Browsing Tag

low carb

Friday Fare

Friday Fare – Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

May 23, 2014

Well this is exciting! Not only do I get to share a lovely Thai recipe with you all, I get to show you a way to put a spin on this classic recipe. Rather proud of myself for thinking of this if I must say so myself. Get ready to make Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls!

Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

Okay so for all of you who are unfamiliar with Thai cuisine, laab moo (ลาบหมู) is essentially a minced pork spicy salad containing shallots, lots of lime juice, cilantro, mint, chilli flakes and garlic. The herbs and lime juice make for a delicious and healthy recipe, and the minced pork means that it is a meal high in protein. In a traditional laab moo recipe, you will find that they add toasted sticky rice but I omitted that in this recipe to keep it lower carb and to keep the recipe easy as pie.

The addition of rice paper rolls is a great way to enjoy laab moo and a way to get some more veggies into you. I really don’t like lettuce all that much but hey, put it into a rice paper roll and I will eat it right up. Rice paper rolls have some magical properties to make things I don’t like edible I guess (no, it’s because then I can dip it in yummy peanut sauce … shh).

However, I added spinach to this recipe because I seriously have a love affair with spinach – it is high in antioxidants, fiber, protein (3g for 2 cups of raw spinach), and plenty of minerals including but not limited to vitamin A, C, K, calcium and so much more.

Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

Alice Williams
Experience the taste of Thai with these refreshing yet tangy fresh rolls!
Print Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 2 rice paper rolls
  • 4 oz lean minced pork
  • 1 1/2-2 cups spinach
  • 1/4 cup vermicelli noodles not necessary but the rolls are a bit wet without them
  • 1 shallot diced
  • 2 garlic cloves mashed
  • 1 lime
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 5-10 cilantro leaves
  • 5 mint leaves
  • 1/2 tsp-1tbsp chilli flakes please adjust to YOUR spice levels

Instructions
 

  • 1. Get your minced pork and squeeze the juice of 1/2 lime onto the meat and let it marinade for 30 mins to 1 hour. Prepare you vermicelli noodles while you wait according the directions.
  • 2. Get a frying pan/wok and put on high heat for 1 minute. Now, get 1tbsp of water and splash onto the pan. It should start sizzling and evaporating, and if so your pan is hot enough. Add the pork to the pan (be careful!!) and cook until the meat turns a grey color and there is no more pink. Once the pork is done put it into a bowl.
  • 3. Add the diced shallot, mashed garlic cloves, fish sauce, cilantro leaves, mint, chili flakes, and juice from the remaining 1/2 lime into the pork mixture.
  • 4. Get your rice paper rolls ready. If they are dry, then run them under hot water for 30 seconds - 1 minute until they soften. Lay the rice paper rolls out and put 1 cup of spinach on each roll followed evenly distribute the vermicelli noodles.
  • 5. Sieve the pork mixture (save the juice in a separate bowl) and now add the pork mixture on top of the spinach. Roll everything up.
  • 6. Enjoy and use the juice from the pork mixture as a tangy dipping sauce!
Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

Yeah. not an expert at making rolls but I will be with practice!

Thai Laab Moo Fresh Rolls

I hope you enjoyed this meal as much as I did! I added way way WAY too much chilli flakes (being in America has weakened my ability to handle spice) but hey, apparently spicy foods boost your metabolism …

Honestly yours,
Alice

Health

Carbs are not the devil

January 28, 2014
Carbs are not the devil

It seems like everyday I hear someone demonizing carbs; “Yeah, today I’m not gonna eat any carbs” or even worse “I am on a low carb diet.” But guys, carbs are not the devil!

With the rise of diets that claim you can ‘lose weight fast!’ by reducing your carbohydrate intake, or dropping this macronutrient entirely, it is no wonder people automatically assume that you will lose weight if you cut your carbohydrate intake. And to be honest it works at first, because when you reduce how many carbohydrates you eat, your body reduces the amount of insulin produced which in turn makes your body use protein or fat as its energy source.

The Problem With Low-Carb Diets

The problem with this however, is that you cannot be on a life long low carbohydrate diet. Sure, it may work in the short term, but the body, and especially the brain, requires carbohydrates for energy. The brain cells ONLY use glucose as an energy source and because it cannot store glucose, they depend on the bloodstream to deliver glucose to it. Carbohydrates get broken down into glucose, so if you remove carbohydrates from your diet, how is your brain supposed to function? Protein gets broken down into glycogen, and fats get broken down into glycerol and fatty acids, but they are nowhere near as efficient as glucose. I want a healthy and working brain thanks. There are many other dangers that can happen to you if you follow a low carb diet for you long such as

-feeling extremely tired all the time
-loss of muscle mass because you just don’t have the energy to workout
-constipation and bowel issues (from a reduction in fiber)
-dehydration
-longer term health issues such as your immune system becoming weaker

Carbs are not the devil

Carbs are not the devil

It is really not worth it. Seriously, I went on a verrry low carbohydrate diet last year and although I lost a lot of weight, I was tired all the time, and honestly it put me through a really hard time as I gained most of the weight back plus some (which thankfully I have lost through a HEALTHY and BALANCED diet!). I tried going back on my low carb diet at first, exercised like crazy but literally nothing worked because my body was so used to not having carbohydrates that even though I was eating completely healthy foods, I could not lose the weight. It seriously freaked me out because I have never had so much trouble losing weight in my life. My body had adapted to having such a low amount of carbs, that even eating a normal amount of carbohydrates would make me gain weight.

What We Should Be Focusing On

If anything we should really be more focused on cutting our sugar consumption, and not just the obvious things like chocolate and soft drinks like coke. You would be so surprised at how much added sugars are in such innocent products. An example would be ketchup, it is practically all sugar! And I am talking about sugars such as sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, beet sugar, cane sugar, and liquid fructose. Although fruits are very healthy, unfortunately a lot of companies have been adding fructose (fruit sugar) to products to make them sweeter. If you want a more in-depth explanation about how bad added sugar (not naturally occurring sugars, I am not trying to demonize anything natural) can be for you, click here.

My Advice?

Just be sensible everyone and realize that carbs are not the devil; nor is any other macronutrient. There is no need to completely cut out any food group. Balance is the key. And sure, you can still enjoy your guilty pleasures too, just make sure that they aren’t an everyday occurrence. And again, if you eat too many carbohydrates then you may gain weight. But quite frankly, if you eat too much of anything, there is a high chance you will gain weight. Calories are calories, although not all calories are created equal (give me 300 calories of shrimp over 300 calories of non-nutritious rice cakes any day).

Let Me Know What YOU Think

What diets have you heard about? I would love to hear what they are, as I am always discovering weirder and weirder ones .. someone told me about a 500 calorie diet a day and I just about died.

Honestly yours,
Alice

References
The Hidden Dangers of a Low Carbohydrate Diet
Low Carbohydrate Diets: Going Against The Grain