I like to clear up confusion. My latest book I Quit Sugar: Simplicious is now available around the world. But there are currently three different covers. And two different titles?
The thing is this. Some territories like to create their own covers that suit their market segment. I designed my Australian cover. Here it is.
Actually, I designed two.
Lately, I’ve had a stack of correspondence from young men. When I say young, I mean pre- and early-teen. It makes my day every time. Not least because I know what it takes for a boy to approach an old battleaxe like me. I’d be petrified!
There’s been Jacob Towers who travelled with his Mum to meet me in London a few months back. He made me a bookmark. There’s been Ryan, or “Worm”, 9, who made me a green loom band “to go with your green shorts”.
I recently worked out 12 per cent of my Facebook audience are young men aged 13-34. And in the 13-17-year-old bracket, there are double the number of boys to girls following. And that’s Facebook. Which doesn’t strike me as the most popular hang for boys. Or am I wrong?
Hello there,
Can I ask a favour? This blog has been around a bit. It needs some freshening up. I mean, that header photo! The dinky staples!
What do you think…
* I was thinking about moving things over to Medium. Heard of it? Use it? Here’s my Medium Page.
Almond milk. Everyone’s drinking it. Indeed, it’s recently overtaken soy as the most popular dairy-alternative. Everyone, I fear, also seems to think it’s the clean and green cousin at the lactose-free barbeque. I’m really sorry, guys, I have news for you…
There’s a bunch of factors not commonly discussed. It’s time they should be.
1. The water.
Cop this:
Ouch. But it gets worse. Almost 82 per cent of the world’s almonds are grown in California, one of the most drought-affected places in the world. Australian almonds? Um, same issue.
2. The waste.
Almond milk is essentially a big bunch of almonds, blended with water and strained to extract the “milk”. The almond meal that’s left behind is tossed when almond milk is commercially produced. Very sad stuff.
3. The carbon footprint.
The majority of almonds used to produce almond milk (even in Australia) are grown in the US. This means they have to be shipped around the world. Add the environmental cost of the packaging and you have yourself a small environmental disaster.
4. The dose of additives.
Most brands are packed with thickeners, emulsifiers, sugars, and other crap stuff.
5. The nutritional value.
Yes, almonds are full of vitamin E and B2, magnesium and copper. But most brands only contain about two per
I’ve banged on about the importance of a morning routine before. And I’ve shared my own routine. I’m not alone when it comes to religiously sticking to a morning schedule. The creatives and entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed across the globe over the years all have one. And stick to it.
Likewise on website Mymorningroutine.com. Intrigued by morning routines and how living by them leads to success, these guys have interviewed 161 professionals about their morning rituals. Looking through the stats on their site, and the people I’ve spoken with, the same three things rate highest:
The average waking time of all interviewees is 6:38 am. And about half of them have a glass of water as their first drink.
I do the same.
I drink about 1-2 litres of warm water with fresh lemon juice. Sometimes with a dash of apple cider vinegar. Why? Drinking water on waking helps detox the liver and boosts your metabolism, making it easier for your body to digest your breakfast.
They say if there’s one thing successful people have in common, it’s their morning exercise. Barack Obama,
Music can very much help with my anxiety. It lulls, it distracts, it provides a lofty, expansive perspective from which I’m able to “see” my anxiety and ride it out.
Sound therapists at the British Academy of Sound Therapy looked into why this may be so and created the most scientifically relaxing song possible. Listen to their creation – ‘Weightless’.
The gist to why it works is this: Feelings of euphoria and comfort are created by deliberately chosen gaps in the notes. It begins at 60 beats per minute then gradually slows to around 50, at which time the your heartbeat falls into line with the beat. The study showed this process, known as entrainment, takes about five minutes to start.
Which is why their song is a loooong 8 minutes.
This gentle slowing of the song brings calm to the body, shifting the heart, respiration, blood pressure and brainwaves, lowering blood pressure, slowing heart rate and reducing cortisol at unprecedented rates.
