A good warm lamb stew to keep winter out and warm you from inside. I use lamb neck fillet because if you cook it long and slow it becomes meltingly soft and has a good flavour. I used a kilo and the butcher sliced it  for me into one inch slices. Not cheap, but it did six meals and was so good! By the way, the longer you leave it before eating it, the better it gets!

I started by sautéing some onion, garlic, mushrooms, chillies and small diced ginger in the casserole. I made a bouquet garnis with celery and whatever herbs I could find in the garden. There are still herbs even at the end of a UK winter – parsley, rosemary, sage and winter savoury.

The lamb was roasting and browning in a very hot oven until the flavours of the onion and mushrooms and ginger were developed. Then combine .

Meat meets herb flavour!!

I then added some of the best lamb stock ever – thanks to my butcher for the lamb bones – and of course some red wine. Look how strong and solid it is.

Next come some winter root vegetables, just what ever you want. I had swede and carrot.

Then cook long and slow. I cooked it in the oven for four hours at 145C.

And here it is with roasted black kale. Sorry about the messy presentation, I was hungry and it was delicious!!

Primal winter lamb stew. You are welcome 😊

It’s only three weeks since the UK Secretary of State for Health declared, seven years after a report was published saying that childhood obesity was out of control, that childhood obesity was a “national emergency”. So you might think that, in the face of this emergency, that the government might have an idea, or a plan or something. Anything. Well now we know, they have nothing. Nix, nada…

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/26/childhood-obesity-strategy-delayed-sugar-tax-unlikely
The childhood obesity strategy is delayed until “the summer” – it will never see the light of day – and the tax on sugar looks to be abandoned. Big food wins again at the cost of people’s health. More obesity, more diabetes, more insulin and other drugs prescribed and health service budgets drained away and more limbs amputated. Good job.

Here is the start of the horror to come. Hospital admissions for children to have their decayed teeth removed are rising at an alarming rate in the UK.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/27/england-hospital-treatment-children-severe-tooth-decay
This is children whose teeth are so severely decayed that that have to go to hospital for surgery to have them removed. We know what causes dental decay in children. It’s sugar. No ifs, no buts, no dodgy data or equivocation, it’s sugar.

If the UK Health Secretary can’t find enough evidence to link sugar to obesity and diabetes (and why can’t he???)  at the very least he could try to save some childrens’ teeth!! 

The full horror of what is being sold as tea  etc. is revealed today by Action on Sugar here:

http://www.actiononsugar.org/News%20Centre/Surveys%20/2016/170865.html

The worst offender is (as usual) Starbucks whose hot mulled fruit drink (what on earth is that?) comes with a mind-blowing 99g or 25 teaspoons of sugar!!! Imagine stirring 25 teaspoons of sugar into a cup of tea!! 

Starbucks’s response to coming top of the poll of sugar poisoners was so perfunctory as to be hilarious:

“Earlier this year we committed to reduce added sugar in our indulgent drinks by 25% by the end of 2020.”

The end of 2020? Why does it take four years to stop opening a bottle of sugar syrup and pouring it in people’s tea. Get real Starbucks and stop giving people diabetes, and while you are at it, pay some tax.

The joke that is UK government policy on obesity descends further into farce.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/07/childhood-obesity-national-emergency-jeremy-hunt-health-sugar-tax-jamie-oliver
The current UK Secretary of State for Health today suddenly woke up to the fact that the UK is the most obese country in Europe and that childhood obesity is effectively out of control. 

It is now over 7 years since the government commissioned Foresight report on obesity in the UK 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-obesity-future-choices

warned that being overweight was now the normal state in the UK and unless we urgently implemented a strategy to tackle it: 

“The rate of increase in overweight and obesity, in children and adults,
is striking. By 2050, Foresight modelling indicates that 60% of adult men, 50% of adult women and about 25% of all children under 16 could be obese. Obesity increases the risk of a range of chronic diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes, stroke and coronary heart disease and also cancer and arthritis. The NHS costs attributable to overweight and obesity are projected to double to £10 billion per year by 2050. The wider costs to society and business are estimated to reach £49.9 billion per year (at today’s prices).
“

And yet, seven years later, the policy remains unformed and unstated and even the relatively simple part of the solution that would make the sugar manufacturers pay part of the cost of cleaning up this mess, a sugar tax, remains something that the government might do but then again might not. The SoS for health still cannot say whether it is government policy or not and if not, what might be. So while he declares it a “national emergency” he has no plan, no solution and no clue.

Meanwhile Jamie Oliver threatens to get really, really upset if the government doesn’t do something, but also without saying with any clarity what the something might be. Jamie’s solution sounds even more bizarre than no solution at all, seeming to involve going a bit “ninja” at the same time as going “underground” and ejecting the current government from power although then adding that that bit probably won’t make any difference. He does promise that the solution, whatever it is, won’t be pretty… 

So this is the current state of the debate on obesity in the UK: either a) no idea what to do, to who or by when or b) a surreal pseudo-guerilla political diatribe. I do, however, agree with Jamie Oliver that the solution is unlikely to be pretty if only because the problem is decidedly ugly.

I found the Tate and Lyle sugar factory in east London. I liked the banner “save our sugar” hung from the building. I suspect it is more to do with cane production rather than obesity but I feel the pain. As the industry shuts down we need to replace the work BTW see earlier posts on sugar and slavery. Not a good history.

