Good health made pleasurable and practical with personalised advice from a multi-award winning Registered Clinical Nutritionist, Author, Educator and Speaker. Let Maria help you address ALL your health concerns - from large to small.
GOOD HEALTH SOLUTIONS – An Introduction to a Series of 3 Reports
Your Body: An Owner’s Manual
The original meaning of the word doctor was “teacher”.
In times of crisis we can be thankful for the impressive provision of pharmaceuticals and surgery. Healthcare though should focus more on prevention, and simple but effective treatment options wherever possible. Modern research verifies the targeted, yet multi-spectrum ways in which foods can act as medicine. However since natural substances cannot be patented and thus made mega-profitable, there is more commercial interest in heralding how a drug can drop cholesterol levels by 3%, rather than explaining how an everyday food might achieve results of 20%.
• Modern medical research. • Time-honoured traditional practices. • Contemporary convenience.
Scrumptious dairy- and gluten-free fare to enhance your health, pleasure and longevity.
By MARIA MIDDLESTEAD, Reg. Clinical Nutritionist
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Have you been conned by a Soyburban Myth?
Benefit instead from the lessons of history and international research.
What is the secret ingredient to:
• The nation with the greatest longevity?
• The differing lifespans of individuals within that nation?
• Steady blood sugar regulation and easy weight management without restrictive, monotonous diets?
• Lowered risk factors for cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, sub-fertility, PMS, menopausal problems, breast, prostate and many other cancers?
The answer comes packaged in the form of diverse and adaptable convenience foods with over 2,000 years of safe and venerated use: soy products.
But what about the taste? No one blames the likes of pasta and potatoes for being bland. That very quality lets them successfully showcase a myriad of flavours, colours and textures. The same is true of soy – a playful cook’s best friend.
Let this book help you discover a new world of innovative yet simple recipes, tested by and designed for the tofu-shy. By using such products as soy-based yoghurt, cream cheese, milk and strategically incorporated tofu you can seamlessly update household favourites without fellow diners even noticing the difference. Try Salmon and Red Pepper Dip followed by Courgette and Walnut Fritters, Spanish Paprika Pasta, and Smoky Summer Salad with Mango Dressing.Save room though for a gasp-eliciting Mocha Cherry Gateau. While catering to your immediate visual and sensual pleasures, such dishes also promote the long-term good health and vitality essential for life’s sustained enjoyment.
From their hormone-balancing isoflavones, a critical ratio of amino acids that stimulates metabolic efficiency, key antioxidants to discourage abnormal cell growth, hard to obtain fatty acids critical to routing the inflammatory symptoms of most diseases, to their unusually advantageous proportion of calcium to magnesium essential in the right ratio for healthy sleep, moods, hearts and bones – soy brings an impressive menu of physiological and culinary benefits to your table.
While superbly advantageous in their own right, soy products also provide an easy substitution for modern, highly manipulated dairy products. By minimising your dairy intake you can limit its contribution as: the # 1 dietary source of adverse endocrine disruptors (linked to the growing incidence of hormonal problems and sub-fertility for both men and women); the # 1 most likely food sensitivity in New Zealand; an inflammatory protein source that respected scientific studies associate with the development of diabetes; and a poorly absorbed calcium content that can encourage osteoporosis.
Enjoy Maria’s latest e-book, which can only be purchased from this site.
One diet cannot possibly fit all. Just as people are varied in shape, size and personality, they also have diverse biochemistry. Discovering your individual metabolic and personality type can provide the easiest path to maximum health and pleasure. A customised dietary plan can at last free you from the frustrations of weight problems, food cravings and erratic energy levels.
Visit the food pyramids but don’t try to live there!
Living well and eating well are not simply reliant on good advice; equally important to success are tailored psychological strategies. The Shape Diet contains simple, innovative methods for identifying self-sabotage and inner guidance. Also outlined are the contrasting key approaches that men and women require to initiate and sustain change in all areas of health.
Synthesising scientific, psychological, spiritual and practical approaches, The Shape Dietwill help you enjoy great food and great health.
