Lunch At O'Briens, Wilton

I found myself on the go for most of today, so had to grab a quick lunch in Wilton Shopping Centre. Honestly, it's not a great place for low-carb options; the restaurants offer lots of sandwiches/ bagels/ chips/ lasagnes etc. I decided to try my luck at O'Briens, near the Tesco entrance.

I opted for the turkey club salad and I was pretty happy when it arrived. There was a good amount of bacon and cheese on the plate (vital fats for keeping hunger at bay!), though the turkey was processed and a little rubbery. While it wasn't the most amazing salad I have ever had, it did the job and kept me going for the rest of the day. Worth trying the next time you find yourself starving in Wilton!

Low Carb Ice Cream

I need to ask you a question. Do you like ice cream? I'm sorry, that was stupid of me. Of course you do.

What if I was to tell you that you can eat low carb and still have fabulously flavoured frozen food? Well, I'd like to introduce you to Wheyhey Protein Ice Cream. Nope, it's not April 1st- this is as real as it gets.

I happened on these little pots of nirvana in Holland & Barrett in Wilton Shopping Centre a couple of weeks ago, and I've just recently seen them in the newly refurbished Quay CoOp on Sullivan's Quay. They come in the traditional flavours of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate and are available in 150ml and 500ml size tubs- though I've only seen the small sizes in stores so far. The small tub will set you back just under €3.

So, how do they taste? The vanilla flavour is quite creamy and very like 'real' vanilla dairy ice cream. The strawberry is my least favourite. It's very sweet and my tastebuds just don't like sweet things as much as they used to. However, sweet-toothed people should find it scrumptious.
For me, the chocolate flavour is hands-down the winner. It's more like a dark chocolate than a milk chocolate and it tastes very like Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream.

Here's the best part- there is just 1g of net carbs in a 100ml serving. Yes, you read that correctly. One gram. Compare that to 21g per 100ml of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream- well, there is no comparison.
Here's the full nutritional breakdown, as seen on the Wheyhey website:

Wheyhey ice cream contains xylithol- one of the best sugar substitutes out there. It's considered very safe by the FDA, is suitable for diabetics and has also been shown to help with dental care- so you could say eating this ice cream is good for your teeth!

Might I suggest adding a large dollop of vanilla to a warm slice of my chocolate almond cake? Or a scoop of chocolate wrapped up in a crepe? Or just grab a spoon and dig in!

The website also teases a soon-to-be-available protein ice lolly- hopefully just in time for summer!

You can find Wheyhey on Facebook and Twitter, and their huge following seems to suggest I may be alone in only just discovering this awesome product. Better late than never.

Pssst! While you're on Twitter, why not give Low Carb Cork a follow?

Low Carb, High Rewards

When you tell people you are eating a low carb diet you can get varied reactions- ranging from concern to terror. (And whatever you do, don't mention the word Atkins.) You are asked about blood pressure, about cholesterol and about heart attacks. You fried it in butter? Are you mad? Are you trying to kill yourself?

It can be difficult to satisfactorily answer those questions in the face of years of accepted thought and, to be honest, if you start talking about LDL cholesterol particles then people's eyes glaze over.

Today I watched the documentary Cereal Killers, which was funded via kickstarter, and you can now rent or buy here on Yekra. It follows Donal O'Neill as he deals with his family history of heart disease and his quest to reduce his own risk.

Over the course of 28 days he eats a high-fat, low-carb diet; undergoing periodical medical testing to see what changes have occured in his body. I found it interesting to see other peoples' reactions to his diet, and how many times those people used the word 'balanced'.

I would recommend watching this if you are curious about the low-carb way of life, have any medical issues that worry you, or just want to see what happens when a man eats meat and eggs for 28 days.

This documentary shows that the way we have been trained to think about the food pyramid over the last couple of decades is in serious need of shaking up.

Low Carb Ham Sandwich

The humble ham sandwich. I can't count how many times I took one to school, or made one up in the kitchenette at work. Tart it up with some pickled cucumbers, or keep it simple with a little bit of mayonnaise- the traditional hang sangwich is here to stay.

