Now that we can turn the lights out for one hour a year, are we ready to skip eating meat for one day a week as well? It's not like we haven't been told that one non-meat day a week can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. David Suzuki, in Australia to promote his new book Suzuki's Green Guide said so a few days ago. Last year Paul McCartney was encouraging the British to drop meat from the menu once a week for the planet's health, while the chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, said one meat free day a week would be an effective way to tackle climate change. As we all know by now, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions .
But while urgings to cut meat consumption for the planet's sake aren't new, perhaps what's missing is more practical guidance on how to do it. It's one thing to screw in an energy-efficient light bulb now and again, but for some people creating a meal minus meat as its centrepiece is a bigger step. It's partly about cooking skills, but not entirely. It's also about tweaking attitudes in a country where an image of a dinner plate dominated by meat or chicken is still the norm, and where the word meatless - in many minds at least - somehow equals deprivation.
When I first began cooking non-meat meals years ago it had nothing to do with the environment or ethics, but (another) financial crisis - in a long running journalist's strike there was an urgent need to drastically trim the family budget. It was then that I discovered what great dishes you could make from foods like split peas and white beans, or by combining grains with nuts. From that time on I never saw a meatless meal as going without - just eating different food with its own appeal.
A few things to think about:
-A meat-free meal doesn't mean being nutrient deprived. There's no rule that says you need meat every day - the current Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults recommend a small (teensy, in fact) 65g-100g of cooked meat three or four times a week.
-If you can't imagine a meal without meat - at least not yet - try reducing the amount of meat you eat at each meal by adding extra veg. Or try replacing some of the meat with legumes like canned red kidney beans or black beans added to chili, or canned lentils added to a pasta sauce or casseroles (and think of the money you'll save).
-Reducing meat consumption isn't so much about doing without as eating more of something else. it's a great opportunity to broaden your mix of plant foods - and nutrients - and to experiment. The cuisines of Greece, Italy, India and the Middle East are great sources of dishes based on legumes and grains.
Cooler autumn days are a great time to try your hand at some meatless mains and there are plenty of good websites to browse for inspiration like the BBC Good Food site - check out this vegetable and cashew biryani - or Meatless Monday's dinner recipe archive on the Johns Hopkins University site.
Have concerns about the environment persuaded you to eat less meat?
When it comes to cake, the one you bake yourself is likely to be better for you - you can skip the additives and have control over the ingredients. A cake made with wholemeal flour, less sugar, a healthier fat - and minus layers of icing or cream cheese frosting - packs more nutrients, more fibre and generally fewer kilojoules.
So what happens if you want to do a recipe makeover, replacing stated ingredients like white flour with wholemeal, or using olive oil instead of margarine or butter? That's fine - as long as you're not expecting the featherweight texture of sponge cake, says Judy Davie, author of the food labelling guide Read the Label. But if you're happier with a heavier textured cake, using less sugar and less refined ingredients will produce a more nutritious, healthier cake, she says. Here's what you do.
If you want to reduce the sugar in a recipe "Just be aware that heat applied to sugar combined with fat from butter or oil is one of the things that helps a cake or muffin rise, so if you reduce the sugar the end result may not rise as much, " says Davie. "Leaving out some of the sugar means that you also need to replace it with something else, so add the equivalent amount of another dry ingredient - dried fruit, for instance, or some extra flour or oatmeal to add extra fibre. "
If you want a healthier flour "Use either wholemeal flour or half white and half wholemeal flour. Semolina flour is good too because it's low GI, " she suggests. " It's also worth trying spelt flour - again it might not rise as much but it's tastier and has a denser texture. Spelt is also better for anyone who's mildly intolerant of wheat or gluten - though not someone diagnosed with coeliac disease. For anyone who can't eat wheat, rice or potato flours are two options, but both have a high GI - for an occasional treat it's better to use recipes with ground almonds rather than gluten free flour."
If you want a healthier fat When it comes to the type of fat, Davie believes butter is okay sometimes - but not too often.
"I prefer to use recipes that use oil, and use olive oil, macadamia oil and sometimes grape seed oil," she says. "With muffins I sometimes use a combination of low fat natural yoghurt or buttermilk with oil in muffins which also works well. In the last recipe I used, I reduced the oil from 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup milk to 1/4 cup oil and 3/4 cup low fat yoghurt. Buttermilk would be fine in place of milk - just add more to ensure all the ingredients are combined."
Tell us your tips for healthier baking
Photo: iamchanelle under the terms of a Creative Commons Licence.
Unless you count the moment George Bush ate a raw corn cob at a campaign stop in 2004, the White House hasn't done much in the way of vegie promotion. But Michelle Obama might change all that. It's only six months ago that some media stories speculated that the presence of rocket in his diet might cost Barack Obama votes among dedicated burgerphiles. But now Mrs Obama - safe in the White House despite the rocket attack -is urging Americans to feed their families with fresh, unprocessed and locally grown food, The New York Times reported last week.
Michelle Obama's comments, made at a visit to Miriam's Kitchen , a non-profit organisation in Washington that provides healthy, home made breakfasts based on fresh ingredients for homeless people, don't sound like a one off event either. She's already spoken out in favour of community gardens and, according to the New York Times , White House officials say healthy living is on Mrs Obama's agenda. If they're right it's great news. If anything needs widespread promotion by someone with influence and huge popular appeal, it's a healthier way of eating which so often has an image of (and you can take your pick here) hippie, boring, worthy and generally uncool.