… and after time to reflect, what do I think about what I heard and experienced?

I think Melissa Hartwig is an extremely accomplished public speaker and,as you might expect, totally on top of her subject. She spoke for more than three hours without notes or a PowerPoint presentation to guide her and dealt with every question a diverse audience, that had come from all over Europe, threw at her. She didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know but it was useful to hear it from her directly and and the whole experience has really cemented the ideas in my head. She repeated a few times that the Whole30 is not a “weight loss programme” to which my inner imp replied “Sure, except it is!” and that a key concept of the Whole30 is that you don’t weigh yourself to which my imp answered “right.. except you do”. The most surprising revelation (for me) was that Melissa is a recovering drug addict, I did not know that, maybe I should have done as it is no secret:

http://whole9life.com/2012/01/coming-clean/

All in all the seminar reinforced my view that, for 10, 20 or 30 days (pick your own number between 10 and 90) the programme is a great way to re-set your relationship with food (and alcohol), it provides a set of rules that help you eat and shop is a simple to understand and follow, paleo friendly, way and kick starts a new or stalled weight loss programme. Sorry , Melissa it just does. Look at my data 😉

Finally, while finding the “Coming Clean” post above, I found this post by Dallas Hartwig:

http://whole30.com/2015/03/dallas-whole30/

Which gave me more pause for thought than the fact that one of its founders is a recovering drug addict… not only does the other founder not use it any more, he has only used it twice ever.

Does that change what I think about the programme? No not really, I have my own experience, results and feedback from clients to go on. It works.

Enjoying the Whole30 seminar in central London. People from all over Europe here. No cheats, no slips, no excuses! More later…

Dr Michael Ruscio describes dietary solutions to improve gut health (AIP = Auto-immune Paleo/Protocol)

A disappointing start to the year in the UK as Diabetes UK releases data that shows that the number of people in the  UK living with diabetes has now topped 4 million for the first time.

“The new figures, extracted from GP patient data, show that there are now 4.05 million people with the condition in the UK, which includes 3.5 million adults who have been diagnosed, an increase of 119,965 compared to the previous year, and an increase of 65 per cent over the past decade. There are also thought to be 549,000 people with undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes.”

Diabetes UK

So that’s 4 million people living with a hugely increased risk of heart disease, amputation, kidney disease, blindness, problems with their nervous system and a whole host of other complications that may, without the proper care, make their lives a misery and shorten their lifespan. Disturbingly, it looks like our health service may already be failing to cope:

“At the moment, more than 24,000 people a year with diabetes die before their time, which is because:

• Only 60 per cent of people with diabetes are getting the eight NICE recommended checks, which are key to identifying any problems early enough to prevent complications.
• Diabetes education courses are not being commissioned for people in over a third of areas in England.
• Hospital care for people with diabetes is consistently poor and, in a significant minority of cases, is putting people’s lives at risk.

This is despite clear evidence that improving care would help avoid health complications that, as well as being personally devastating, account for 80 per cent of the NHS’ £10 billion annual spend on diabetes”.

In a post yesterday, Diabetes UK reports on a study published in a Journal of The Lancet that reducing sugar in soft drinks by 40% would result in 300,000 fewer cases of Type 2 diabetes annually:

“A new study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal suggests that reducing sugar content in sugar sweetened drinks in the UK by 40% over five years, without replacing them with any artificial sweeteners, could prevent 500,000 cases of overweight and 1 million cases of obesity, in turn preventing around 300,000 cases of type 2 diabetes, over two decades. “

Finally,the UK government seems to have woken up to the catastrophe that is overtaking public health in the UK and has said that it does not “rule out” introducing a tax on sugary drinks (although seemingly not on other sugary products, like sugar!):

BBC News

Too little too late in my view but at least the government now recognises there might be a problem. Personally, I don’t think taxing the consumer is the answer. The answer is education so that people can make wise choices about what they consume and proper care for the unfortunate people who succumb to this awful disease – both of which will cost money. In my view the money should come from those people that have profited from the current situation – the sugar producers and the soft drink manufacturers. Make them pay the clean up costs for the mess they have created.

I am starting January 2016 in the same way that I have started every year for the past several years, with a concerted effort to strip off some body fat by doing a Whole 30. I use the autoimmune version of the plan as it seems to work best for me. I usually aim for 7lbs loss over the month. Recently however I seem to have been achieving that in 10 days so I will see how I go over the month. I really don’t want to lose any muscle so I need to watch out that I don’t over emphasise the cardio-vascular exercise over resistance.

Here are my stats from 2015. The big drop in January is a Whole 30 and the three falls in the final third of the year are 3 Whole 10s.

This January’s Whole 30 comes with an added bit of excitement in that on the 16th I have a ticket for a seminar on the Whole 30 by its originator, Melissa Hartwig. I am very excited about that!!

https://re-findhealth.com/whole30/

I will certainly blog about it afterwards.

So good luck with whatever resolutions you have made. If you are resolved to lose some body fat in 2016, get fitter and stronger and live a longer happier life, I wish you every success!

Stay primal in 2016!!

Free range, organic and hopefully perfectly cooked. We will see if it is tomorrow at 1pm 🙂