Tuesday 9 February 2010

KitKats and bananas

Apparently you will be relieved to hear that Gordon Brown has stopped eating KitKats! This is with a view to looking 'radiant' for the forthcoming General Election! The mind boggles!

He has in fact replaced them with nine bananas a day. My God! His stomach must be wondering what the hell happened. He's also apparently taken up jogging. Is this all admirable stuff or has the PM lost the plot?

Well stopping eating KitKats is a good thing, IF he was doing it to excess (processed, refined, full of sugar, and unhealthy fats leading to blood sugar spikes, cravings, weight gain, sugar dependency.......... ).


Eating nine bananas is not so good, as this (still) only counts as one portion of fruit a day (you have to be eating different fruit to get the numbers up), and as they are rather carbohydrate heavy and full of fibre they will most probably give him the most terrible stomach ache.

One banana a day is great as part of the five recommended portions of fruit and vegetables for the following reasons :

- they are full of potassium, which we are often lacking in due to the large amounts of sodium we consume (mainly through processed foods).

- they're high in iron to fight anaemia

- they contain fibre which helps keep the body regular

- they are a natural unprocessed food

-they contain vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C

However, nine bananas - could anyone even contemplate eating this number? - is way too many! That's a heck of a lot of fibre for his digestive system to deal with. Likely to result in a very 'dodgy' tummy to say the least. Not sure I'd want to be sitting next to him for too long!

A better way to go would be to ask his staff to leave him a variety of fruit on his fruit bowl, a rainbow of colours/different types would count towards his five a day (some of these should be vegetables actually), and I'd say he'd be more likely to stick to this regime if he was eating a varied diet instead of a banana diet.

Fruit is best consumed with a small portion of protein to balance blood sugar, so maybe he could add nuts and seeds to his fruit snack. Fruit alone, depending on the type chosen can be converted quickly to sugar by the body, and lead to a spike in blood sugar and then a crash. This crash may leave him reaching for the Kitkats once again and he doesn't want to go there that's for sure!!

Think the moral of the story is BALANCE - we all need to eat a wide variety of foods in moderation. Apparently we tend to rely on a list as small as twelve foods as our staple diet. No wonder the body gets bored and doesn't react in the way we wish it would. Time to shake things up and provide a bit of creativity!

Come to me for some cookery sessions and take a look at the fabulously healthy and tasty food options we can create.

The fact that Gordon Brown has taken up jogging is good news, as long as he's building it up gradually - diet goes a long way to making us healthy but exercise as well,really gets things moving along.

I wish him luck, and hope that someone close to him soon recommends that the banana thing should cease. Wonder who came up with the idea in the first place?


RX

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