Wholegrain crackers may not be on your ‘yum’ list or your thought of something interesting or tasty to eat but once you start to get abit adventurous then they can really become quite delicious and you can revive your morning or afternoon snack.

A few brands I would recommend:

Arnotts Vitaweat crackers both the rectangular and round cheese board varieties, PLUS the new Lunch Slices (which are a larger version to put toppings on instead of bread). I would choose the multigrain variety as they have a slightly higher fibre content than the other varieties like sesame or cracked pepper, however mixing them up is always nice too.

Vitaweat wholegrain crackers

Vitaweat Lunch Slices

Ryvita is great especially now that they have come out with more varieties compared to the original (so if you haven’t tried anymore since the original, I urge you to try some new choices). They have a lovely Pumpkin seed&Oat, Sunflower seed and for those with a sweet tooth then the Fruit &Seed Crunch is lovely. These are high in fibre and provide and will keep you fuller for longer than rice crackers or lightbread.

Ryvita varieties

Huntley &Palmers wholegrain varieties. This brand has gone through a product renovation and has now also got some great Multigrain varieties. I particularly like the Sunflower seed and Chia seed one.

Huntly &Palmers crackers

3 Tips to choosing a cracker:

1) Aim to choose a wholegrain variety so that when you look at the ingredients list it starts with wholegrain wheat flour and then has has extra seeds in it like sesame, chia, pumpkin or sunflower seed plus grains like rye, barkley, oats etc. You will get added nutrients from these grains/seeds.

Ingredients list for Huntly &Palmers crackers

2) Look at nutritional panel- look at fibre content (this will keep you fuller for longer and help with bowel transit time). Per 100g you want above 8g to be defined as ‘high fibre’

Huntley &Palmers nutrition panel

3) Sodium- generally crackers are going to have quite a high salt intake however you get your acceptable and then unacceptable products. Aim to keep below 450mg of sodium per 100g. This can make you abit thirsty or if you have high blood pressure, do stick to this. However if your diet is generally low sodium (limited processed foods) then having a few crackers slightly over this will be fine. Just keep up your water intake. Remember our general sodium intake is 2000mg per day.

There are many toppings you can get adventurous with from savoury like marmite and thin slice Edam or abit tuna, tomato, hummus, avocado, salsa, honey, peanut butter to doing something like this:

Shredded coconut with honey

Vitaweat cracker with smear of honey, coconut, pumpkin seeds and raisins

Vitaweat cracker with honey, coconut, pumpkin seeds and almonds

Heavensent Gourmet Jam

Nutritional information

Found a great jam on the weekend called Heavensent (company name)- the reason I liked it? It is made with honey not white sugar to preserve it. This means it has a lower sugar rating than traditional jams and therefore less of a spike in your blood sugar levels (honey naturally is lower in sugar than table sugar).

It is has no extras preservatives or flavourings in it. Very simple ingredients list-see pic. They also have a high fruit content which is great and a variety of different fruit jams. This is sweet product to check out. I have put it on toast, on a cracker, in my plain yoghurt and mixed it in stewed apple for a dessert (and a good substitute in baking instead of sugar. A good sweet all rounder.
The company also makes other products from vinaigrettes, relishes, savoury sauces. Check it out www.heavensentgourmet.co.nz. Can shop oline or find a retailer near you.

It’s always nice to have try something a bit different. When grocery shopping last week I came right into the path of the promotional people giving customers a chance to taste a bit of Chinese. They were promoting dumplings.  Traditional Imperial Dumplings. These are precooked and you can either stick them in the microwave, steam in a pot to cook or they were lightly pan frying them for crispiness in my case. Me being a foodie I had try one, especially after reading the package which advertised ‘high quality, all natural ingredients with no preservatives, no added MSG or added sugar’.  Then after turning the package over and reading the ingredients of the Chicken and Vegetable filling it did read 53% vegetables with a good range of vegetables and 20% meat. Alas there were no preservatives in them! And they came in wholegrain flour as well as plain flour. It’s like they have thought of everything! What you are probably wondering is ‘do they taste nice?’ Yes they do- so much so that I bought a value pack for $7 which I think it good value. I have had lots of fun steaming them in pot and popping them in vege soup or panfrying them in my stirfry or simply sticking them in the microwave for a minute then putting them in my salad.

