A JOINT INITIATIVE BY Compiled by Heleen Meyer Photography by Adriaan Vorster Affordable, tasty recipes – good for the whole family Foreword Contents Food is central to the identity of South Africans. How healthily do you eat? ...p2 The recipes in this book were During meals the family meets around the table. Guidelines for healthy eating ...p4 selected from family favourites On holidays and high days we gather around the Planning healthy meals ...p6 contributed by people all over braai and the potjie pot which reflect the diversity Takeaways and eating out ...p8 South Africa. These have been adapted to follow the guide - of our country. Food has many memories associated Frequently asked questions ...p10 lines of the Heart and Stroke with it – the soup that warms our bodies and our Shopping and cooking on a budget ...p12 Easy guide for reading food labels ...p13 Foundation South Africa. Re - souls, the dish for our homecomings, and the member that healthy eating is recipes that take us back to our youth. important for the whole family Recipes Food can also be our enemy. We are seeing rising levels of lifestyle diseases and not only for the person w in South Africa, with terrible impacts on our health – heart disease, stroke, A bowl of soup ...p14 affected by a lifestyle disease. type two diabetes and cancers are all on the rise, due to our increasingly w Salads and veggies ...p22 Teach your children to eat poor diet. w Lunch and supper ...p34 healthily from a young age to protect them from chronic • Fish ...p35 We all know that staying healthy can be difficult. We have busy schedules, di seases later in life. Healthy and shrinking household budgets. Healthy foods recommended to us often • Vegetarian ...p43 food doesn’t have to be expen - seem unavailable and unaffordable, leaving us feeling inadequate. It can be • Chicken ...p50 sive or bland and boring. • Meat ...p60 time-consuming to make the journey to the supermarket and to prepare a We show you how to use as meal, when fast food is closer to home. w Sweet treats and desserts ...p70 little fat, oil, salt and sugar as Can we afford to spend more on so-called ‘healthy foods’? Do we have the w Snacks, breads and baking ...p82 possible and rather use herbs, time to slave over a stove to make dishes that our families turn their noses lemon juice, salt-free spices and other seasonings to prepare up at? The truth is healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring, expensive or Everyday ingredients in your kitchen ...p92 delicious food. We want to Index ...p93 complicated! It can be as simple as making small changes to your family’s encourage you and your family favourite dishes. This recipe book shows how to make food that tastes to gradually make changes to good, is simple to prepare and is easy on the pocket. By using everyday the way you eat and cook. This ingredients, you too can prevent yourself and your families from the Something to remember: will make a huge difference to dangers of different lifestyle diseases. 1 tbsp stands for 1 tablespoon = 15 ml your health. I am passionate about making healthy living accessible to everyone in 1 tsp stands for 1 teaspoon = 5 ml South Africa and increasing our understanding of the risk factors of serious ½ tsp = 2,5ml diseases. It has so many implications for the future of our nation. This recipe 1 tsp = 5 ml 2 tsp = 10 ml book can show us how we can take responsibility for our own health, and 1 tbsp = 15 ml how to protect our families now and in the future. 2 tbsp = 30 ml ¼ cup = 60 ml w½ cup = 125 ml 1 cup = 250 ml 2 cups = 500 ml Desmond Tutu How healthily do you and your family eat? PO DO YOU USUALLY ...? YES NO A healthy diet includes plenty of vegetables, fruit and high-fibre starchy foods, and is low in fat (especially saturated fat), salt and Choose wholewheat or brown bread and flour, rather than white bread or sugar. Take the quiz on the next page to see how healthily you and flour? your family are eating. Your results will show whether you need to improve your eating habits. Have at least 3 vegetables a day? Have at least 2 fresh fruit a day? Choose fat-free or low-fat dairy like milk, maas or yoghurt? If you ticked “No” for any of the questions, your and/or your family’s diet can be improved. The more “No” answers you ticked, the more Eat red meat (like mutton, beef or boerewors) less than 3 times a week? unhealthy your diet is and the higher your risk of chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and