Ruth Harvie
One of my favourite recipes is this chocolate brownie recipe from healthyfood.co.nz which is made without butter and uses unsweetened apple sauce instead of sugar. It allows me to over-indulge in the chocolate flavour and avoid the added richness of butter.
However, for many people this ‘healthy’ version of a brownie is anything but healthy. It may cause diarrhoea, farting, pain, bloating and stomach gurgling. This is because the recipe is high in short-chain carbohydrates known as FODMAPs (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols) which are poorly absorbed by about fifteen percent of the population. [Read more…] about How to bake a healthy chocolate brownie
When you think of hunger, chances are you do not summon up an image of a clothed, housed and employed individual. Yet in New Zealand there are accounts of children arriving for their morning classes without having eaten breakfast at home, and people working two jobs but still having to queue for food handouts. The food insecure within this country are not necessarily destitute individuals. They are also those on benefits, the under- or hidden employed, and the underpaid or working poor. In a country that is prosperous, free of conflict and agriculturally self-sustaining, a high level of food security is assumed, but that does not mean that the small pockets of those who remain food insecure should be any less disregarded, especially when the reason behind their insecurity is systemic.
Bone needs an adequate supply of calcium and phosphate to mineralise properly. Failure of this mineral supply (for any reason) results in defects like osteomalacia (impaired mineralisation of the bone matrix) and osteoporosis (overall low bone mass). In children, inadequate mineralisation causes rickets. There are multiple causes of rickets, but the main one is vitamin D deficiency.
My nine year old self heard the doctor’s stern words and took to heart that he was calling me fat. I was an active child and my family mostly ate nutritious foods. But when we ate, we ate a lot.
In my humble suburb there is a chippery. In fact, a more humble chippery couldn’t be found: a simple roughcast building with a slop of paint applied to its walls and only an ‘A’ certificate to reassure customers it’s safe to eat there. It’s nearing lunch time and I’m feeling a mite peckish. The chip man springs to attention behind the counter as if expecting me.
