it was on the news this morning that take away orders have increased dramatically because of COVID and the subsequent lockdown.
Being a coeliac and into whole foods I don't eat take aways partly because I have a fear of food prepared by others and fast food leaves me cold, so this really interested me as its off my radar.
Just Eat has experienced a 76% increase ion demand for takeaways here's an article in the Guardian regarding this:
So I'd really like to know what you buy that is healthy as the fast food industry appears worlds apart from the populations nutritional needs.
Interestingly to me the most popular take away in the UK is fish and chips as chips if cooked with fresh potato and with good quality cooking oil contains a lot more vitamin C than a few apples. Obviously the fish is deep fried in batter so fish n' chips is not low in calories.
Personally if I'm out and get peckish its a trip to the nearest fruit shop for an apple and a banana for me.
The photo is of home made gluten free vegan fritters with frozen veg so fast enough food for me.
Delicious looking vegan fritters there Jerry, if only we could order those takeaway 😋 A buckwheat dosa filled with a choice of healthy fillings would be good too, I’d like them filled with a gf veg sausage and fried onions, we would probably get a better choice of healthy street food somewhere in the 3rd world!
A moreish tasting ‘fried’ onion is a grilled red onion sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil, taste and smells so good, the grilling gives crispy bits and it’s also quicker cooking, sliced up of course.
Thank you Zubi, now I do like the sound of a buckwheat dosa 😊
I think that you’re right about street food from developing countries being more who,some.
Now you say about veg sausages 3D food printers have been developed and have been licensed for use in Israel and the US and are expected here next year:
I’ve very mixed feelings about a 3D printer printing food! But it obviously has a place so I guess we will all see 3D printing as another type of food manufacture.
Amazing, how did you find that and I’d love to give it a try but instinctively it does not seem like real food, very interesting find, just image that in the Little d chippy!My veggie daughter does not enjoy anything tasting or looking like meat, I have a tasty steamed veg sausage recipe made from green lentils cooked in porcini mushroom stock veg and stuff, bit fiddly but tasty, no onions, plenty of lightly fried garlic.
Great post Jerry, and frankly I'd much rather eat what's depicted in the pic than most takeaways. But here's the thing. I eat them sometimes and for me, with no health restricting conditions to worry about, and because it's only done on rare occasions, the word 'healthy' doesn't even enter my head when I consider takeaway or restaurant food.Both are just treats for me and I'd say I eat in a restaurant roughly once in every three months and possibly the same for a takeaway. So it's always an occasion of great indulgence for me! 👍😊
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Thank you Sue, I think I’m lucky that I can’t eat lots of takeaways on one level as I don’t have the temptation. 😁 So I think that you’ve got it just right and see it for what it is rather than make an effort for a drive through breakfast…🤢
I knew quite a few people who ordered takeaway several times a week in the first lockdown, they eventually tapered back to once a week, so it doesn't surprise me people ate more.
We don't order takeaway often - my partner isn't as sensitive a coeliac as you are Jerry, but our nearest "safe" takeaways are at least a 15 minute drive away, so less convenient than just cooking your own food.
We found a couple of nice options - a taco place, that came with lots of healthy salad and salsa on the side. A restaurant (owner's wife is a coeliac), delivered a 3 course meal we reheated at home and we saw some other nice options like Sushi.
Hi Cooper, I guess I didn’t see it as comfort food and a distraction.
I really like the sound of the taco place especially with lots of salad. And having a meal delivered by a coeliac restauranteur sounds perfect and is first class service!
My local fish and chip shop is owned by a coeliac who always has gluten free options but I only learned about this the week before the first lockdown.
That sounds good! We lived fairly close to a chip shop, whose owner's mum was a coealic too, so it seems to be quite common for coeliac's and their relations to go into the food trade these days
There are no takeaways here, so I don’t have that temptation. When I go to visit friends, which I used to do once or twice a year, they’d get a takeaway which I always found very exciting! 🍱. I’d get some kind of vegetables and bean curd and veg spring rolls which maybe isn’t too unhealthy 🤔
I've surprised myself in how little interest I have had in takeaway since I changed to whole foods. UberEats has been tempting me with more and more generous offers to try their service, and I haven't taken them up on in the last 18 months.*
I have had takeaway sushi once in that time, as a treat. That was a mistake, as I ordered it through an app to stop food waste, and got the unsold sushi. It was full of cream cheese and mayonnaise and not to my taste at all.
Oh, and I picked up a pizza on my birthday in lockdown, which was a genuine treat. From a little place with a wood fired oven.
"with good quality cooking oil"
I am not sure there is such a thing. Saturated fat is stable when you heat it, but no one is using saturated fats anymore because they are "unhealthy". Hydrogenated fats are also stable when heated, but they are actually unhealthy. The so-called healthy vegetable oils are arguably healthy at room temp, but once you heat them they can produce all sorts of toxins. And oil from a takeaway is likely to be heated many times before it is discarded.
