I’d like to improve this site. If you notice anything askew, or if you have clever suggestions, suggested extra links, or just a witty remark to make, please post a comment on this page, and it will be emailed to me, then I’ll approve the comment and it will appear below.
One of my readers emailed me commenting:
” It looks great! I really needed a cooking website that comes with a free 24 hour telephone advice line…
I can see myself pointing my webcam at my saucepan and skyping you to enquire whether it’s gently simmering yet.”
And another:
“hopefully you will be on call on some sort of hotline for kitchen emergencies.
I make it a point to respond to comments within 24 hours, but I can’t promise I’ll be able to save you from all kitchen catastrophes!!! Recently I woke at 2am to smell a delicious roast chicken smell and asked Dan what it was. He replied “the neighbours are having a bbq”. Both of us, in our sleepy states, thought this made sense and rolled back to sleep. Next morning, we opened the door to find the entire house filled with smoke! I’d forgotten to switch off the simmering chicken and veal stocks when I went to sleep!!
Can I suggest: Install a good smoke alarm, and invest in a kitchen timer! We certainly have now!!
I quickly gave up using quick links to the left — I got an error page on each one
I was hoping to refer this site to others… I won't now
OOPS! Thanks for picking up on this and letting us know. We tried a
new plug in today which prevented the menus from working properly.
This problem should not happen again. We appreciate your feedback!
Thanks!
great site…i am new at counting the gi. …so, is it possible to have an accurate list of the low gi foods and not by brand names? also, can you indicate the gi per ingredient in your recipes?
thanks
I agree Sylvie, when starting out, I found it very frustrating that
almost all the foods on the GI databases which have been tested are
brand names. I guess this is because the way they work it out is by
getting ten people to eat a set portion of the food (usually 50g), and
then measuring their blood sugar afterwards. Then they average the
results to calculate the GI. GL is a factor of the carbohydrate
content and the GI. So from what I have worked out from trawling the
web for GI related websites, and from reading a few low GI cookbooks,
it's really not that easy to \”count\” GI in the way you would count
calories if you were on a calorie restriction type diet.
I'm glad you asked about the GI per ingredient, because I've just
started going through the tags (look at the left column and you will
see a list of ingredients). If you click on apple, banana or beans you
can see I've started the process. Only foods containing carbohydrates
or sugar have a GI value. So the general principle (which makes sense)
is bulk up your food with LOTS of fruit and vegetables (potato being
the exception as it is mostly carbohydrates), use legumes (beans and
lentils), don't skip carbs altogether, but choose types and methods of
cooking which lower the impact on your sugars, and avoid adding sugar
to things or eating processed foods with high sugar/ refined flours.
I hope to make this website a guide to the general principles, so in
each recipe I'm trying to include a few tips/ ideas that I have found
out. I'm still learning myself, basically by trawling the web for GI
values of the foods I like to eat. If you find any helpful sites other
than the Sydney University GI values which have good lists of GI
values, please let me know, and I'll add them to my links page!
Good point Gabriel,
I totally agree with you about this point! Even those who are good at
maths don't want to spend their day calculating how many calories are
in the portion of food they are eating. I guess what I was trying to
discuss on the page you are referring to (How much Fat), by using the numbers (because many people are used to diet methods which involve counting),
…is that a low fat diet might not have enough fat to give you the
energy you need. So by choosing heart healthier sources of fat, such
as nuts, avocados, low fat cheeses, and eggs, and reducing saturated
fats, one can avoid the need to count things out.
In my recipes, I try to cook all the time with these principles in
mind – and you'll see there is not much counting! However, along the way I try to
explain the method behind the scenes – however you have certainly reminded me that keeping it simple is so important, and I'll keep this in mind. I hope that helps!
Thanks for your comment,
Libby
It seems that if one wants to eat healthy meals it is necessary to do a lot of maths before going shopping, and before cooking. It is all to confusing to me.
How am I supposed to work out all this complicated business before cooking:-
The Average Sedentary 80kg (176.4 pounds) male requires approximately 12 MJ/ 2800 per day of energy, 30% of which should be fats, and less than 10% saturated fats, or approximately 90g (3.2 ounces) of the good fats and less than 30g (1.1 ounces) of saturated fats.
