Lemon & Herb Roasted Cod
A simple, nutritious and delicious meal bursting with natural flavours. As a bonus, it takes less than 30 minutes to make from start to finish so perfect for a mid week dinner.
Ingredients
2 cod fillets/loins
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1½ tbsp lemon juice
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
½ tsp paprika (ideally sweet variety e.g. Hungarian)
Sea salt & black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the cod fillets in a glass oven dish.Pour the olive oil and lemon juice into a cup. Then add the minced garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and paprika. Stir then spoon mixture evenly over the cod fillets.
Bake for approx. 15 minutes until the flesh is opaque in colour.
Serving Suggestion: Serve with basmati rice or baby potatoes, spooning the juices from the pan over. Goes well with steamed asparagus and/or French beans.
Sugar Savvy: How To Read Food Labels
How do I know how much sugar is in a food?
On a food label, sugar comes under the heading of carbohydrates. Usually you will see something like ‘Carbohydrate 29g of which sugars 12g’. This tells us how much of the carbohydrate in the product comes from sugar. Example below:
| Typical Composition | 100g contains | Per biscuit |
| Energy | 1972kJ /469kcal |
305kJ /73kcal |
| Protein | 6.5g | 1.0g |
| Carbohydrates | 73.4g | 11.3g |
| Of which sugars | 23.8g | 4.0g |
A really simple and useful way of calculating sugar content is to remember that one teaspoon of sugar weighs four grams. So, in the example above, one biscuit contains one teaspoon of sugar.
Remember: 1tsp of sugar = 4 grams
What constitutes high/low sugar?
< 5g of sugar per 100g = low sugar content
5g – 15g sugar per 100g = medium sugar content
>15g of sugar per 100g = high sugar content
Note Re. Naturally Occurring Sugars
If you’re trying to calculate sugar content on a food label, it’s important to bear in mind that in many cases, not all of what you see is ‘added sugar’. Many foods such as dairy, fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans etc. contain naturally occurring sugars.
Fruit contains naturally occurring sugars in the form of fructose, so for example, a tub of tomato soup may contain 10g sugar per portion, however, half of this is likely to come from naturally occurring sugars from the tomatoes and the remainder is likely ‘added sugar’ which is added by the manufacturer.
Dairy products like milk, yogurt etc. also contain naturally occurring sugars in the form of lactose which we don’t need to be overly concerned about. When you’re looking at a dairy label, approximately the first 4.7g per 100g/ml will be lactose, the remainder is likely to be added sugar. I recommend you choose dairy products with less than 8g of sugar per 100g.
So, for example, if you picked up a vanilla flavoured yogurt and it contained 15g of sugar per 100g, you’ll know that only about a third of the sugars present are naturally occurring sugars from the milk, the remainder is added sugar.
Are ingredients listed in any particular order?
You can also learn a lot from just observing the order in which ingredients are listed. All ingredients must be listed in descending order by weight, including added water. So, the ingredient listed first is present in the largest amount and the ingredient listed last is present in the least amount.
This is an easy and quick way to judge a food, so for example, if you buy an oat based cereal, the first ingredient listed should really be oats. Avoid foods where sugars are listed near the top or in a variety of ways.
Should I go by ‘per 100g’ or ‘per portion’?
Both are valuable in different ways. Nutrition labels will tell you how much of each nutrient there is in a single serving of the food and in 100g of the food. Looking at the serving size information will tell you what you will get if you eat one portion e.g. one bowl of cereal.
The ‘per 100g’ part lets you compare two foods which may have different serving sizes (e.g. two different types of cereals) to see which has the most sugar per equal weight.
Keeping it real
Whilst it’s important for your to become more familiar with food labels, it’s of equal importance to remember that we need only worry about them in relation to processed foods. Rather than obsess over the nutritional content between one food pack and the other, you’d be better off sticking to natural whole foods as much as possible. That way you know exactly what you’re getting without having to fuss over food labels.
Elsa Jones is a qualified Nutritional Therapist & Author of the No. 1 Bestseller ‘Goodbye Sugar’.
Cutting Down On Sugar – Sugar Swaps
Often clients are surprised when I tell them that reducing their sugar intake doesn’t have to involve huge sacrifices. Most of the time, making simple swaps is all that it takes to considerably lower your sugar intake. I’m a big believer that making small changes to your diet can make a big difference to how you look and feel. It’s the small, healthier choices we make on a day to day basis that add up over time to give us big results.
So, with that in mind I’ve put together 8 examples of simple food swaps you can make in the supermarket to lower your sugar intake. I’ve chosen 8 everyday foods that feature in many people’s trolleys. Quite often there is a huge variation in sugar content even amongst the exact same food. So, it really pays to look at labels when choosing which product to go for.
A really simple and useful way of gauging sugar content is to remember that:
1tsp of sugar = 4 grams
So, for example, if a granola bar contains 16 grams of sugar per serving that’s equivalent to approximately 4 teaspoons of sugar which is rather a lot.
