Sarah Wilson, Author at Sarah Wilson

slowcooked beef and coconut curry (plus 4 more cheap meat recipes)

March 15, 2013March 5, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

You’ll begin to notice, I reckon, that my food posts are going to take a certain tilt going forward. They’ve pretty much been leaning precariously that way for a while, right? My food journey is very much now geared away from fancy and will be aimed squarely at economical, sustainable, smart, ethical and nourishing. I’m going to focus on different techniques and approaches that achieve these aims.

pumpkn-curry — Spicy Beef & Coconut Pumpkin Curry, recipe below

So far I’ve been all about not wasting food and using up scraps in inventive ways.

Today, we’re going to look at cheap meat eating.

As you know, I’m an ambassador for Love Food Hate Waste, and the beef and lamb industry’s Target 100 sustainability program (connecting farmers and consumers and getting us all on the same page). I’ll be writing more on this over the next few months.

For now, though, I’ve enlisted my mate Anthia from Ovvio Organics to share a few recipes from her ebook I Am Food, which is full of sustainable conscious food for good health. I’m jumping ahead to recipes (before exploring the theory) because I want you to get excited…and to experience her book. We met ages ago at our dear friend Marty’s Longrain restaurant in Sydney (if you know the restaurant and want to do your bit when eating out, know that they adhere to sustainable principles in the kitchen) and have reconnected via my meditation teacher and training guru. She’s on the same page as me when it comes to cooking philosophies. We chatted, thus:

* Use lesser-known or less fashionable cuts of meat or the whole animal. My favourites are beef cheeks and lamb shanks. Anthia loves lamb shanks. Many less expensive, bone-in cuts tend to boast extra nutrients, gelatinous compounds, quality fats and minerals. You’ve read my views on bone broth, right? I love what Anthia does with her duck (below). She cooks it up, then uses it three ways.

* Slow-cookers are wonderful. They effortlessly tenderise these lesser-known cuts of meat. They’re cheap to buy

my simple home: 5 small hazards to avoid

March 3, 2013March 1, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

OK. Another installment in my new My Simple Home series. For those of you new to things, I’m doing a series of posts that follows my journey to create the cleanest, most eco, minimal home possible and sharing each step, figuring you might like to learn from the process, too. This time I’ve got building biologist Nicole Bijlsma to share a few of her favourite tips for cleaning up our home act. I asked her to share easy, everyday stuff – some simple, inexpensive swaps or choices to make.

As with every step of this process, I don’t advocate throwing stuff out. Me, I’ll be using up the things I already have (not tossing them), then switching to other options as they need replacing. I implore you to do the same. If you’ve lived with Ajax until now, it won’t kill you to finish up the bottle!

The salient points from the video are these:

1. Cleaning products. Use Microfibre cloths. Avoid ammonia, bleach, and fragrances. PS if you’re after some totally clean, lean and green cleaning products, check out below.

2. Packaging. Plastic containers – they’re not meant to be heated in microwaves or put in the freezer. Check the identification codes on your plastic – 2, 4, 5 are ok. Avoid the rest. Glass, or ceramic containers are best. Me, I use old glass jars a lot.

3. Baking paper. There are new concerns about baking paper, as the non-stick aspect is like non-stick teflon.. You’re better off using something like plain brown paper and a layer of coconut oil. This I didn’t know!

4. Digital alarm clocks. Don’t use a mobile phone as your alarm clock. Just don’t. Ever. Switch to a battery-operated digital clock.

Recently I told A Current Affair what I thought about coconut oil…

February 26, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

It screened last night on Nine’s repeat channel Extra. I think they got it…Didn’t catch it? Well, I thought I’d do a little catch-up post on the stuff. Coconut oil, that is. Here’s a rundown of why coconut oil is so good for you. Here’s a rundown of 19 clever things to do with coconut … Read more

the exercise mistake I used to make

August 10, 2018February 20, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

Oh, we get competing messages, don’t we. The latest befuddlement that we’re trying to get our heads around is this “exercise myth” idea. In the “everything you used to think was right is wrong” vane, it’s now being suggested (ready for it?) that…

exercising can make us fat.

What do I think of this?

125434 4 600 the exercise mistake I used to make — Photo by Rachel de Joode

Glad you asked, because it’s become a little project of mine lately – to wrap my head around the science of it all, and to encourage people to back off a little. To be gentle. To enjoy exercise and not use it as a self-flagellating mechanism of misery.

First, I should say…I used to do a lot of exercise

I used to self-flagellate. I used to run soft sand races and compete in 24-hour mountain bike races. I ran 10km to work when I edited magazines. And back. I went for 3-hour bush runs on weekends. I went to the gym, did chin-ups on first dates (and didn’t that end badly), and could beat my boyfriends in arm wrestles. Yes, it was an ego thing, too.

But a few years back it took its toll (the ego stuff as well). I kept trying to exercise hard. I kept getting injuries. And eventually I had to accept, that this way of doing things was somehow not right.

We are not meant to push ourselves. We are meant to move and be energised and get blood flowing…but beyond that, it’s just dumb and ineffective.

Exercise does not work for weight loss

Indeed, we’re designed to NOT lose weight when we exercise.

In his book Big Fat Lies, David Gillespie touches on the science that explains that we are designed to NOT burn off a lot of energy when we exercise. This is what enabled us to keep going and going all day and not waste away.