This is definitely something different, a bit fun to experiment with and something the whole family will love. These were Imperial Dumplings and can be found in the deep freeze section in your supermarket.

Spinach is very important to the diet. It is known as one of our ‘super foods’ as it is an excellent source of vitamin K, vitamin A, manganese, folate, magnesium, iron, vitamin C, vitamin B2, calcium, potassium, and vitamin B6, dietary fiber, copper, protein, phosphorus, zinc and vitamin E. In addition, it is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, niacin and selenium.

One of the reasons I recommend it is because not only is it almost a ‘one stop shop’ for nutrients but the nutrients it contains can provide relief or help prevent a number of health concerns. For example, asthma, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis are all conditions that involve inflammation. Since beta-carotene, vitamin C and vitamin K all have anti-inflammatory properties, they can be helpful in reducing symptoms in some patients. In addition, due to its high potency of free radical killing antioxidants, it can help prevent many cancers including colon, breast, ovarian, prostate and more by preventing DNA damage and mutations in cells, even when they are exposed to cancer-causing chemicals.

Fresh spinach is great and can be used in salads or laying in dishes like lasagna or toss steamed spinach with pressed garlic, fresh lemon juice and olive oil. Or Sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese. Pine nuts are also a great addition to cooked spinach.
Wash fresh spinach well as the leaves can still contain dirt and pesticides.

I like frozen spinach as it is really quick to prepare and can be used in a number of ways. Most brands selling frozen spinach have the leaves packaged into bundles which make nice portion sizes.

Some great ideas to use frozen spinach:

Healthy snack includes: 1-2 bundles of spinach defrosted and heated in microwave. Stir through a pinch of salt and ½ tsp garlic. On a piece of toast, spread a tablespoon of tomato paste then put spinach on top and either sprinkle feta cheese on top or edam cheese and grill in the oven for 5mins.

Great to add in soups to boost quantity (everyone loves a big meal but low calories) and increases nutrient level.

Great to take to work in a container for lunch and heat up with a piece of toast or steamed potato/kumara with a tin of salmon/tuna. Or boost vege intake from night before leftovers.

Another great recipe you can try is adding half a tin of chickpeas to 2 bundles of spinach and 1 tablespoon of lite sour cream.

A warm spinach salad is great for lunch or dinner:

Per person- 2 bundles spinach, 2 boiled eggs, ½ tsp of ginger and garlic, pinch of salt, ½ onion, ½ tin of Watties Moroccan or Indian diced tomatoes.

Heat pan on medium-high heat with a tsp of rice bran or sunflower oil. Add the 2 bunches of frozen spinach to pan and defrost. Once defrosted add the ginger, garlic and salt and stir through well. Then add diced tomatoes to mixture. Once heated through place on a shallow bowl as the juices run and slice boiled eggs over the top.
This is keeping it simple, you may want to add extras to it.

Soups are a great way to get your vegetable intake during winter.  If you are the type of person who can’t stand eating salads in winter then going for a good quality soup is important. Home made vegetable soup is always my preference as you can usually put a great variety of fresh vegetables in there and usually lower in sodium than bought soups as one can control the amount of salt we put in. We just have to make sure we don’t cook or boil the daylights out of the vegetables as it diminishes their antioxidant levels.

