Tannoy announcements are all part of the rich folk tapestry that is the weekly shop. Whether it's a "Code 5 alert" or just "Michael to aisle 14 - we have a popped Tayto multipack", they help make the trolley dash a richer, more rewarding experience. So here's our very own innocent tannoy announcement, where we highlight our favourite deals of the week, on our drinks and other fine comestibles.
Bing Bong. This week, there's €1 off our smoothies in big cartons at Superquinn as well as 20% off a rack of lamb and 25% extra colour catching sheets free. Bing Bong.
Bing Bong. Over at Dunnes, eggs are half price, our smoothies in little bottles are on offer at €1.99 and there's 50% extra free on fig rolls. Bing Bong.
Bing Bong SuperValu have our smoothies in big cartons on offer at €2.99. While you're there you can find a loaf of bread for €1, rubber gloves at half price and a BOGOF* on some nice posh chocolate. Bing Bong.
Looks like it's lamb fig roll sandwiches for tea then.
* BOGOF = buy one get one free but you knew that already didn't you?
This week's big health question to Dr Shilpee is from Amy: I eat too much and I'm starting to feel fat and bloated. :( Can I stop the doughnuts? What can I eat for snacks instead?
Most of us get a bit hungry between meals and it's not unusual to feel peckish at 11am and/or 3pm. It's also a fact that most folk are like Amy and love doughnuts. If we could get away with we'd all be chowing down on those lovely jammy delights everyday. Unfortunately donuts contain around 300 kcals each with about half of the calories come from fat so it's not the best food to be snacking on.
As a general rule you should be getting three quarters of your daily calories and nutrients at breakfast, lunch and dinner. This means you can get a quarter of your energy and nutrients in snacks which you can spread out throughout the day (that's about 500 kcals in total for a woman). Eating crisps, sweets and chocolates as an occasional treat is fine but these snacks contain lots of energy but few nutrients (things vitamins and minerals) and fibre (which can help you to feel full). You need to make sure that your snacks have lots of good nutrition as well as calories.
The best foods to snack on are -
1) fruits - whole fruit, dried fruit and smoothies are a great way to tide you over. Fruit contains fibre which can help you to feel full as well as lots of good things like vitamins and anti-oxidants.
2) low fat yoghurts, rice pudding and thickies - these are relatively low in calories but contain lots of calcium for healthy bones. The protein in these foods can also help you to keep full.
3) rice cakes, crackers , fruit loaf and cereal bars - these contain starchy carbs which will pep up your energy levels but not overload you with calories
4) nuts and seeds - a handful is just enough to give you an boost and some healthy oils too.
I'm a grazer and find that eating little and often really works for me. If you let yourself get too hungry you may find that you gorge at the next meal. Everyone is different though and I'd love to get your views.
Lent can be a second chance to make good on all those resolutions you made on January 1st and gave up on January 2nd, or make new ones that you're really going to stick to. So, this year, we decided to give our Lenten resolutions some proper and serious consideration.
Brian and Ali have challenged each other to stop biting their (own) nails.
Juliet is putting fashion over comfort and must wear heels for at least four days per week.
And Brendan has a two tier resolution system. His own mission is to give up biccies but this involves his recent arrival, Max, facing a challenge of his own.
Max's mission, even though he technically can't choose to accept it, is to be sleeping through the night by Easter Sunday because if he doesn't, mum and dad might begin to crack up and that'll make Brendan fall right off the chocolate digestive wagon.
Let us know what your resolution for Lent is and the most interesting one will get a nice box of smoothies.
A few weeks ago, I was on holiday in Malawi and was luck enough to spend an afternoon with Joseph and Joseph from Microloan to see some of the great work they're continuing to do out there.
The Microloan Foundation provides small loans and business advice to women in Malawi and Zambi which allow these women to start up small businesses in their local communities, selling rice, tomatoes, bananas and so on.
The women then form small groups and are collectively responsible for re-paying the loans. This helps them learn about money management and means they receive a lump sum at the end with which to improve their family and community lifestyle.