As a child it was always white sliced bread. Sometimes it would be the legendary red and white striped Fields of Skibbereen loaf. In later years it was usually granary or multiseed bread- thinking I was making the right choices. But if you're trying to lose weight or cut back on your sugar, the 'good' bread isn't much better than the 'bad' bread.

(healthy sub with homecooked ham)

Enter Maria from mariamindbodyhealth.com and her brilliant 'healthified' breadroll and sub recipe. I'll usually get 8 rolls from this recipe, which works out to a little over 3g of carbs per roll (using almond flour). She's got all the nutritional information listed clearly on her page anyway so you can do the math pretty easily.

This recipe uses psyllium husk and so is an easy way to get some fibre into your diet. You can pick this up at the Quay CoOp in the city, or order it from amazon. Make sure it's ground very finely- I'll always use an old coffee grinder to make sure it's as fine as can be.

Yesterday, dinner was a joint effort. S knocked out a quick batch of these rolls and I knew exactly what to put in them.

In the weekly shop S had picked up a lovely 1.8kg ham for a little under a fiver. That size ham gave us two good dinner portions and loads left over for snacking/ tomorrow's lunch. What happened next is adapted from my mum's Christmas Eve ham recipe.

Ingredients

1 Pale Ham Fillet

For The Glaze

Sugar-free syrup

Mustard Powder

Cloves

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/360F.

1. Put the ham fillet in a saucepan of cold water and bring it to the boil. Once it's boiled, turn it down to a medium heat and allow to cook for about an hour (about 40 mins per kilo is a good rule of thumb).

2. Take the ham out of the water and allow to rest.

3. Line a baking tin with tinfoil (makes clean-up easier) and place the ham in the centre. Use a sharp knife to make a few small criss-crosses along the fat/ rind on the ham.

4. In a bowl, combine a tablespoon of sugar-free syrup, two teapoons of mustard powder and mix well. Use a pastry brush to paint the glaze along the fat/ rind sides of the ham.

5. Once you have used up all the glaze, stud some cloves into the crosses you made in the fat. Push them in well. I'll usually use about 15 for a medium size ham.

6. Bake (uncovered) for about 20 minutes, until the glaze has turned a lovely dark colour. It should also smell amazing.

7. Once out of the oven, allow to stand for about 5-10 minutes before carving. Here's what mine came out looking like- you can see the glazed rind at the front of the picture:

To serve, stuff a couple of pieces of that lovely ham in one of those 'healthified' rolls. 

I'll usually have mine with a little bit of French's mustard, some mixed leaves and a small bit of grated cheddar. Fabulous!

Chicken Breast On The Bone With Crispy Skin

When did we all start eating boneless chicken fillets? Was it a product of the 'good times'?

Our lives were so busy and important that buying clean-looking, equal-sized, pink chicken portions just became habit. But what were we missing out on? Moisture. Crispy Skin. Flavour.

While they're undeniably useful for certain types of meals, boneless fillets can also be horribly dry and ridiculously over-priced. Most of the time I'll use chicken on the bone, with skin on.
You can pick up five giant portions for just €7 at O'Sullivan's Poultry in The English Market (near the fountain). These chicken pieces have a wing attached, so if you like the dark meat as well as the breast meat you'll love this. The oil and spices make the skin crispy and delicious, and placing just a small knob of butter under the skin keeps the meat incredibly tender.

just look at that juicy meat under the crispy skin! Mmmmm....

Just one of these will do me when having it with cauliflower mash & veg, though S likes to have two with a smaller amount of veg- you can adjust according to your own particular low-carb cravings.

Ingredients
1-2 chicken breasts per person (on the bone, with skin, and with a wing attached- if possible)
Olive oil
Schwartz Chicken Seasoning (paprika, onion, cayenne & parsley)
Butter (real, not the processed crap)
Salt & black pepper

Cooking Time
About 40 Minutes at 180C/360F

Method
1. Lay the chicken breasts out on a baking tray (deep-fill, if possible), with the skin side up.

2. Working from the bottom to the top part of the breast, use your finger or a knife to gently pull the skin out and create a space between it and the flesh.

3. Push a dice-sized cube of butter in between the skin and the flesh, and pull the skin back down around the breast. Placing the butter under the skin will make the chicken lovely and moist.

