Month: February 2016

How I build my breakfast

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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.

One-Pan Bubble and Squeak Pancake
One-Pan Bubble and Squeak Pancake from the I Quit Sugar Healthy Breakfast Cookbook

So how do I do said savoury breakfast?

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.

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6 Things I learned about leftovers from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

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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.

Leftover Vegetable Stock from Simplicious.
Leftover Vegetable Stock, recipe from Simplicious.

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

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what struggle do you want in your life?

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I have a friend. Let’s call him Dick. He’s a challenge. But then so am I. But the thing is, the more he’s a challenge, the more I love him. I have to struggle at times to hold his energy, to ride his emotions, to apologise to the waiters that he’s rude to. But the fact that I struggle happily for him firms my love for him.

Image via Thought Catalogue
Image via Thought Catalogue

I read this rant on how we often ask the wrong question of ourselves in our pursuit of fulfilment. We ask “what makes me happy?”, rather than “what pain do I want in my life?”. The former rarely brings us closer to what we truly want. The latter gets us far realer. It gets us aware of what we’re willing to put up with to get what we really want. Because we’ll always have to put up with something. In fact, as the author writes, happiness requires struggle.

I have a loved one. Let’s call him FB. We struggle. But I know that we are both struggling to get to a better place, to understand each other better, and this makes me love him more. Every time we recover from a wobbly moment, I’m happy. Because we both put in the good fight. We know we’re growing and we know it hurts and we know we have to express all

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Bung thyroid? Here’s what Louise Hay said it’s about…

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Some time back I met with Louise Hay and she shared a whole heap of advice on various life issues. At the end of the interview she noted I had a thyroid issue. I’m not sure if she guessed it or I’d mentioned it. I shared what she had to say about it at the time, but it kind of got buried among the rest of her pearls. So I’ve dragged it out again, to give it a good airing.

Thyroid issues Sarah Wilson
Image by Beata Wilczek via Flickr

Here’s what she said:

Thyroid problems are all about creativity being blocked. 

She then explained that many women feel torn by the pressure to be all things. And their creative self gets blocked. They stop expressing themselves.

I’m not wholly sure how I feel about such insta-diagnosing. That said, Louise’s linking of disease to emotional issues spawned the movement and her work is respected around the world, albeit in select communities. But my personal observation of both myself and those I meet with thyroid disease is that we are particularly earnest. I always ask at my public talks, Who has Hashimoto’s, raise your hands? Invariably it’s about one-quarter of the room (I attract Hashi types) and they’re all sitting at the

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Are you a thru-hiker?

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Mega-author Bill Bryson got into hiking for a bit, wrote a book about it which then became a movie.

I’ve followed a bit of discourse on his hiking thoughts. I came across this critique that picks up on the fact that on his big hike along the Appalachian Trail he failed to thru-hike. That is, he did bits of the hike, getting lifts in the tough bits. But didn’t go the full hog.

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Koko Head Stairs of Doom, Hawaii

In doing so, Bryson misses the critical, soulful, true and gritty point of hiking: the passing through-ness.

When you hike, you pass “through mountains and valleys, through farms and small towns, through pain, through hunger, through nagging doubt”.

I get what the writer of this particular article is saying. Totally. I personally can’t bring myself to skip bits, shorten things or avoid difficult parts. It’s heart-sinky. And “cheats” things beyond mere short-cutting.

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My top 5 (mostly free) health and beauty habits (I’m told all of them are well weird)

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When you reach my age, you develop some weird little ingrained lifestyle habits that you don’t realise are odd-ball until, well, you write a blog post about them. Health advice, IMO, can be a bit too polished and holier-than-thou. And a bit dreary. Rarely do folk share the gritty, daggy stuff. Today, I figured I might.

Health Habits Sarah Wilson
Image via Pinterest

Please don’t leave me out on a limb in my gritty, dagginess. Share yours below, yeah?

1. I tape my lips at night with surgical tape. I’m a teeth grinder. I could use an expensive mouth guard. But my dentist sensibly suggested I try this technique. I take a 10cm strip of that white surgical tape that’s a few bucks at the pharmacy (the 1.5cm wide one) and gently place it across my lips, sealing them together. I ensure I fold over each end so I have a “tab” for pulling it off in the morning.

Yes, oddly, this technique keeps my jaw relaxed all night. It works. And it’s almost free.

2. I scrape my tongue with a tablespoon. Tongue scraping is great. I used to have a fancy tongue scraper. I lost it. Now I just use a stainless steel dessert spoon.

3. I scrub my face with sand. I don’t think anyone needs a fancy face scrub. After a surf or swim I rub

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so you think your takeaway coffee cup is recyclable. It ain’t.

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I’ve banged on before about why you should give up your takeaway coffee cup habit highlighting the fact the BPA in the lids is poisoning you. Of course, there is also the environmental aspect, which has bothered me for years. But I didn’t have the data on it all. Now I do. Perfect timing. I’ve recently been going a bit spare that loved ones around me (and most of the world) just don’t get the Take Your Own Cup message. 

coffee snow

Image via: theberry.com

It turns out, disposable takeaway coffee cups are not recyclable.

ABC’s 7:30 Report on Wednesday night exposed a bunch of factoids that provide me with some extra ammo. Click on the link to catch up on it.

Most of the planet thinks the cups are recyclable. They’re not…

…because the cups are lined with plastic which is not biodegradable. This plastic sticks around long enough to out-live us. Disposable DOES NOT mean recyclable.

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Don’t despair if your daily habits are drabbing you out

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I know a lot of people can feel trapped in their daily routine. And then get sad that they’re missing out and that their life has become ho-hum. I know many parents feel this way – everything has to be slotted into a schedule that repeats each day, each week. And office workers who have to clock in and clock out, and each day passes into the next.

habits Sarah WIlson
Picture via Etsy

I share this thought for those of you feeling this way. I read recently that poet Mary Oliver is a fan of habits. (I also wrote about her take on diving into love, yesterday.) Most writers and creatives attest to the value of having a morning routine in particular. But Oliver goes a step further.

She says routine can provide a sort of “stand-in” flow to our life. We need flow to thrive. Thus, routine “liberates our vitality”:

“What some might call the restrictions of the daily office they find to be an opportunity to foster the inner life. The hours are appointed and named… Life’s fretfulness is transcended. The different and the novel

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Let’s go about this slowly (I’ll tell you why)

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Poet Mary Oliver does it for me. Have you read any of her work? She places her observations of the heart so delicately that the words disappear and a wistful truth remains.

Take it slowly Sarah Wilson
Image via blog.uncommongoods.com

Here’s something from her recent compilation Felicity: Poems that makes me glad:

I did think, let’s go about this slowly.

This is important. This should take

some really deep thought. We should take

small thoughtful steps.

But, bless us, we didn’t.

I take it to be about relationships. But it could be about work decisions, or anything that elicits spark in the

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