One of the loan agreements
I met Joseph and Joseph in Rumphi, Northern Malawi, to attend a repayment meeting in a local village. These meetings take place fortnightly and each member of the group is expected to repay their share of the loan and make their savings.
Having driven for an hour along a dusty track, we were greeted with the sound of singing from the women, who were singing about how grateful they were to Microloan for improving their lives.
After the repayments had taken place, we then had a Q&A session where I got to find out how the opportunity to run their own businesses had affected their lives. All the women agreed unanimously that their lives had changed for the better as they were now able to provide for their families, without having to solely rely on their husbands for support.
Annie told me that her biggest wish for next year was to save up enough money to buy a proper bed, instead of the mat she currently sleeps on.
Last year, Microloan made 22,000 loans to 11,000 women like Annie, helping them set up profitable businesses and accumulate around about £15 in savings each. £15 might not sound like a lot but these savings helped look after 66,000 dependents.
This year Microloan are looking to expand in Malawi, Zambia and Namibia with the aim of helping over 100,000 people work their way out of poverty by Christmas.
So hopefully, along with Microloan's support, Annie will be sleeping soundly and comfortably come December.
Every now and again we have a hunt about on the marvelous youtube to see if anyone has tagged a video with anything to do with us. It's normally worth a root about as you can come across some little gems like this, this, and this.
And now let us please present to you this wonderful homemade animation that's brightened up our Thursday morning no end.
Doug and I go for a jog most evenings. I say jog, it is a quick walk in places; I blame the heat and the altitude. As we get out of our gate Kennedy, the neighbour’s son is ready and waiting in his sports kit, good to go. We turn up the hill and start running, Kennedy always the pace setter. Doug has a regular circuit which starts with a lung busting climb and thankfully levels off to be a steady downhill back to the start. We did two laps tonight before both of us couldn’t face anymore; Kennedy could have run all day. Being a mzungu (white person) and running in garish sports equipment we stick out like a sore thumb. The local kids are high-fiving us all the way round and some chase after us chuckling to themselves, which is great. They make the effort worthwhile.
We end our jog by running on top of a dam that is just on the outside of Kola. Usually it is just Doug and I cooling down but today there were hundreds of people sitting there. After a few minutes a cheer went up and a truck pulled up. The truck was there to distribute bags of maize. The people had been waiting since 08:00 in the morning for emergency food relief.
Most households near Kola are subsistence farmers with a small plot of land to feed their family. October through to December is traditionally the rainy season, however last year there wasn’t enough rain to sustain their crops so they failed, and now the country is heading into famine. We saw Kennedy’s dad queuing up for the maize.
This week Caroline filled in our handy ask Doctor Shilpee form to ask: "I'm concerned about salt and sodium content, can you tell me more about healthy guidelines as I'm trying very hard to reduce the amount of salt in my diet."
Well Caroline, salt is also called sodium chloride and healthy eating guidelines are that you should aim to eat less than 6g a day. Sodium is the thing in sodium chloride that is bad for health if you eat too much as it can raise your blood pressure. You do need some salt in your diet however as it helps to keep the levels of fluid in the body balanced.
You usually find sodium on food labels in the nutritional information panel although sometimes salt is listed. It's easy to work out the salt from sodium by multiplying sodium by 2.5.
Sodium is found in all foods naturally at very low levels but high levels of sodium chloride are added to some foods. These are foods like bacon, some breakfast cereals, cheese, some bread, savory snacks and ready meals.
In Ireland and the UK we're eating too much salt and on average we eat about 9.5g of salt a day.
What is a high salt food?
High salt is more than 1.5g per 100g (or 0.6g of sodium) whereas low salt is 0.3g of salt or less per 100g. If the amount of salt is in between these number a food is considered to be medium salt.
Here are a few tips for keeping salt levels low:
1. Check food labels and choose lower salt breakfast cereals. Try things like puffed wheat, wheat biscuits, porridge oats and muesli with no added salt.