Include dried or tinned beans, split peas, lentils or soya in your meals at least cancer. You need to think about changing your diet to improve your twice a week? overall health. You can make a start by following the healthy eating guidelines (pages 4-13) in this book and by preparing some of the Remove all the visible fat from meat before you eat it? delicious recipes. Remove the skin from chicken before cooking it? Avoid eating high-fat foods such as chips, viennas, polony or chocolate? Eat fish at least twice a week? Avoid eating takeaways or street foods like doughnuts, pies, vetkoek, samoosas, fried chips, fried chicken, gatsbies or ‘kotas’? Try to cook with less oil and avoid deep-frying foods? Avoid salty foods like polony, bacon, viennas, crisps, salty biscuits and high- salt sauces like soya or barbeque sauce? If you ticked “Yes” for some questions, you are making good Avoid adding extra salt to your food at the table? progress, but you can still benefit by making more changes to your eating habits. Try to avoid adding high-salt ingredients like soup powders, stock cubes or If you ticked “Yes” every time – well done! You are well on your way salty seasonings to your food? to preventing chronic diseases because you are choosing healthier options and avoiding the unhealthy foods eaten by many South Choose healthier snacks like fruit, vegetables, low-fat or fat-free yoghurt Africans. between your meals? Carry on reading to learn more about healthy eating and why it is important for you and your family … Use soft tub margarine for your bread, rather than butter or brick margarine? Avoid drinking sugary cold drinks or juices? 2. Cooking from the heart Healthy eating questionnaire adapted from Love my body love myself , Dr Marjanne Senekal, Cape Town, 2005. Guidelines for healthy eating Eat less salt and Eat less fat and chronic diseases. Sugar 7 avoid foods high 8 use the right in your diet comes from A healthy lifestyle helps to prevent and control chronic diseases in salt. Eating type of fats or sugar added to hot such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and too much salt can raise oils. Eating too much drinks, cereals and cook - cancer . Healthy eating is one of the most important things you can do for a healthier life. Remember that you also need to exer - your blood pressure fat and fried food can ing. High amounts of cise regularly and avoid smoking . The following tips will help you and increase your risk make you gain weight sugar are also found in and your family to eat healthily. of stroke, heart and raise your choles - cakes, biscuits, dough - attack and cancer. terol. Limit the amount nuts, sweets, chocolates Some salt in your diet of fatty red meat, butter, and sweetened cold comes from salt added hard margarine, cream, drinks. Enjoy a variety heart disease and can - Bad fats can increase at the table or during lard and ghee that you 1 of foods . Eating cer. Good examples are your cholesterol and cooking, but more than use. Rather use good Drink plenty of different types of brown or wholewheat block your blood ves - half of the salt that you (unsaturated) fats like 10 clean, safe food gives your body all bread, coarse maize sels, which can lead to eat comes from pro - vegetable oils and soft water every the nutrients it needs. (mealie) meal, oats and a stroke or heart attack. cessed foods . Examples tub margarine in small day. You need about The more colourful your brown rice. Try to include tinned or are stock cubes, soup amounts. Nuts, seeds, 6-8 glasses of water a plate of food, the wider fresh fish as part of your powders, salty snacks peanut butter and avo - day. Most of this should the variety. Try to eat 5 diet at least twice a like chips and processed cados are also sources of come from tap water, 4 vegetables and week. Good examples meats like polony. good fats. but can include drinks Eat dried like tea, coffee or diluted 2 fruit every day. are pilchards, snoek, Ideally, you shouldn’t beans, split have more than 1 tea - Eat less sugar fruit juice as well. peas, lentils or Remem ber to eat veg - sardines or tuna. etables and fruit from spoon of salt a day from 9 and avoid food soya at least twice a all sources. Gradually cut or drinks high If you drink the different colour Have low-fat week. They are a good down on adding salt to in sugar. Too much 11 alcohol, drink groups (red, green, yel - 6 source of protein, low in milk, maas or your food and soon you sugar can also make in moderation.