He sees so much more than us. I remember when roadworks were in progress right outside the CCFm building. There would be LONG delays with miles of cars waiting. From the balcony of my office building, I could see quite far ahead to almost the start of the queue. I could also see far behind to close to the back of the queue. When the cars began to move at the front, some of the cars at the back wouldn’t know it and their patience would run out. I wanted to shout to those turning around, ‘No don’t ! The cars ahead are starting to move!’ But they wouldn’t hear my and to get to their destination they took a long detour! God sees what you are doing. He sees what you are going through. He sees what is ahead. He will not leave you. He will guide you. Stay close to Him so He can direct your route through the roadworks of life. Psalm 89 vs 33 says, “I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness. ”

God loves you and will always be faithful to you. He cannot change His nature.

God bless you loads!

In His Grip,

Helga xx

Gratitude/Happiness Pic. Yesterday, Easter Sunday, not only did I see sunrise, I also enjoyed a spectacular sunset…