Spinach and Feta Frittata

Ingredients

• 200g of fresh tomatoes 
• 1 garlic clove chopped
• tablespoon of Coconut butter
• 250g bag of spinach
• 6 large organic eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 100g feta cheese
• 2 tablespoons of  grated parmesan
• to taste salt & pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 180c or 170 if its a fan oven
2. Chop the tomatoes, put them in a non stick frying pan with a little coconut butter, the chopped garlic, and sprinkle a little salt and pepper. Turn the heat on to medium-high and saute add the spinach and cook until its wilted.
3. Grease a pie dish with the remaining coconut butter.
4. Spread the spinach and tomatoes on the bottom of the pie dish, then crumble half the feta over the top.
5. In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs until smooth.
6. Add the milk, Parmesan, and a small sprinkle of pepper whisk together.Pour this mixture into the pie dish over the spinach, tomatoes and feta.
7. Sprinkle the remaining feta cheese over top.
8. Place the frittata into the preheated oven and bake until it is golden brown on top and the center is solid. Every oven is different but this should take between 45 minutes and an hour. Slice and serve! 

Health Benefits

Spinach contains phyto chemicals which have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous. It also contains a wide range of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C and folate, manganese, magnesium, iron and vitamin B2.

Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin A, B,C, folate, they help to reduce inflammation in the digestive tract and help dissolve urea preventing the formation of uric acid crystals! In 2006 an article published in the  "European Journal of Clinical Nutrition" found that eating cooked tomatoes with a small amount of food that contains fat, such as olive oil or cheese helps your body absorb the lycopene and antioxidants in cooked tomatoes.

Garlic is a anti-coagulant and it also helps to reduce cholesterol levels in the blood, It also has anti bacterial and anti fungal properties.

Eggs yolks are a dietary sources of the B-complex vitamin choline, which is associated with better neurological function and reduced inflammation

Is your new years resolution to lose weight? If so Read on!

It’s that time of year again, when we look back at the past year and re-evaluate our life - what we have done or not done, we resolve to make changes and set goals for the coming year. Today I’m going to be talking to those of you who have weight loss related goals. So many people start of the new year full of excitement and anticipation of how fast they can get rid of the unwanted weight they have been carrying or maybe have recently gained. January is the time when gym memberships go up, health DVD can seem to fly off shop shelves and new diets seem to pop out of everywhere. How many times have you heard people say “Have you tried this 9 day detox? Sugar detox? Meal replacements? No carbs? No fat”? And so on and on I’m sure that when people set their resolution to lose weight, its not really truly about weight, what they really want is to be happy in their body, to feel full of energy to be able to eat tasty food and not food that seem like it’s punishment. I’m here today to tell you that is entirely possible.

You don’t need to live on juices for a month or stop eating carbohydrates or even cut fat from your diet, what you need is healthy sustainable advice based on REAL FOOD!! Yes you can have a bacon sandwich in the morning and lose weight you can even have a slice of pizza and a chocolate now and again too, food is a pleasure and should be enjoyed. Healthy food that is nourishing for the body will get you to your goal and the most importantly help remain that faster than any ‘weight loss diet’ will, be it meal replacements, juicing, patches, pill, potions. I only wish I could teach you all just simply HOW to eat for good health and pleasure, as it seems we have all lost the knowledge. We need to stop dieting and learn how to eat to be healthy and very often the side effect of being healthy is a healthy weight. By this I mean if you are over weight you will naturally find that the excess pounds fall off and if you are under weight, when you adopt a nourishing healthy diet your body will steadily increase to a healthy level. Now please do not interpret what I am saying as all those over or under weight aren’t healthy that is not my opinion at all. All I am saying is health should be the focus of any change in diet not weight. I could go on about why we don’t need special detox diets. I think sometimes we get so caught up in what we weigh we forget that weight really isn’t the most important factor at all.