• Discover the distinct foods, strategies and stressors for your metabolic body-type.
• Understand and access governing brain/body links.
• Enjoy sustained and pleasurable health and weight management.
• Identify and manage food sensitivities.
• Benefit from research and history-ratified nutrition information made time-savvy and tasty.
• Learn the 5 core concepts to all cooking: your liberating key to easy and endless variety.
• Increase your dining satisfaction with 100 pages of recipes for international favourites that let you choose your preferred animal or plant protein options, and which are dairy- and gluten-free.
• How to prevent mid-morning or mid-afternoon ‘slumps’, and maintain optimal mental and physical performance.
• The unsung dietary hero that is more significant than protein – or sugar – in how it affects your energy levels.
• The most therapeutic recipe developed in my 35 years of practice. This has transformed the lives of thousands of clients and readers, plus it’s tasty and inexpensive. It takes less than 10 minutes to prepare, was demonstrated on national television to popular reception, and is the #1 dietary way to assist the following conditions:
• The inexpensive food in every supermarket that can create the ultimate barrier to invaders. How – and the important issue of when – to use it.
• The two most likely food intolerances with chronic fungal and yeast infections. And how undiagnosed food sensitivities can be the real culprit behind frequent infections of all kinds.
• Why iron supplements and calcium-enriched milks can be dangerous.
• How bloating, and tiredness after eating can lower your resistance to invaders – why these symptoms occur and the easy solution.
• How one quick and delicious meal per day can diminish high cholesterol; improve arterial and liver function; protect the brain from cognitive decline; and prevent insulin-linked fatigue, obesity and high blood fats.
• The 2 popular snack foods that provide the best cardiovascular health insurance.
• The benefits of all fat types – including saturated – and the best ones to eat for supple arteries, good circulation, and peak mental function.
• The surprising news about muesli bars and muffins, eggs and coconut cream, low-fat milks and cosmetics.
Serves 3-4 (No gluten, dairy; with options for vegans and no nightshades)
It doesn’t get much easier than this: basically, throw everything into a pot and simmer. The final addition of lemon and parsley beautifully refreshes, lifts the colour and provides punch. This has a richer flavour with chicken stock, but can be done vegan with top quality vegetable stock (try a little non-traditional flaky yeast or dark miso* for the umami flavour or savouriness that meat provides). The soup is heartier with soaked green lentils, but you could use red lentils which require no soaking. Adding salt after legumes are cooked helps them cook faster. A stick/immersion blender is easiest to use right in the saucepan.
(Low salicylates; no gluten, dairy, cane sugar, citrus or soy)
Good food should please us first by its aesthetics. It should enchant by appearance, aroma and expectation. This stimulates the first phase of digestion termed cephalic – or having to do with the brain. Thinking about and seeing food can call forth supportive enzymes and other digestive juices, hormones and neurotransmitters released to prime us for pleasure, fuel and performance. It is one reason why mindless grabbing and grazing feels less satisfying. Then we might overeat to try and find the fulfilment that the process lacked.
(No gluten, dairy, yeast, soy, legumes, cane sugar, citrus or nightshades; with low starch/FODMAPS option)
Wonderfully colourful and moist, this slices beautifully and stores well. Serve as is or spread with avocado. Risen with baking powder, not yeast, this is similar in texture to banana bread. Or bake in paper lined muffin cups (serve with soup, salad or in lunch boxes), as tiny muffins for finger food, or in a 20 cm (8″) square pan and served as a slice. These options will need less baking time. All can be frozen and later toasted or reheated.
Serves 3-4 (No dairy; with options for gluten, grain and nightshades)
Light and more-ish with subtle, smoky punch. All the ingredients mentioned are now available in supermarkets. Ceres is a good organic brand that produces the sesame oil, mirin (rice wine used in cooking) and rice vinegar. Check the label on the sweet soy sauce (kecap manis): some contain wheat; some use palm sugar* or cane sugar. Or make your own combination of tamari* and palm sugar.
