Lottie Lomme
A cardiologist who is writing a cookbook about healthy eating with her sister. I was curious about that. The cookbook appeared at Publisher Fontaine this fall Beautiful Mediterranean. Healthy fats and sugars and natural products: the Italian menu is also associated with this.
Derivation of the Italian cuisine
At least not at my house. We often eat an extract of what Italian cuisine actually looks like. We eat the pizzas, piadina and pasta (street food and appetizers) as main dishh, simply because I don't have the time to present a three-course meal, because it's tasty (and maybe addictive) and because my kids like it.
Food rich in unhealthy simple sugars, as I learn from Janine Jansen and Annemieke Jansen, the authors of Beautiful Mediterranean. Although we eat few products from packages and bags, especially the large amounts of flour in the aforementioned meals also ensure that I am 5 kilos overweight and that I do not teach my children a healthy lifestyle.
What is healthy eating?
In the introduction of the book you are taken by the hand about carbohydrates, fats and proteins and how you can develop a healthy diet. There is also a medical look at different types of diets. What works and what doesn't work? The mediterranean lifestyle then get off the bus.
I'm finding that I need to cut back on that flour and eat more chickpeas, beans, and lentils for slower carbs. Lots of vegetables of course, and meat and fish. I skip meat, because I'm vegetarian so I throw myself into different recipes with legumes.
It is hard for me to get excited about this healthy food. I notice that there are many barriers. Lentil puree, bean bolognese, broad bean galettes, chickpea blinis, veggie burgers with kidney beans, vegetable lasagna without pasta, salads and the New Year's dish lentils with sausage…
The pictures are nice, but my enthusiasm is shrinking. My Dutch papillae are screaming for more pronounced flavours. Fat, sugar and salt, herbs and spices.
My hurdle
I have 2 children. I can tell one to finish his plate and he does. He likes vegetables and doesn't mind trying something new. At the age of 6 he decided to become a vegetarian and he has no trouble sticking to his own convictions.
The other prefers pancakes with syrup, pizza margherita, piadine with cheese, hamburgers with ketchup, spiced chicken legs and polpette della mamma. Every day she sits at the table for an hour because she has to finish her plate, which is only half successful. Vegetables kill her brother. She picks at the skins of her roasted tomatoes and strings of vegetables horrify her.
Anecdotal evidence for a scientific fact. People differ. I have a great love for simple sugars and have little self-discipline when it comes to food. The cookbooks may be beautiful, scientific facts are not enough for me to change my diet.
I also tried with a psychological app aimed at behavioral change, but that too came to a head with the arrival of corona. I am vulnerable to bad eating habits that I seek out in times of stress.
Celebrating small successes
Fortunately, I have found 2 dishes with slow carbohydrates that I do like thanks to Jansen & Jansen. The veggie burger and a lentil salad. And instead of risotto with beetroot and gorgonzola, I can also use whole wheat basmati, as they suggest.
The taste is still dominated by beets and gorgonzola. I am still working on my refined taste and in the Jansen & Jansen recipe I add some coriander to the veggie burger and some vinegar and provola to the lentil salad. Eating healthy and enjoying the taste of pure lentils and beans, that's for me un po' troppo.
I will, however, also go through my other cookbooks for tasty legume dishes. Those will be on the menu more often if my sensible self is in charge. Instead of the usual flour recipes. And with that I am successful.
Beautiful Mediterranean – Celebrate life and lose weight!
by: Janine Jansen, Annemieke Jansen
256 pages
€ 24,99
Fontaine Publishers, June 2020
ISBN 9789059565500
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