If you want to compare one brand over another, it can useful to look at the sugar content per 100g (as I’ve illustrated below), particularly where the ‘per portion’ weight is different.
Note: It’s important to be aware that dairy, fruit and vegetables will contain a certain amount of naturally occurring sugars which we don’t need to overly concern ourselves about. It’s the additional sugar that has been ‘added’ by the food manufacturer that we are more concerned about. So, for example, the ‘Just Food Tomato Soup’ listed below contains naturally occurring sugars from the tomatoes but contains no added sugar.
8 Food Swaps To Lower Your Sugar Intake.
Elsa Jones is a qualified Nutritional Therapist and Author of the No. 1 Bestseller ‘Goodbye Sugar’.
RTE ‘Sugar Crash’ Documentary: Tips To Reduce Your Sugar Intake
So last night I featured in an RTE 1 documentary called ‘Sugar Crash’ which explored Ireland’s excessive sugar consumption and its effect on our health. It also saw a family of self confessed sugar addicts cut sugar from their diet for 30 days. The documentary was presented very well by Dr. Eva Orsmond and featured many leading experts on the topic including Professor Donal O’Shea, Dr. Robert Lustig, Dr. Aseem Malhotra and Damon Gameau. (Watch the full episode at the end of this blog)
I was delighted to feature as an expert in the documentary. My role was to assess how much sugar the Ryan family from Kilkenny were consuming on a daily basis and to inform them of exactly where the sugar was coming from in their diet. This involved going through their weekly shop as well as their fridge and presses to identify all the forms of sugar they were consuming.
A lot of people have told me they would have loved to have seen more of the Ryan’s journey and how they reduced their sugar intake but unfortunately there just wasn’t time to show all that we filmed in a 1 hour documentary. However, I thought I would use this blog to share some of the revelations that were made and advice given behind the scenes so that more people can learn from and take inspiration from the Ryan’s experience.
So, the World Health Organisation recommends that for optimal health we limit our intake of free sugars to no more than 6 teaspoons per day. The Ryan family were consuming over 3 times more than this on a daily basis. However with a few simple changes and swaps to their diet they managed to make the following reductions and now are well within the WHO recommendations:
Ryan Family Sugar Consumption After ‘Sugar Crash’ Documentary
Dad Ollie
Current Daily Average = 5tsp (was 22tsp)
Mum Louise
Current Daily Average = 5tsp (was 9tsp)
Jamie (age 14)
Current Daily Average = 3tsp (was 17tsp)
Annie (age 4)
Current Daily Average = 3tsp (was 12tsp)
May (age 2)
Current Daily Average = 2tsp (was 5tsp)
As a result Ollie’s cholesterol went from 6.8 to 5.2 in just 30 days and both lost visceral fat (the most dangerous kind) from their bodies. As Louise herself said in the documentary ‘the proof is in the pudding’ and indeed it is!
So, what everyone wants to know now is WHAT they were eating that made their sugar intake so high and what changes they made to reduce their intake. So, here are some insights:
To help the Ryan’s reduce their sugar intake I identified the BIGGEST sources of sugar in their diet which were:
v Chocolate e.g. KitKats, snack bars, chocolate fingers/digestives etc.
v Breakfast cereals e.g. Frozen cereal, cornflakes
v Breakfast Biscuits/Bars
v Capri suns
v Lucozade Sport
v Pancakes
v Nutella
v Breakfast Muffins + Jam
v Cakes e.g. chocolate biscuit cake
v Diet Yogurts
v Petit Filous
v Baked Beans
v Sweets e.g. jellies & marshmallows
v Orange Juice
For 30 days the Ryan’s cut out chocolate, sweets, biscuits and soft drinks from their diet. Instead the kids were given whole fruits for snacks/treats and Louise made home-made low sugar treats for the family such as banana bread, granola bars & tea brack. Louise said she was pleasantly surprised by how well the kids adapted to the changes and they all felt the better for it.
Then, they just made simple swaps to everyday foods. So, for example, they switched to low sugar cereals such as Weetabix and Low Sugar Oat Cheerio’s. They switched to reduced sugar baked beans and low sugar yogurts and cut out the fruit juices and sports drinks. Chocolate/sweets/biscuits etc. were introduced back as occasional treats not everyday foods.
So, you can see that by making small simple changes to your diet, you can dramatically reduce you and your family’s sugar intake. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, small changes can make a big difference as the Ryan Family have illustrated so well. So, now it’s time we all put sugar back where it belongs i.e. something we have as an occasional treat, but not a daily diet staple!
Check back soon for more blog tips/recipes to help you reduce your sugar intake. In the meantime, you can check if your sugar cravings are beyond the norm by taking the following quiz from my book ‘Goodbye Sugar’ http://www.elsajonesnutrition.ie/index.php/goodbye-sugar/are-your-sugar-cravings-out-of-control/
You can also try some recipes from the book http://www.elsajonesnutrition.ie/index.php/goodbye-sugar/goodbye-sugar-recipes/
D5 Creation