Healthy eating badly needs some heroes - people who are prepared to stand up for the idea of eating more fresh, unprocessed food. It's not that we don't already have advocates for eating better. There's no shortage of doctors and dietitians telling us how to eat healthier, but they don't have quite the same star billing that can capture popular attention as compellingly as someone like Michelle Obama. At a time when so much media attention focuses on famous women who are either gaining, or losing, too many kilos, or following daft diets, it's great to see another famous - and healthy looking woman - pushing a smarter way of eating.
Why is it so uncool to eat healthy?
So where did the idea of an evening curfew on eating carbs come from? As weight loss advice, it's been around for almost a decade - and making regular appearances in readers' comments on this blog. The actual deadline for no carbs to pass the lips seems to vary. Sometimes it's no carbs after 5pm, or sometimes 6pm or 7pm, depending on who's dispensing the advice. Either way it's a total myth, insists Trent Watson, conjoint senior lecturer in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Newcastle and spokesperson for the Dietitians' Association of Australia . What really counts with weight loss is the balance of kilojoules consumed and burned throughout the day, he says. In other words, if you eat more than you burn, you'll gain weight, but the type of food you eat and when you eat it makes no difference.
"Take the example of a man who needs about 10,000 kilojoules to stay at a healthy weight. If he regularly eats 9000 kilojoules during the day and then in the evening eats 2000 kilojoules of carbs, then he'll gain weight. But it's because of the extra kilojoules not the carbs - the same thing would happen if the kilojoules came from protein, fat - or alcohol," Watson explains.
What about the theory that eating most of your food intake in the evening contributes to weight gain because we're usually less active at this time? Again, says Watson, research has shown time of day isn't an issue - what counts is the total kilojoules consumed between waking and sleeping. It's a similar story with the idea that eating six small meals a day is more helpful for weight loss than three larger meals a day.
"Studies comparing the two styles of eating have found it makes no difference," says Watson."Although personally, I think eating more frequently makes sense because you make more rational decisions about what to eat when you're not desperate with hunger," he adds.
But what about the not uncommon problem of overeating in the evenings? Boredom - or even just watching TV - can be cues for serial snacking at night. Besides the extra kilojoule load, too much extra food at day's end can make you feel less like breakfast the next day - and more likely to eat the wrong kind of snack later in the morning.
If you're trying to lose weight and struggling with non -hungry eating at night, try to figure out what's driving the urge to eat. If it's boredom snacking, find something that keeps you occupied - do a yoga class, learn something new, walk the dog, phone a friend. If over-grazing in front of TV has become a habit, then try to change it - some research suggests that TV viewing can eventually become a cue that encourages us to eat.
Do you find it easy to overeat at night?
Lately, I've spent some evenings watching the huffing and puffing at Camp Biggest Loser and wondering how useful Channel Ten's The Biggest Loser program is for anyone who wants to lose weight. What's encouraging about this series is that it shows it's possible to trim down to a healthier size even when you're very overweight - and that you don't need the body of a whippet to work out at a really intense level. And while I'm not sure about the voyeuristic aspects of making people reveal so much spare flesh when they step on the scales for the weekly weigh-in, it's inspiring to see the difference that the right exercise can make to a human body as the weeks go by.
But it's also the weekly weigh-ins that bother me. I know it's a contest and someone has to win - that's the whole point -but I think TV weigh-ins can send the wrong message. One is the implication that if you've lost less weight than anyone else that week then you've somehow failed. Weight loss is incredibly variable and different people lose weight at different rates, even when they're following the same program. Men also tend to lose weight faster than women. Some people on TBL, of course, are losing huge amounts of weight - as much as eight kilos in a week. But while this might be reality TV - that's an unrealistic amount of weight to lose in a single week.
In an interview I did recently with obesity researcher Dr Amanda Sainsbury- Salis of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, she made the point that people need to accept that weight loss is typically slow, not fast, and if you lose six to 12 kilos in a year, you're doing well. That's not to say I think that shedding eight kilos a week from a very overweight body is bad. As long as it's fat - and not muscle you lose - that's great, especially if you keep it off. But to anyone watching who's also trying hard to lose weight - and losing one kilo a month - it does make the bar seem very high.
But then the weight loss environment the contestants operate in is pretty unreal too. It's one thing to lose weight when you're locked away at Camp Biggest Loser with a couple of personal trainers on your case - but something else when you're working full time in a sedentary job, and raising a family too. Still, the program does try to educate its audience with tips on choosing healthier, leaner food, and there are some good weight loss tips in the Biggest Loser website's healthy living section - in fact it would be good to see the program devote more time to info like this, rather than on manufacturing melodrama, but that's just me.
What else do I like? The fact that the program also shows that for many people, being very overweight isn't just a physical burden but an emotional one too. It's also good to see that one of the program's sponsors is a bread manufacturer (yes, you can eat good bread and still lose weight). But what baffles me is that another sponsor is a company spruiking a weight loss supplement touted as 'the 'easy way to lose weight' - because if there's one message WBL does get across it's that weight loss isn't easy.
The Biggest Loser - inspiring or not? What do you think?