Jonathan's slightly less boring-but-useful site » GI diet

Krava-hydrates

jonathan — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:00:40 +0000

We are happy cows: the new cereal from Kelloggs

Breakfast for me is a serious business: it’s got to be slow release, with protein, and low GI. I’m not an ascetic, I just like food too much: I’d no more eat a Twix for breakfast than I would for dinner. For this reason, I have completely ignored the high-stacked boxes of Kellogg’s new cereal Krave: you might just as well crumble some chocolate digestives into a glass of milk. Easy to see what the concept is, though: if the chocolate was on the outside, you’d think it was candy. Put the chocolate inside, and it’s a breakfast cereal.

But then last night, I saw a couple in my local Tesco laughing their heads off at the display, picking up a box, examining it and saying ‘That’s so funny.” As they put the box back and left, I just heard the tail end of a sentence “….I wonder…East Europeans”.

I looked again to see what could have been so funny, and mentally factored in the last two words I heard, East European. Then a slavic penny dropped. For in many East European languages (Slovakian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, for example), krava means ‘cow’. In Croatian and a few other languages, Krave (pronounced |kráh-veh, as in ‘Ave Maria’) is the plural, ‘cows’. So there you have it: Cows the new cereal from Kelloggs. For the sake of balance and fairness, I should tell you that when I was shopping in Belgrade about 30 years ago, I noticed a brand of fly-killer called Bum!

Coincidentally, I find food retail fascinating. Reading about Krave from Talking Retail you’ll find that the aim is to meet a market for people who don’t really want breakfast but, erm, uh, OK, I’ll have some chocolate. These aren’t children, by the way, they’re 16-25 year olds, and one of the target groups is music festivals and University students. ‘ “There’s a huge opportunity to grow breakfast and cereal consumption within the adult market by retaining young adults in the habit of eating breakfast,” said Mike Taylor, Kellogg’s sales director.’ An idea of how the big social marketing campaign for Krave has gone down with students can be gauged from responses to it in The Student Room. Nice to see that Universities are producing independent critical thought.

GI diet recipes #4: Grilled salmon with stuffed mushrooms

jonathan — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:32:13 +0000

Also done in 20 minutes if you do it in the right order.

Put some basmati rice on to cook first

Salmon: Mix about a tbsp of sundried tomato pesto with two tbsp of low-fat Hellmans. Add in a few breadcrumbs if you want, or some bits of finely chopped fennel. Try adding anything to this basic mixture for fun (except parmesan cheese – it tastes vile with salmon). Cover the top of some salmon fillets with this.

Mushrooms next: mix up some breadcrumbs, black pepper, dried rosemary, the stalks from a packet of medium sized closed cup mushrooms, and a tbsp of olive oil. With a teaspoon, paste the breadcrumb mixture into the mushrooms – it can be domed on top.

Arrange the salmon & mushrooms on foil on a grill pan, and put under a hot grill for 18-20 mins.

Mean while, slice some courgettes, douse them in lemon juice, black pepper and olive oil, and then chargrill.

About 5 mins before you’re ready to serve, steam some snow peas.

While they’re cooking, grate about an inch of ginger, mix with half a tsp of mustard and a sloosh of soy sauce.

Put it all on a plate.

The breadcrumbs are not very low gi, and there’s more oil than a puritan would allow, but it’s all good fat.

GI recipe ideas #1: Breakfast

jonathan — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:03:44 +0000

1 tomato
few slices of red pepper
Sainsburys Bistro salad (even if their christmas music is crap)
Balsamic syrup
Cottage cheese
Organic sunflower seed bread topped with
- Philadelphia light cream cheese
- Smoked salmon
- Horseradish sauce
- Lemon slice (if you can be bothered, frankly)

Assemble the above, including any other bits of salady stuff you have or like, and put it on a square plate. Everything looks nicer on a square plate.