So if your new years resolution is to lose weight, why not rephrase it to gain health instead? Weight loss isn’t a true reflection of all that much to be honest, as you can weigh less from muscle wastage, dehydration, carb depletion and fasting/starving. If your goal is to lose unwanted body fat that weight shouldn’t be your focal point. So many clients I see come to me and fixated on weight when how you feel how you look and your health is the true indication of health. I have a client who lost two dress sizes before Christmas she was seeing me once a week and a personal trainer three times a week, after the second week I had to stop weighing her because she was becoming very disheartened. Her weight you see didn’t change in the whole six weeks I saw her, and had she been focusing only on her weight she may have become disheartened and stopped. Yet at the end of the six weeks she was a comfortable size 12 not an uncomfortable size 16 and her body fat was now a healthy level. Instead of focusing on weight we focused on cravings, energy levels, skin and mood. So if fat loss is you aim, don’t fall pray to the marketing gimmicks - the fast quick fix ‘diets’ that don’t put your health first. Focus on eating REAL FOOD!! DON’T GIVE UP FAT – just eat them from nutritious sources, and yes that even includes a little bit of butter! Don’t shun carbohydrates – just pick slow releasing natural unrefined sources such as:- oats, sweet potatoes, basmarti rice, vegetables in abundance and low glycemic load fruit. Eat adequate protein with every meal. Go organic if money allows and buy grass fed beef as opposed to grain fed. If you would like a months diet plan to get you of to a good start for 7 days only you can have a one to one consultation and a one months diet plan for the reduce price of £50. Normal price is £75 for a consultation and a one week plan! Call 07780007361 to book your appointment or email Kirsten@thefoodremedy.co.uk

I'm desperate to lose weigh please help!

I’m desperate to lose weight for the summer but can’t seem to stick to any diet for long. Since January I’ve tried herbal life, lighter life and diet chef, but can’t seem to stick to them for longer than a few weeks at the most, what is the best diet advice? We seem to be bombarded with the latest diet, the fastest way to lose weight or how some celebrity lost a stone or two. In reality we seem to have lost touch with the joy of eating, we have forgotten what normal healthy food is and have bought into the concept that we need man made food products or supplements. There is no quick fix, no magic pill for getting the body of your dreams, but that doesn’t mean that you have to starve to get there nor should it be a hard drawn out process either. Your body was made to be healthy. As a society we seem to have been brainwashed by the media and clever marketing from food companies and we no longer seem to know what is good for us anymore. Margarine sales are a prime example of this as is the rise of fat free yet high sugar products, all made to make money and clever marketing makes us believe we are doing the best for our health, however the truth is we are now fatter and unhealthier than ever before. The biggest myth is that you need to eat less to lose fat. Many of the clients I see are surprised how much they can eat and still lose excess fat. Eat fewer calories and you will lose weight, this is a distorted. A calorie is a calorie right?! The theory goes like this; in order to lose weight we must eat less, this creates a calorie defect which creates weight loss. Well the truth isn’t quite as simple as this not all food is digested in the same way, so whilst a calorie is a calorie how that calorie is absorbed once in the body is different dependent on what type of food the calorie came from. The quality of where the calories come from is really important too. One study conducted by Pawlak D et al 2004, fed two groups of rats diets with identical nutrients, except for the type of carbohydrates, one group had high-GL the other had Low-GI. The animals were fed in a controlled way to maintain the same mean bodyweight for 18 weeks. At the end of the 18 weeks the rats on the lower GL diets had lower rates of body fat and higher amounts of lean muscle mass compared with the rats on the high GL diet. Further research has also shown similar results in mice. Mice on the high-GI diet had almost twice the body fat of those on the low-GI diet after 9 weeks. This shows that the type of food you eat is very important. You don’t need to remove carbohydrates completely nor do you need to eat a low calorie, fat free diet. What you need to learn is how to eat in a way that helps provide your body with enough energy and nutrients but also helps you lose excess fat. It may sound very complicated but it’s easier that it sounds. The most beneficial thing anyone can do to gain health and lose excess weight, is too shift the focus from weight loss altogether and focus on eating real food, then the weight will take care of itself. By real food I mean food that hasn't been tampered with, vegetables, fruit, fish, meat, nuts, rice, butter ETC. Yes even butter has benefits when eaten as part of a healthy balanced diet.

A days eating could look something like this:-

Breakfast - Poached eggs on whole grain toast spread with a little butter Snack - Apple and 10 almonds Lunch -Chicken pesto and salad wrap Live natural yogurt with fresh or frozen berries Dinner - Salmon with new baby potatoes served with green vegetables If you would like more advice or a tailor made diet, please contact me on Kirsten@thefoodremedy.co.uk or on 07780007361 Also vist www.thefoodremedy.co.uk for recipes and healthy food ideas