Food for thought

We live in a society where people believe ‘vegetarian’ is an old Indigenous word for ‘bad hunter’, and despite watching an absurd number of cooking shows on TV they’re consuming record copious amounts of junk food.
They blame busy lifestyles and an alarmingly low budget for being unable to buy healthy food for their family, yet it is quicker to whip up a vitamin-enriched soup than saying “size-me-up” at a McDonald’s drive-thru that not only serves something that some rate as awful, but is more expensive.
But behold, these souls aren’t about to cop the wrath of the bean gods. In fact, Lelita Baldock, who is a nutritionist, understands why some people may not eat healthy food.
Lelita believes some young people have not grown up in an environment of eating healthy, cost-effective meals, or been taught how to put together a healthy meal. “No one is being judgemental here; it is simply part of our life, but it can change,” she said.
“There are older people who also don’t know what to cook or they have simply grown tired of cooking so easy take-away meals or pre-meals high in sodium become their best option. The problem is learning how to scale it as well; meals that suit for when you are older and not as hungry.”
Ringing true to Lelita are the words of a doctor who told American actor/director Orson Welles: “Stop throwing intimate dinners for four unless there are three other people.”
“Generally, most of us eat too much,” Lelita said. “People have a misconstrued vision of how much food they actually need, and a lot of it makes us hungrier… the insulin in the white flour products or sugar makes us want to reach for more. You end up eating calories and your body tries to compensate for those missing nutrients.
“We want to eat more in winter to give us more insulation so we crave for richer foods. We want the curries, the roast potatoes and those richer kinds of things, and if we are not watching how much of them we eat we can put on weight.
“In summer, when it is warm, we are more likely to reach for fruit or salad which are harder to over-eat.”
Lelita, of Goolwa South, is the creator of the Easy Sunday Diet program, and does one-on-one consults. She also prepares meal concepts, and presents an online plan which deals specifically with healthy eating and maintaining healthy weight for people over a 13-week period. And, for the record, she is an omnivore.
Upon the request of a friend, Lelita created a healthy food program for a family of four on a budget of $90 per fortnight. Australian Healthy Eating Standards needed to be met by covering the key essentials – two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables daily, plus enough iron, calcium, Omega3, whole grains/fibre, and protein. She finished 48 cents over budget, but we won’t be too harsh.
Lelita’s fortnightly menu is on the next page, and the recipes may be found at www.easysundaydiet.com.au/blog/healthy-eating-90-fortnight
“The biggest issue facing the average household is food variety, but I can understand the reasons,” Lelita said. “There are budget issues feeding two adults and two or three children so you tend to reach for the bulk or plainer foods and not have that access to a variety of different colours of vegetables and fruits.
“People are time poor so they go for the convenient options; it’s understandable, but it is something that we can work around.
“As a result of this trend we have a lot of energy but not the nutrients. The budget factor leads to buying quick noodles because people feel they don’t have the money to make choices, and that comes down to food education; they go for what they know.
“It seems an easier option than making a soup for example, but actually it doesn’t take much time to make a soup – you just need to know what you are doing or having the confidence to give it a go.
“We can walk into Foodland and whole cauliflowers are on special for a $1.20, and fantastic we say, but what do we do with cauliflower? Some may think microwave it and have it as a side vegetable, but that’s a lot left over.
“You need to be confident to put the remaining cauliflower in a stir fry or make a cauliflower soup or cauliflower rice, and all of a sudden that $1.20 has gone a long way.
“No one should feel inadequate about making something simple from the leftovers because a lot of people have never been made to feel confident in the kitchen or had all this explained to them.”
Lelita, and husband Ryan, who created Mesuva, a brilliant website design and development business, both work at home, and without trying found themselves both eating less meat because they enjoyed the other options available so much.
“I used to be schoolteacher, and personally I feel that a lot of what we are learning when it comes to nutrition does come from the home,” Lelita said. “It is what you are exposed to as a child, but I feel schools can play a bigger role.
“Healthy eating is not something that all parents know about so schools are a good catch for that because they can impart to children to get across to society.
“They do healthy eating programs at Goolwa Primary, and no doubt at other schools where they make a focus for children on what makes a healthy meal, but ultimately our biggest influence is what we grow up with at home and repeat that naturally.
“Australia has an incredible amount of cooking shows and there are far more recipe books than ever, but research suggests people are buying takeaway food at a greater rate. The thing is, those TV shows don’t always make cooking look like fun; there is the time pressure, people get judged and play on the contestants’ emotions and they fail. It’s entertaining, but it brings that fear to cooking, and the average person may feel inadequate because they think, hey, that person is a better cook than me and they don’t know how to cook something.
“There have also been some excellent cooking shows, like a few years ago when Jamie Oliver was working with disadvantaged communities in England. He was specifically helping them by teaching five people who then had to go off and teach another five and so on. How positive is that; exploring being in the average kitchen and showing how to make a bulk bolognese at an affordable price? As a community we need to engage more people in something like this.”
Lelita praised the program at the Goolwa Children’s Centre, which is supported by a local Cittaslow program that delivers fresh fruit for the children through sponsorship by the Goolwa & District Community Bendigo Bank, and another fabulous concept developed by the Alexandrina Council through its OPAL program.
This program involves parents coming in and being presented with some healthy lunch box and dinner ideas. They also receive recipes and get to have a go at cooking the recipe there and take it home for the family meal.
“It becomes a fun, social inter-action as well,” Lelita said. “We are social creatures, and if we support each other we are more likely to achieve; these are fantastic programs, and a way for society to move forward.
“There are more dads now taking their turn to cook the family meal, and that’s a great thing for the children to observe.”
Obviously, being a nutritionist Lelita whips-up some fabulous healthy meals, and she and Ryan have their favourites that also just happen to fit into any budget.
“Personally, I like a pasta beef and lentils dish (recipe on page 12),” Lelita said. “It’s affordable and even cheap pasta is high in protein so you are getting that nutrition.
“Your iron is your red meats and things like that, but again, they can be quite expensive. What I find works quite well is to halve the amounts of, say beef mince, and add a can of lentils with it because lentils are high in iron and protein. You are making that meal go further – two dishes per week – and you are still getting your iron and protein.
“I used to be one of these people who always thought on the day what to have for tea, especially when I was a teacher, but now I plan the week before. I think about what I would feel like having this week… a fish serve one night for my Omega 3s, a couple of things with red meat or lentils for my iron, and everything else is about my white fish, chicken or beans and I plan that out and buy it all that way.
“There is nothing wrong with buying day-by-day – we can lead busy lives – but what does help is having a set in your mind of the meals that you like and knowing how you can ultimately make them healthy.”
When asked whether there was one piece of advice for the average home cook, Lelita said not to be overawed by the television shows.
“You don’t need to be a MasterChef cook,” she said. “Don’t judge yourself or feel inadequate; just cook something simple that’s healthy.
“There is nothing wrong with not cooking a perfect meal; you will do better the next time and everything will be fine. Believe that no one is too young or too old to learn how to cook.”
Good hunting also helps.