4. Using a pastry brush (or your fingers) brush the outside of the skin with a little olive oil.
You'll need about a teaspoon per portion, but I'm mad about this Filippo Berio olive oil spray- one pump per portion is all you need.

5. Sprinkle over with a pinch of salt, some black pepper (I like lots of pepper) and about a teaspoon of Schwarz chicken seasoning per breast.
If you can't get your hands on this type of seasoning, follow this link to see the basic ingredients & easily make up your own version.

5a. Massage the spices into the skin. They'll look something like this:

you can see the knobs of butter just under the skin on each breast

6. Pour a small amount (about 20ml) of cold water into the bottom of the baking tray. This will help to keep the chicken moist, and make life easier for you when you come to make the gravy.

6a.  No need to cover the meat, just pop the tray into a pre-heated oven at 180C/360F degrees for about 40 minutes or until the juices run clear. The skin will be dark, and slightly crispy.

If you have a meat thermometer you can stick the probe into the thickest part of the largest breast and then forget about it until it beeps. This is my favourite way to cook. Make sure to do a spot-check on the other breasts too though- salmonella is a nasty illness.

Side Note: A poorly defrosted chicken curry led to salmonella the day before I went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2005. Six hours on a train and a day in the middle of Phoenix Park at the height of summer probably wasn't the best cure but there was no way I was missing the concert!

7. Once you've taken the meat out of the roasting tray, you can add a little hot water (~100ml) to the juices at the bottom of the tray to make a gravy. Whisk for a couple of minutes over a medium heat until blended.
If your oven tray isn't suitable to sit directly on the hob, scrape the juices into a small saucepan then add the water.

8. If you need to thicken the gravy, add a small amount of low carb-friendly Xanthan Gum while whisking. I'll usually start with a 1/2 teaspoon to begin with, and add more as/if needed.

Serve with Cauliflower Mash and your favourite veggies.

Cholesterol

Okay, I think a lot of what Dr. Oz covers is sensationalist, but a recent interview with doctors Stephen Sinatra and Jonny Bowden about cholesterol made a lot of sense. You can watch it here.

One of the arguments which detractors of low-carb diets continually bring up is that it increases your levels of cholesterol.
The truth is that a low-carb diet increases your healthy (HDL) cholesterol, and high HDL levels are believed to reduce the risk of heart attack. [Source: The American Heart Association]

Low Carb Megastore

As fantastic a city as Cork is for foodies, sometimes it can be hard to find a particular low-carb product or alternative, and sometimes you just don't want to wander around the town in the rain.
lowcarbmegastore.com is a great UK site which delivers to Ireland, with charges starting from about €15.

Their sugar-free maple syrup is a particular favourite of mine and goes well with crepes. It's naturally sweetened with chicory root, and you only need to use a small amount to get your sweettooth fix.

I've had this bottle since August and still have loads left, so it is fantastic value. While you're there check out their range of sugar-free sweets and lollipops and other low-carb products. 

If you're eating low-carb to lose weight some of the products won't be suitable as they'll tip you over your 20g per day limit, but if you're just interested in cutting back on your carb intake there are some good alternatives on this site.

Low Carb Milk Alternatives

When you start to think about it, drinking another animal's milk is pretty odd behaviour. Are there any other creatures that do what we do? The fact that babies can't digest cow milk leads one to wonder if that's a sign that we're just not built for it.

As a child I suffered with asthma, and on a nutritionist's advice I stayed away from dairy products for a couple of years. It made massive difference to my breathing, and allowed me to cut down on the inhalers and chemicals I was putting into my body. Though I grew up in the hippy-organic-food-mecca that is West Cork, the options for non-dairy milk were far more limited than they are now. Thankfully, overpriced and oversweet rice milk has given way to gorgeous almond and soya milks which you can get in pretty much any supermarket.

coffee with foamed almond milk

These days I stay away from cow's milk for another reason. Think back to your secondary school science or home economics classes; anything ending in -ose is a sugar, and sugar is a carbohydrate. Cow, goat and sheep milks (even low-fat) all contain lactose.