It’s easy to make home made soup- I know there are plenty of recipes out there but many have slow cooking times using a large pot or crockpot and this can put many people off making their own (especially parents-they need quick dinners).
My favourite for a quick soup is steaming some vegetables for a few minutes in the microwave such as broccoli, carrots, capsicum, zucchini, butternut etc. Once they are just soft but still crunchy (not zapping the daylights out of them), put them into a blender, add a can of diced tomatoes and possibly 1/2cup water if need be. Then add a pinch of rock salt, fresh herbs like coriander or tuscan seasoning then blend until smooth. Voila! Soup in 8mins! You can serve with a wholgrain bread roll or toast and you can either have your protein to the side such as fish or chicken or put a tin of tuna on your toast. You can also slice smoked chicken into the soup or a boiled egg or add chickpeas to the soup for a vegetarian meal.

If you are looking for bought soups these are some of my favourites due to taste, limited preservatives and additives, relatively low sodium for a soup and equivalent of 2-3 serves of veges.

Cambells Sensations or Relish

Watties Soup for One

Pitango Range

Artisan Range

Delmaine’s Range

If you are watching your fat and calorie intake then just make sure you choose the tomato/pumpkin/ capsicum or mushroom based soups rather than cream based. Always compare products for energy content, fat content and sodium content.

Yoghurt….In my opinion, like much of our food, we need to keep to the basics, meaning keep the diet  simple with whole foods instead of processed foods with additives such as preservatives, stabilizers, thickeners, colourings etc. However, not all of these additives are ‘bad’ for us and in many cases are important in some foods to prolong shelf life and prevent bacteria growth. We just need to make sure we are reading the ingredients list of products to keep a watch how many additives we are putting in our mouth.

For example, I prefer my yoghurt to be plain, unsweetned (ie no added sugar) with only around 3-4 ingredients on it (the way yoghurt should be). For example De Winkles on its ingredients is skim milk, milk solids and cultures (good bacterias acidophilus and bifidus). Simple. No preservatives or thickeners or sugars. Its best to sweeten it yourself with a teaspoon of honey or sliced banana or any fruits.  I am not a fan of fruit flavoured yoghurt- they add far too much sugar in it and the fruit doesn’t actually give you any benefits- eat an apple instead of apple flavoured yoghurt! De Winkles is naturally low fat too as they use skim milk.
However many of my clients are not quite used to this as so I can recommend a few products that are also low in fat but must also be low in sugar (too many low fat products are high in sugar- if you eat too much sugar it will be stored as fat anyway!).

Fresh n Fruity has come up with a Vanilla Lite yoghurt which is quite nice- it does have thickeners in it to give it a yoghurt consistency but these are not listed on the ‘additives to avoid’.  It does however have sweetners in it (950, 955) which are still up in the air about how safe they are. However as I mentioned earlier if really prefer this yoghurt compared to plain unsweetned then just be aware of what else you are putting in your mouth.

It is low in calories for those watching their weight- only 64cal per 150g serving and low in sugar only 3.8g per 100grams. (you always want to keep foods under 10g per 100g for sugar. )

Tips to use this for:

This is great for a dessert- berries and yoghurt instead of icecream as it has a nice vanilla twang to it.

I have used this as part of a banana split, sprinkling the top with chopped nuts.

Great to stir through plain oats instead of milk (you won’t need to add sugar to your porridge as this makes it sweet enough)

I have added cocoa powder and teaspoon of cornstarch to make a vanilla chocolate mousse.

Or just a great snack when you feel like something sweet in the afternoon or after dinner- and it won’t break the calorie bank J

Unfortunately I couldn’t find the Vanilla Dream flavour but this is an example of what the packaging looks like.

Hi everyone! Each week I will be putting a new blog of a food product that I either recommend or think it’s something to watch out for. With the products that I like, I will be adding recipes each day while using the product.You can catch all this on the BLOG page of the website and then I will put them on the recipe page. Please comment if you have another good idea or could add a suggestion!

Ok the first product on my list is:

Ryvitas- These guys are an oldie but a goody.  Still made in England, they have been around for a while and that means they know what good food is! We are always bombarded by the latest food ‘inventions’ companies create- especially those who claim they are looking after your health but aren’t at all!

