Thursday, May 19, 2011

Coconut orange tea cake and is meat-eating good for the planet

Adzuki beans in coconut tomato sauce with polenta
Food Diary (May 19, 2011)
Breakfast: Rolled oats with sunflower seeds and flaxseeds
Lunch: Adzuki beans in coconut tomato sauce with polenta
Dinner: Sautéed mushrooms with rye sourdough
Baking/sweets:

I seldom eat ice cream even though its delicious. Yesterday I saw an interesting documentary titled “What's Really In Our Food”. The particular series answered questions such as “is ice cream good for us”, “how much should we eat" and “is low fat less tasty”. 

The documentary was produced in New Zealand. The New Zealand authorities recommend 3 servings of dairy every day and ice cream as listed as one of them. Great news for ice cream lovers.

Even more good news. The thought of eating low fat ice cream probably does not make many of us overly excited. A blind taste test was done and the number of people preferring low fat was little below those that preferred full fat ice cream. Apparently many humans cannot detect fat content through taste. The host was asked to taste two separate glasses of milk and identify the low fat one. She failed. I have never tried low fat ice cream but apparently the difference in taste is not very noticeable, to most consumers anyway. I suppose if we were not told its low fat we would not think it was low fat! 

And even more good news. Low fat ice cream has more calcium and protein and marginally more sugar. So its better than full fat ice cream.

Today's Favourite Photo
Coconut orange tea cake



Today’s Favourite Blog
Source: BBC
There’s an ongoing debate about reducing meat consumption. Huffington Post has an article on test-tube meat, stating this will be good for animal welfare and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. BBC has an article titled “Is meat-eating good for the planet?” where it looks at the positive side of things. Yes there are positives. 

The industry provides jobs for a large number of people.  

The meat industry has ‘byproducts’ such as eggs, milk, cheese and butter and these are important food sources for billions of people. And there is leather and wool which keep us warm and fashionable.

Livestock can be raised on land which would be difficult to use for other purposes, in a cost effective way. This type of land, referred to as marginal grazing land, is more suitable for livestock rather than crops. It is estimated that around 10% of animals are currently raised on this marginal grazing land and these livestock are raised without being fed grain, they eat grass.

The conclusion was that it would be good to reduce meat consumption but not eliminate it. 

10 comments:

  1. What a fantastic post! I can't really tell the difference either when it comes to low fat ice cream and regular ice cream...but I can when it comes to drinking milk! Isn't that weird?!
    I love frozen yogurt though. In fact, I prefer frozen yogurt to ice cream.
    That coconut orange tea cake looks beautiful and fabulous!
    xx,
    Tammy

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  2. Three servings a day of dairy and ice cream? That is a government study well worth the findings!

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  3. The adzuki dish looks very tempting. I would have never thought of putting it with polenta. I must try it one day.
    I have never had a low-fat ice-cream, but I always prefer sorbets (without cream), especially in the Italian ice-cream shop I have around the corner...
    Great information finds, as usually!

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  4. I love the addition of polenta, a great way to mix up the normal pasta or baked potato side dish. Ice cream is good for the soul, I don't care what anyone says :)

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  5. Whenever I buy cartons of ice cream, I buy the whipped or slow churned kind. It has the same amount of fat, but more air in it so that it's like you get less fat per serving! And honestly, it satisfies that ice cream craving just fine.

    That polenta looks so good!

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  6. hmmm coconut tea cake so pretty! I said on my post too that Im not a huge fan of ice cream, and lowfat vs full fat is not much of a taste different but I definitely can taste the difference in some - esp. really low fat kinds- it doesn't give you that satiety ( I think anyhow). some brands might fool me though.

    and i totally agree that there are postives to having meat/animal products, I think humanity should be first priority and fast/mass/cheap should not be priorities as they seem to be.
    happy friday!

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  7. Yipee for ice cream!! I am pretty bad about getting my daily dairy. I need to buy more ice cream :-)

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  8. What an interesting survey. I would think I could tell the difference between regular and fat free milk but with my eyes covered, who knows!

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  9. Your lunch looks so good! The coconut tomato sauce must've tasted so good.
    And it was intriguing reading about that survey! Yay for ice cream ;D

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  10. Wow Azuki in coconut tomato sauce caught my attention. Although Azuki the name came from Japan, we only use it for mainly dessert. It's so cool to see Azuki in food! I love your creativity! And great article about ice cream! I can't wait to eat it. =P

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