nutritional and supplementary considerations

My surprise at the thread has diminished since I realisrd you were saying galatine not gelignite. Always confuse those two...

theres a difference between the two? who knew?

Yah ! 'Berry Bliss' are unstoppably yum. Prefer more hard tack if I'm day-trippin. 'jet Planes' it is. But, enough of this sugar laden blasphemy. Waiting to hear about Honora's gelatine-chocolate toddy ?. http://pl.b5z.net/i/u/6070324/i/ec/Gelatin40_-_600.jpg

OK, I put in 3 raised tsps as I don't carry a dessert spoon. How I got into this was I met a guy in his 30's who dances and he told me the gelatine stops his joints from getting sore. It is surprisingly expensive at least in the form I find it in our supermarket. A wee 100g canister imported from Australia is $4 plus. Considering we are currently culling the dairy cows from whose hides this stuff is made, it's a bit steep I reckon. Anyone know a bulkier/cheaper source?

@Honora "How I got into this was I met a guy in his 30's who dances and he told me the gelatine stops his joints from getting sore." We just recently started brewing up bone broths - and one entirely unexpected side effect was my partner reporting that her ankles hurt way less after a day on her feet at work. Lot's of gelatin in bone broth.

@Gaiters "I'm 39 and have the body and mind of a twenty year old" Does that mean when you were 20 you had the body and mind of a 1 year old? ;) Seriously though, for me there is something to be said in avoiding dairy. Along with other dietary changes, I've been reducing my diary to the odd splash of milk in my tea and minimal butter, no cheese, no yoghurt etc, and I have noticed a difference in my general energy levels. I remember reading somewhere that to avoid fructose overload you should never consume more dehydrated fruit than the equivalent portion of fresh fruit. What it comes down to, apart from the plethora of refined food we consume, is the amount of food we consume. In the western world (and increasingly everywhere else) we eat TOO much food, and bad food at that. There are examples of tribes and peoples whose bodies seem to utilize less food more efficiently because their systems are not constantly overloaded. At lot of interesting research out there on the benefits of fasting.

It's amazing how most of us overeat routinely. I decided to drop some kgs after a pretty, err, gastronomical winter, so I experimented with smaller portions and taking meals further apart. I've cut my calorie intake by more than half. My stomach adjusted in a couple of days to the point where I will sometimes eat just because I know I really should.

look at the glycemic index (GI) of food, rates between one and a hundred. a hundred is digested the quickest and foods your body with energy putting more stress on your body to manage and do something with the big influx in energy, stresses your pancreas as it has to pour out insulin quickly to deal with the quick increase in blood sugar. you can end up with reactive hypoglycaemia where your blood sugar plunges as a result of your pancreas releasing a lot of insulin to offset a big influx of high gi foods. high gi foods on their own are only really good when you're low in energy when you've been tramping for a while or when you've just finished, and bear in mind too much fruit is hard for the digestive system to manage. aim more for medium to low GI foods or offset the GI of high gi foods by combining them with lower gi food, adding fats to meals effectively lowers the gi, the more fat the lower the gi. a lot of low GI food on its own isnt necessarily the best , being slow to digest it slow to restock your body with energy. people dont realise tht a lot of refined and even some unrefined high carb foods are about as bad as sugar for how fast they are absorbed. and high fat diets arent the answer either, high fat diets are implicated in diabetes as much as high refined carb / sugar diets, insulin is less effective when you eat a lot of fat so your pancreas works harder generating more insulin to to the same job. GI list: http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/diet/gi_diet/glycaemic_index_tables.htm searchable database http://www.glycemicindex.com/

Yup, I make bone broth once a week from chicken bones. Yet to try beef bones though. I think they have to be sawn open. Another advantage is that you get to eat animal derived protein without consuming methionine which can cause hyperhomocystinemia. Broth has glycine instead.

@1strider avoiding dairy was an experiment that had very positive effects for me. All symptoms of chronic sinusitis have disappeared. It only developed a year ago but was so debilitating I even considered expensive and invasive surgery. Specialists rarely look at the cause of a condition but rather want to operate. Fortunately I decided to run a series of dietary experiments first. Very glad I did. What is puzzling to me is how I developed an allergy to milk (in particular) after 48 years… when you bring this subject up it's quite amazing what people will say; "Fonterra put all sorts of nasties in our milk", "trim milk is made from milk powder", "the cows are fed a cocktail of chemicals which make its way into the milk". etc etc. No specifics of course. Something has changed and I can no longer tolerate it, that much is clear. Now I have to find another source of calcium. Currently taking soy (just bought some organic soy milk powder for tramping from Piko) but I had read that bovine calcium is most readily absorbed in the body so finding a way to keep bones strong is my current concern. It's a fascinating subject but one that feels like a bit like a chemical maze... Just like the book on the same subject - my guide to understanding the "numbers" in our food. If you do get it, you will never look at processed foods the same way again.