Many crackers are the market may be low in calories or fat but they are also low in fibre and nutrients like vitamins and minerals which we usually get from our grains. For example they are much better for you than Cruskits as they are putting nutrients such as B vitamins back into the body (our body uses up nutrients in everyday life to function so need to make sure we put them back into our body through good food). Ryvitas are high in fibre so helps with keeping you regular which is important for the body, they burn more calories being digested than Cruskits and will keep you fuller for longer.

You can either use them as snacks with spreads or instead of bread to put great lunch time toppings on. They are wheat free too!

They do have abit of a cardboard texture but very healthy for you and can easily spice them up!

Their website www.ryvita.com has some great ideas but here are some of my own…

1. Ryvita with smear of honey and sprinkle of cinnamon. Take it one step further and smear of almond butter- yum! Can do this with peanut butter if you are a peanut butter fan.
A good snack would be 2 of these.

2. Two Ryvitas with smear of honey and sliced banana (a great way to get the fruit in the diet)

3. Two Ryvitas with smear of honey or almond butter and good sprinkle of shaved coconut. Almond butter is excellent for providing our good fats -essential for cell health. Adding the fat with almond butter/peanut butter/ coconut, slows the rate of sugar being released into the blood stream (lowers the GI rating), so will keep you fuller for longer too.

4. Mix 1 heaped teaspoon of baking cocoa powder with about 1-2 tsp of warm water to form a thick-ish paste. Smear a Ryvita with honey as the under coat- then spread the cocoa paste over the honey and to top it off…sprinkle coconut over the top. This is a great afternoon snack if you are feeling like a something sweet. Very healthy-cocoa powder has many great health properties and antioxidants and those watching the waistline this comes in at under 100 calories. If you are at work at don’t have the baking cocoa powder you can use drinking chocolate, you just don’t need to add the honey.

5. Black bean and chutney spread on Ryvita. Black beans are great as they are easy to mush into a hummus type paste. Black beans you can get in cans from any supermarket. I used Ceres but Craigs and few other brands do black beans too. I took 2 tablespoons of beans, put in a bowl, added 2 tsp Mrs Balls Chutney and mixed them into a paste then spread this over 2 Ryvitas. This is fantastic to keep you full, add some brilliant nutrients to the system like fibre, protein, iron, potassium, B vitamins and more! Plus this comes in under 200cals. You can also use this mixture as a protein substitute at lunch or dinner. (you can add another few tablespoons for that).

Any of you who are South African or know South Africans will know the tast of Biltong. Biltong is dried meat which either comes in small slithers or in a stick form called Biersticks. The slithers are usually lower in fat than the Biersticks. Biltong is usually much healthier than beef jerky as they dry the meat in a way that doesn’t need added preservatives or nitrates. Biltong is a source of iron, high in protein with a low GI and long shelf life. It is great for a snack or adding to sandwiches or salads. You can get Biltong from a South African shop or The Canterbury Bilton Company is now stocking theirs in supermarkets.

1 cup of mesculin leaves

1 diced tomato

chopped cucumber

Mung bean sprouts

1 capsicum

100g of sliced bilton

1 boiled egg

Chop tomato, carrot, capsicum, cucumber or any other vegetable you would like to place on mesculin. Slice boiled egg and place this and biltong over the top and add mung bean sprouts to garnish.

• Whole-wheat flour (2 cups)
• Wheat germ (1/2 cup)
  
• 200 g Biltong – finely chopped
• 50 g Edam Cheese
  
• 30 ml Baking powder
• 3 Eggs
• 200 ml trim Milk
• 100 ml Cooking oil
• 5 ml Salt
• 15 ml Lemon juice
  

Combine dry ingredients together, in a separate bowl combine the wet ingredients. Then add the dry and wet ingredients together and mix lightly until all combined. Spoon into greased muffin pans and bake at 220° C for 11 minutes or until the prick test reveals the muffins are cooked (use a sharp knife or toothpick and stick it in the centre of a muffin, if it comes out clean then muffins are done). Leave to cool slightly before removing.

Makes 12