Low-carb recipes and inspiration for a healthier lifestyle
Eating healthy means different things to different people, but there is definitely a groundswell of interest in the low-carb approach. Tasty WasteNots isn’t specifically a Banting or Paleo recipe book, but follows similar principles of healthy eating and is ideal for those who want to dive straight into the recipes, learning about nutrition along the way.
Nutritionist Sally-Ann Creed is familiar to Banting followers from her collaboration with Tim Noakes on The Real Meal Revolution. Jason Whitehead is a restaurant consultant and private chef who had own restaurant, Freres Bistro, for two years. He says, “Freres Bistro was traditional French cuisine rich in cream and butter, and when the Banting book came out it just kind of worked together, so I was the first to offer a Banting low-carb, high-fat menu.” When Sally-Ann visited the restaurant they discovered a shared vision of what real food meant to them, and the idea for a book was born.
“The main thrust of this book is simple,” says Sally-Ann, “it’s all about getting back to basics, eating single-ingredient foods, real food, food that your grandmother would recognise.” There are no colour-coded lists of good and bad foods, just the proviso to cut out sugar, grains and seed oils.
At the launch Jason cooked us several recipes, including a stunning Irish-coffee-braised lamb shank with ginger pumpkin mash, and even a sugar-free dessert in the form of a beautiful chocolate orange mousse. Back home the trickiest thing was getting to grips with coconut flour’s astonishing powers of absorption, but otherwise recipes are easy to follow and tasty. As part of the back-to-basics approach, there are creative tips on using vegetable peels, seeds and stalks for really frugal environmentally friendly eating, plus a section on feeding pets the healthy way too.
The book has beautiful photography from Claire Gunn, and includes wine-pairing tips throughout from Stellar Organics wines, whose range of top quality, organic, sulphur-free wines made on the West Coast are in demand internationally.
Words: Kit Heathcock | Images: Claire Gunn Photography