You can think of your traditional cow's milk as what's left over once all the good stuff has been skimmed off, and you can get more than enough calcium and other good nutrients from cream and cheese, both of which contain far lower levels of carbohydrates.
A cup of full-fat milk will have about 12g of carbohydrates in it, while a cup of double cream will have about 6g. If you're trying to stick to a low-carb diet (less than 20g per day) then even adding milk to your tea or coffee can push you close to your daily limit.

S and I are both into our coffee, and thankfully both almond and soya milk foam beautifully. If you feel like it's still missing something, try mixing a little bit of double cream with water and you really won't know the difference.

There are so many other milk options out there that going without cow's milk is really no challenge at all these days.

Welcome To Low Carb Cork

This blog is a collection of recipes and tips I've collected over the course of my transition to a low-carbohydrate diet.

People typically think of a low-carb diet as consisting mainly of unhealthy, samey fried meats day in, day out. This blog shows the many varied, delicious and healthy meals you can put together while avoiding unnecessary sugars. And some of those fried meats too.

Some of these recipes have come from friends and family, some I've picked up from TV, books, other blogs. Some are just experiments I've come up with over the course of switching to a low-carb diet. A little bit of trial and error later, what is posted here is the end result. I'll also try to include local recommendations for other ketoers in the Cork area.

A lot of the information and ideas come from S, who is at this stage a low-carb expert and my keto spirit guide.

What is a low-carb diet?

Carbohydrates in the form of sugars and starches come from foods like potatoes, grains, (most) fruits, pasta, rice, breads, sugary drinks and cereal. A typical diet will burn carbohydrates for energy and convert the left-over carbs into stored body fat.

Eating low-carb food removes sugar and starch from the diet, and forces the body into a state called 'ketosis'. In ketosis the body will instead burn fat for energy (including stored body fat). Ketosis is a much more efficient metabolic process and more in line with the diets of our ancestors than typical modern diets.

Typically, a low-carb diet for weight loss should contain less than 20g of carbohydrates per day. This does not include dietary fibre, which is passed through the body. If you're at a healthy weight but want to cut back on your carb intake, the recommended level is about 50g per day.

Even if you are not trying to lose weight, eating meals made up of low carbohydrate ingredients can help health issues from asthma and arthritis to PCOS and diabetes. If you are interested in finding out more, the keto thread on reddit is a great source of information.

Once you start to take notice, you will be shocked at how many every-day foods contain sugar.

Beautiful West Cork

What can I eat?

You can eat as much as you want of dark green leafy vegetables, small amounts of high-water content veg such as peppers and cucumber, red meats, white meats, fish, offal, eggs, seeds & nuts, full-fat dairy (including cream and cheese, but no milk) or anything else you can find rich in nutrition, fat, protein and fibre.

Stay away from any 'diet' or 'low-fat' products- these contain man made chemical compounds which often consist of sugars.

If you like a drink, stick to spirits with tonic water or sugar-free mixers. Dry red wines like syrah or cabernet sauvignon are also a great option, with about 2-3g of carbs per glass.


Any Tips?

If you want to undertake a low-carb diet in order to lose weight, get some Ketostix (aka urinalysis strips). You can use these to test if you’re ‘in ketosis’ or not.

As long as you are in ketosis you will be burning your fat stores. If you fall out of ketosis, you'll have to go back into it again which means going through sugar withdrawl all over again.

It's very important to keep hydrated on a low-carb diet, so drink as much water as you can. Drinking a large glass as soon as you wake up will kick-start your system and boost your energy levels.

A Food Thermometer makes cooking steak, ham, roasts and chicken so much easier. It allows you to cook just about anything with little knowledge. Just stick it in the oven and wait for the beep.

Stevia is a natural sugar substitute plant extract. It looks and tastes like sugar and can be used in baking or added to tea and coffee.

Take some supplements. Green Tea Extract will increase the rate of weight loss and boost energy and Psyllium Husk is great fibre supplement to keep you regular and prevent diarrhea.


Disclaimer

And hey, I'm not a dietitian so don't be looking for detailed nutritional information. If you're trying to lose weight make sure to do your carb math based on the ingredients you use. I'm just posting recipes that I love, and that keep me on the dark end of the keto strip.

All oven temperatures are in degrees celsius, unless otherwise stated.