We - the Dear Leader, the temporarily-home-before going-off to-Gozo Sternest Critic, and your humble servant - are on a weight loss quest for a time. Well, weight loss and health drive. That means the occasional 800 calorie day, and generally eating somewhere between 1000 and 1500 calories, with a day off every now and then. That may sound restricting, and in the mathematical sense it is of course, but to be doable without becoming boring it does mean getting creative.
Our breakfasts, except when staying in hotels or at Christmas when bacon and sausages rule, are usually pretty healthy. Currently they are - thanks Donald - bigly so. And not in a bad way - no kale smoothies, in fact given we learn from Michael Moseley that smoothies go straight through the gut and mean a sugar rush, no smoothies at all. But every morning for the past fortnight we have enjoyed a bowl of fruit (along with e.g. poached egg on wholegrain toast of some sort). Again I've tried hard to avoid that being dull, leading to me hitting the local Asian supermarket, and looking out for what's good in Morrison's, Waitrose and Sainsbury's.
Today, for example, we had cherries, kiwi, blueberries, and golden plums (£1 for a punnet of eight or ten), with a squeeze of perfumed Egyptian lime, tiny little fruits that lift flavours even more than ordinary lemons do. Tuesday we had dragon fruit and guava with some more workaday stuff. I love guava, in spite of ripe ones smelling like men's locker room sweat. The local Chinese shop had durian in, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and fruit that smells like poo is one good place.
What is austerity in this? Eating fruit is not expensive. It takes a bit of effort to seek things out, but Morrison's wonky blueberries that contributed to two for the three of our breakfasts cost 84p. I defy anybody to explain how they were wonky too. Wonky kiwis (maybe 1.358mm shorter than non-wonky?) I think were 70p for a pack of eight. I use one sliced into six to add luminous green to the plate. Little oranges another bargain; likewise grapefruit reaching its sell-by-date and no different to full price ones in feel or as it turned out flavour for 25p. I buy full price stuff too, and dragon fruit are not cheap, but overall breakfasts for the week don't break the bank.
It's cheering to see something so lovely on the morning platter. Great for the body too, with loads of fibre (kiwis for me qualify as superfoods, though shops aren't allowed to use that word now) and vitamin C, and stuff that is good for the eyes but I can't spell. Blueberries are supposed to help the memory, per clinical tests, but they taste fab with lemon or lime on them. Cherries have some special phytonutrients that you don't find in many other foods. It won't harm your - what a very British word - regularity either.
Reading Michael Moseley's Clever Gut Diet book - he is to diet and health what HFW is to ethical food - as part of the current drive to lose a bit of weight one tip was to help your biome's diversity by eating 30 different fruits and vegetables in a week. We did that in two days, and after three are on 42 and heading ever onward. Tinned stuff in there for pennies; our own veg still (PSB, swiss chard, sprouting seeds, kale and leaks at present, we had too the last of our stored squash on Monday and some of our own stored garlic, along with loads of herbs that I haven't counted in the total); wonky or (per Sainsbury's) greengrocers' F&V are super cheap. And some fruits are reduced in price (like cheese) when they are approaching ripeness.
[Standing up] I am not Spartacus. Nor am I vegetarian. Friday's evening meal will be steak for SC and me, fish for the DL. But for our own good, and with more than a nod at helping the only planet we have to live on, and because they are so tasty, F&V make up the bulk of our nutrition. If that sounds poncey, my apologies. Lunch today will be baked beans on toast. Demotic and delicious.
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