I am absolutely incompetent at maths, but I like cooking. I will continue to cook healthy meals as far as I can within the knowlege which I already have.
Good point Gabriel,
I totally agree with you about this point! Even those who are good at
maths don't want to spend their day calculating how many calories are
in the portion of food they are eating. I guess what I was trying to
discuss on the page you are referring to (How much Fat), by using the numbers (because many people are used to diet methods which involve counting),
…is that a low fat diet might not have enough fat to give you the
energy you need. So by choosing heart healthier sources of fat, such
as nuts, avocados, low fat cheeses, and eggs, and reducing saturated
fats, one can avoid the need to count things out.
In my recipes, I try to cook all the time with these principles in
mind – and you'll see there is not much counting! However, along the way I try to
explain the method behind the scenes – however you have certainly reminded me that keeping it simple is so important, and I'll keep this in mind. I hope that helps!
Thanks for your comment,
Libby
I'm enjoying visiting this site and impressed by how fast it has grown. Here's a challenge: I'm looking for a great granola bar recipe. I recently discovered that a simple chocolate meringue cookie (egg whites, cocoa, sugar) had very little effect on my BG, even when I ate the whole pan! Now I want to bulk them up by adding nuts, dried fruit, grains — the stuff of granola. Anyone doing this? JAN
Yum… granola!! I will definitely try to dream something up for you –
unless other readers have some ideas!
Thanks for the compliment.. the site has grown a little more slowly
over the past few weeks while I've been on a whirlwind tour of San
Francisco/ Boston/ New York – including eating at some pretty cool
healthy restaurants which I'm planning to review soon..Once I'm over
my jetlag I'll give the granola (along with the others you sent me) a
go! Glad you are still reading!
Interesting about the meringue cookies – how much sugar did you use?
Libby, I really enjoy and appreciate your web site. This low GI cooking is new to us, so you are a great help. But how about a "print this recipe" function. If I print the whole page, I get . . . well, the whole page. A lot of stuff I really don't want on the sides. I have tried to cut and paste into Microsoft Works but it errors every time. So lieu of me retyping the entire recipe (not my favorite pass time) a print function would be a great asset.
Thanks, Mike
There was a \”print\” option at the bottom of each recipe – I think that
the plugin must have failed! Thanks for picking that up…
Just to clarify though – by \”the stuff on the sides\” I presume you
mean the categories etc – or do you want the text of the recipe only,
without the pictures and blurb…
The \”print option\” included the blurb and the pics (of the recipe you
print). I should have time to fix this up later today
Hi Mike, Libby's husband Dan here. I've reinstated the "print friendly" plug in which had deactivated by itself for some reason (probably when we updated the plugins at some point) so there should now be a "print friendly" button at the bottom of each article. Hope this works for you!!
Thanks Dan, & Libby. That "print friendly" button is exactly what I was asking for. Thanks for the quick response & keep up the good work.
Mike
I agree with Mike. Thanks to him for the suggestion and to you, Dan and Libby, for installing the PRINT FRIENDLY button. I love your website, Libby; your recipes are creative and delicious and I am full of admiration for how much you get done in a day! Thank you so much.
Thanks Ngaire! Cooking and writing both relax me – luckily!! It’s also incredibly motivating to know that other people are enjoying my recipes too – so thank you!
Libby – thank you so much for this labour of love!! I am a newly diagnose Type 2 diabetic, an experienced and creative cook, and so happy to find your site. If I pay enough attention to the quantities i use I will try to send you recipes as I cook. If not, I'll sure be enjoying yours.
– Katy
Libby – thank you so much for this labour of love!! I am a newly diagnose Type 2 diabetic, an experienced and creative cook, and so happy to find your site. If I pay enough attention to the quantities I use I will try to send you recipes as I cook. If not, I'll sure be enjoying yours.
By the way, this is where I found the link to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Diet7
Interesting, thanks for that
Thanks for the feedback Katy – it is so good to hear, especially when I have done next to nothing on the site since January. It has been a busy six months, and every weekend I long for a few hours to put my feet up and blog – I have a backlog of recipes and photos to post, and this weekend I hope to post one or two for you all. I'd love you to share some of your recipes – my recipes are based on just a few simple principles which are pretty quick to pick up once you try a few.