Then there’s the psychological element. If you’re doing exercise just for weight loss, don’t bother. Let me rephrase that. Exercise. Move. Keep active. But don’t expect it to make you lose a lot of weight.

A study compared hunter-gatherers in Tanzania with Western folk. It calculated the participants’ typical daily physical activity, energy expenditure and resting metabolic rates and found the former do move more, but they weren’t burning more calories. In fact, they found their metabolic rates the same as sedate Westerners. That’s the way we roll. Calories in doesn’t equal calories out. We’re far more complex than that.

To put things in perspective:

To burn off a piece of white bread you have to run up 20 flights of stairs.

In fact, it can make us fat!

A Time magazine cover story a while back – ”Why exercise won’t make you thin” – looked at all the evidence and found exercise may actually cause us to consume more calories than we expend, therefore negating the hard, sweaty work on the stair master. It jolted me awake when I read it. The article went as far as to say our over-exercising obsession is adding to the obesity epidemic.

Read more

my take on the new Australian “limit sugar” advice

February 24, 2013February 19, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

The missing link for a stack of folk out there when I bang on about how bad sugar (or, more specifically, fructose) is for us is this:how it has come to be that a) no one has told us this before and b) in fact, we’ve been told quite the opposite our entire lives.

And not just by the Big Bad Sugar Companies. By the Government and the health advisory bodies, too.

Sigh. It’s a very long and complicated explanation. And, unfortunately, it requires using the word “conspiracy” a fair bit, which turns a lot of us off. If you’re interested in a very thorough rundown of how the sugar industry dupes us and shuts down counter views in the US, check out this MotherJones timeline. It’s fascinating stuff. Much the same happen here in Australia, and around the world. (And, PS, the pictures I’ve used here to break up my rant are from their collection, too. They make an apt backdrop, don’t you think?)

But to news just in, here in Australia. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) – Australia’s main health adviser – yesterday published its once-a-decade update of the Australian Dietary Guidelines.

And. Wait for it.

We’re finally being told to “limit” sugar!

This actually represents a toughening of official advice against added sugar, advising Australians for the first time to “limit” our consumption of added sugar, in the same way we have been encouraged to “limit” our consumption of alcohol.

Yes, this is a big deal. Why?

1. Because previously we’ve been told that sugar is OK in moderation.

Yes, the guidelines used to say to moderate sugar consumption. Which is just dumb, and scary and depressing when the evidence points to the fact sugar is highly addictive and

just 7 fun food ideas (that will make you scream “genius!”)

August 10, 2018February 19, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

I like clever food ideas. Things you can do to make culinary life smoother.

Some of my favourite tips are contained in this post on what to do with left-over herbs.

And this one on paleo-friendly kids lunchbox ideas.

I use icecube trays for storing excess chicken stock (ready to pop out and use for deglazing or even frying) and I use my Vitamix for a bunch of steps in a recipe (by reordering the way I do things). Check out these additional doozies that I’ve collected, and feel free to add yours below….

enhanced-buzz-931-1355955423-8 — I’m a bacon nut. And this idea – plaiting it before grilling or frying it – is very much my favourite thing today.

Hey, nice specs!

October 23, 2018February 15, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

A Friday shout-out to Fellow Four-Eyes: Some Special Specs for ya!

If you like the lunettes I wear in the various pics above, know this: they’re $US99 INCLUDING THE PRESCRIPTION LENSES!

You can order them online today from Bonlook and have them perched on your nose in days. Different styles, sizes, shapes and colours.

Here’s how:

1. Simply click here.

2. Then choose the shape, size and colour you like. Clockwise from top, are Nomad in olive, Urban Dandy in

things feeling shit-full? it’s ok…

October 29, 2018February 13, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

I read The Art of Possibility a few years ago. It’s an odd book..I’m not sure that I get it entirely. But I like the way it’s sprinkled with little lessons, like this one below. It’s very much a “just because” read with no apology given for it’s odd format. Anyway. The lesson: Four young … Read more

my summer vegetable anti-anxiety soup

July 31, 2018February 12, 2013 by Sarah Wilson

I was born anxious. I’ve fretted for as long as I remember. I worried for one and all. Some days it cripples me and I have to disappear for a while. Others, I am able to accept it as part of my character. These days, though, I manage it better. I know what works. What to do when things build up. I’m philosophical about it. And I don’t apologise for it anymore. Those around me get some good kickbacks for being a mate with a worrywart. Like, um, never being kept waiting. And not having to navigate, pack, plan or negotiate when travelling with me.

Yes, so. I manage my anxiety.

And, so. Last week I was at my Chinese doctor getting needled. I’m able to direct her now to the spots that need a-needling. I pointed her to a spot at the top of the shin, just on the outside of the shin, about an inch below the knee joint.

She laughed. “Ah, yes. The chicken soup point.”

She explained: “This point, it does the same thing that chicken soup does when you drink it.” Which is what? “It nourishes your whole body in one go. That’s what chicken soup does.” She makes chicken soup every week and feeds it to her sons to keep them healthy. They get chicken soup for afternoon tea.

The chicken soup point. Feel it on your own leg now, if you can. Press into it. Does it feel sensitive? That kind of “painful” that feels better when activated? I describe this kind of release as “juicy”. And can you see that this kind of almost-orgasmic release is also experienced when you eat something truly nourishing? OK. Well, I do.