Plus, the absence of repetitive melodies prevents the brain from trying to predict what comes next, allowing the
Ever thought about this? Fish is the only food that starts to smell like itself when it’s going off. And yes, that can make it hard to gauge whether your salmon is still fresh or needs to be chucked. More often than not people don’t want to take the risk, so half our seafood supply ends up uneaten and thrown out.
I chatted to my mate and seafood expert, Costa Nemitsas from Southern Fresh Seafood, about when seafood actually needs to be chucked and what you can do to make it last longer. Over to you, Costa!
Raw fish
*A whole fish keeps for up to 12 days. Assuming it’s fresh and stored at 0 degrees. (Note: If a fish is kept at 4 degrees, it’s life span is reduced by half.)
*A fillet of oily fish keeps for up to 5 days. The best way to keep fillet fish is to separate the fillets via plastic sheets or wax paper.
*A fillet of non-oily fish keeps for 3-4 days. The thing to look out for here is whether the fish has turned slimy. Keep it until it does!
Cooked fish
All cooked fish – including crumbed, battered, fried, grilled, roasted – lasts for 3 days in the fridge.
I took seven years to complete my BA. I was about five years older than all the other cadets when I did my official journalism training, taking a pay cut just for fun. I got my first gig on telly at 35 – when most women are giving up the screen. And I only found my “dharma” – what I’m doing now – a few years back, in my late 30s. I’ve been behind the 8-ball the whole way.
And, yep, I’ve fretted that a whole bunch of ships had left the dock without me. I guess, then, I’ve always looked out for tales of successful creatives who also took the long route.
I’ve written about how Leonard Cohen took more than 5 years to write ‘Hallelujah’.
And Bruce Springsteen 6 months to write one of my favourite songs ever, Born to Run.
Ira Glass’ career as a journalist only flourished after 17 years.
And Steve Jobs took 10 years to buy a couch (I took 32).
Recently I learned Kate Grenville did 22 drafts of Secret River. (When I ask her about it, she says: “Good things take time!”)
And Mark Twain fiddled and despaired and revised and gave up on “Huckleberry Finn” so many times that the book took him nearly a decade to complete.
On my travels, I think I’m asked at every turn, by journalists or at public talks I give, what I eat for breakfast. I think it’s mostly because much of the planet can’t fathom a breakfast without sugar. The first thing I flag: drop the idea that breakfast should be sweet. Until the 1950s, when breakfast cereal was invented as a cure for sex addiction (seriously!), it was savoury.
1. I start with veggies or fruit.
Want to know what all the healthy people I meet do? They jam-pack 2–3 serves into their first meal. I call it front-loading. The key to great health is to get as much nutrition into you and your family’s gullets as possible. I aim for 6–9 serves of veggies and two serves of fruit most days and use breakfast as a great vehicle for this.
2. I add protein. Not too much.
3. I add fat. Saturated.
This is important. Why? Because essential vitamins (A, E, K and D) can only be absorbed when eaten with fat. And we need said vitamins to effectively digest protein.
I’m a huge fan of leftovers. My book I Quit Sugar: Simplicious is all about them – using them, eating them, creating a kitchen flow around them.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – bless him – is on the same page. But in a different book. You might have come across River Cottage – Love Your Leftovers which was published shortly after Simplicious. It’s a ripper of a tome. Hugh goes to town on leftovers. Bless him.
I’ve been pouring over the book since it landed on my desk last week. Here are six top things I learned from him:
1. Cool cooked food destined for leftovers asap. If practical, rinse in cold water (cooked veg) or stand the saucepan in a sink of cold water (stew, soup or sauce). You’ll preserve the flavour and colour better and it’s a good food hygiene habit, too.
2. Add the veggies late when making soups or stews and stop simmering when your vegetables are still slightly underdone. This will help to avoid mushiness later on when you reheat your leftovers.
3. Get the fish in the fridge ASAP. Fish deteriorates quickly at room temperature so pop it in the fridge as soon as you can after buying to avoid it going off.
4. Cool cooked rice rapidly to prevent food poisoning. As rice cools, especially at room temperature, the spores of harmful bacteria can germinate producing a toxin that causes food poisoning. Once this toxin is