2. If you eat bacon go for the reduced salt type and try having slices of fresh tomato rather than ketchup
3. Go easy on the ketchup, soy sauce, mustard and pickles as these can be high in salt
4. Try to eat healthy snacks like fruit or vegetables like carrots and celery sticks. If you're going to eat crisps or crackers, check the label and choose the lower salt ones
5. Compare ready meals and ready made sauces and choose the one that's lower in salt
6. If you eat tinned veg ad pulses choose ones with no added salt
7. Adding salt to your food can just be habit. Make sure you taste before deciding if you need to add salt.
Hope this all makes sense. If you need have any questions let me know.
Last month we started working with a company called Helsinki Foodstock Oy, who are helping us sell our smoothies in Finland. Here they are, looking fine and Finnish...
Things have started really well and you can find our drinks across Finland in Wayne's Coffee, Stockmann Food Hall, at the airport and in some very nice cafes throughout Helsinki.
Sami, co-founder of Foodstock, in a Wayne's Coffee shop
Getting around has been a bit tricky though. Even with snow chains attached to her tyres, our grassy van is no match for a filthy Finnish winter.
And some of our Finnish friends have been taking our drinks for a swim in the icy sea, for no apparent good reason.
To help us understand things better, and to share a bit of Finnishness with us, the Foodstock folks sent our pals in London over an ice hockey tabletop game. They played hard...
And then had a fight, which we understand is how things are done, ice hockey style. We're all slowly learning the ways of the Finn. And waiting for our hockey table...
He's been having a few computer issues out there (which is ironic, seeing as he is one of our top IT brains) so until he figures a way to work the blog from Kenya, we'll be posting his blogs for him.
Here's his first update:
After a good flight over, I was met by Francis, one of Excellent Development Kenya's (EDK) drivers. He had a really relaxed manner which comes in handy when you are driving on the Mombassa Road to Kola. The Mombassa road is hard going and a 4x4 struggles with the ditches which are commonplace.
I found this surprising seeing as it is the major link from the coast into East Africa. Strangely though, as you get further away from the airport, it gets better and better. So by the time we hit Machakos, the main town in the area, we were properly motoring along.
Once we got to the EDK HQ in Kola, I was shown round my new home and got to meet some of the people who work for EDK. Doug is going to be my main contact whilst I am here. He's an accountant by trade but jacked it all in to work in the charitable sector in Kenya.
He took me down to see the nearest sand dam to the HQ, which was built by the local self help groups with the help of some volunteers from the Rosslyn School in Nairobi. Sand dams are what EDK specialise in. The dam enables a local community to have a store of clean water between rainy seasons. Since the last rainy season in December only lasted a couple of days, lots of areas in Kenya are in real danger of famine.
Later in the day, I went with the school group to visit the largest dam in the area which also doubles as a swimming pool. As soon as you pull up in your car, the local children arrive from nowhere, seemingly sprouting from the bushes. They are great, really small and really smiley. Some say hello then get shy when you talk back to them, but saying that my Kikamba isn't too hot.
Or maybe it was just my accent. Definitely got to work more on my languages so I'll let you know how I'm getting on next time.
This is the very pretty view from Fruit Towers Dublin, from Juliet's desk to be exact...
RTE have posted lots of tips for having fun, staying safe and getting home in one piece in the snow here.
Our favourite is how to make a snow angel.
1. Find a nice big patch of untouched snow. Flop down gently backwards on to it with your arms and legs outstretched.
2. Move your arms up and down in a big sweeping movement and swoosh the snow apart with your legs, opening and closing them 4-5 times.
3. Then, with ultra super care, gently climb out (usually one or two pals helping lift you out is very handy) so that you don't leave too many footprints.
Heavenly.
Our second favourite tip from RTE was to never eat any yellow snow. Sound advice indeed.
Aisling on Brighten up your street visits Cork
elliptical reviews on The Knitting and Stitching Show
Clio on Knitting and Stitching show competition.
linda nugent on Knitting and Stitching show competition.
Marie Clohessy on Knitting and Stitching show competition.
Marie Clohessy on Knitting and Stitching show competition.
Katarina Benova on Knitting and Stitching show competition.
Martin Hayden on Knitting and Stitching show competition.
Fiona Finn on Knitting and Stitching show competition.