*The current offer from UberEats is tempting. £30 free, no minimum spend. So if I order £29 worth of food, I only pay delivery charge. I wonder how much tandoori mixed grill I can keep in my freezer 🤔
I found a seafood restaurant nearby that takes phone in orders. I like their grilled shrimp Caesar Salad. Mostly, I have to make my own treat food to help control my cholesterol due to arteriosclerosis. So fast food is real low on my radar. I don’t spend much time away from my home anyway to get tempted.
Hey a healthy balanced diet isn't austere eating Isinatra your potato soup was filling and wholesome I love potatoes and eat them in all shapes and forms. I eat a wholesome diet for me my needs and my tastes.
Austere is a good description of my usual diet. When I treat myself I have to be careful to space it out. Keep it balanced. But if I worked at it, I could make my diet more interesting. Keyword being work.😅
Your potato soup looks amazing to me Isinatra! And with that Cajun seasoning sprinkled on...... 👌We don't really eat takeaway ourselves, maybe a lovely Indian occasionally 😋
The thing is with fish and chips is how old is the oil - every time it is reheated it becomes more of a trans / hydrogenated fat which is unhealthy and affects our fat statusMost Takeaways are using hydrogenated fat and that includes McDonald's
I love the smell of fish and chips it seems the older and more unhealthy the fat the better it smells
Gee is hydrogenated butter and is also very unhealthy but no one seems to be warned about this
There has been a massive rise in people getting takeaways ,
Ghee is not hydrogenated butter, it is clarified butter. Butter is milk fat + water & milk solids. Ghee is pure dairy oil/fat. It's easy to make yourself.
Once. Twice, I guess, the second when you cook with it. Heating does not cause hydrogenation. Hydrogenation has to be done by bubbling hydrogen through the oil in the presence of a catalyst. Nothing like that can happen in your kitchen.
Ghee is a saturated fat, so it's much more stable than PUFAs, so if you did want to deep fry, ghee (as well as tallow and lard) would be good choice. Saturated fats are stable when you heat them; this was the motivation for hydrogenating fry oils, so they would be stable.
And the problem with frying in PUFAs is not that they become hydrogenated, it's that they become toxic.
There was an article in The Independent years ago about young Indian men dying of heart attacks after research they found that just a teaspoon of gee a day was the reason for early deaths from heart attacks
If there was such an article, it can't be factual. You cannot look at a group of natural deaths and name the cause underlying cause. You can form a hypothesis, but that would then need to be tested. No such tests have been done.
If a teaspoon of ghee a day is fatal to young men, there would not be 1+ billion Indians.
Number 61. There are 60 countries that mostly use less or no ghee that have a higher coronary deaths. And ghee is basically butter (I've googled it, and you actually keep the heat quite low, so making ghee does not change it chemically). So, which country eats the most butter? France, but a long margin. They use 30% more than Denmark, the second highest user. Where does France sit on the list of CVD deaths. Right at the bottom, just above Korea. That table suggests that ghee is extremely healthy.
And even if India was on the top, that would prove nothing. It would be epidemiology at it's worst. India is also at the top for vegetarianism and at the bottom for beef consumption. If they were at the top, I could just as easily claim they were there because the weren't getting enough heart-healthy beef tallow.
Use your words. I don't understand relevance of the first link, and I don't see any reason to link a single tragic death to ghee. I think it's more likely tallow deficiency.
It's not very often we have takeaways here but enjoy Chinese and fish and chips when we do.
Since lockdown came we have had nothing to do with fast food places like mc Donald's and KFC and take our own food when we are allowed to go out like pasta, rice and sandwiches.
I had your fish and chips a few years ago with a friend in Manchester. I won’t touch them anywhere else again. Which is good because it is definitely a rare indulgence. Idk stats but I imagine it is either burgers or Mexican/southwest in my neck of the woods. Fried avocado tacos are my fav.
All takeout is a treat. If you can even get healthy it is a treat out of your pocket book. I try to opt for a healthy lifestyle and a treat is just fine sometimes.
Oh… I see lines for in and out burger and crumbl cookies. The line for in and out was as bad as Ikea when they opened. They had police directing traffic for weeks. It is crazy. Such a mundane way to spend your life.
Morning Jerry, we rarely have take away food, much less now since Covid19. We very occasionally have fish and chips (sharing one portion of chips), it's sort obligatory living where we do but more often we buy fresh fish and cook at home. We make our own Fakeaways using low fat ingredients and fresh vegetables.
Lovely scrumpy plate of food there shown. I’m really a sad person, I don’t buy takeout out,, nor do I buy supermarket ready meals. I am lucky I love cooking and I’m a very happy person with fakeaways ,or real home made foods.I can control exactly what I eat and I also enjoy.
Hey thanks Vacyone and you are not sad as its bad eating habits and obesity that make people unhappy and unhealthy!
I don't buy supermarket ready meals and haven't thought about doing, so in my opinion you are spot on with your approach and attitude and you are the opposite of sad in my book.
The only takeaway i ever buy is fish and chips,and that however is quite rare.However i have been experimenting with a few ready meals,and some of those are very good,but quite a few are very bad,so its all trial and error.And even with those i usually cook extra vegetables because i tend to be on the greedy side.
I don't buy takeaway for similar reasons to yourself, it's just not worth the risk. Being vegetarian also restricts what's available locally. There's only one restaurant in town I have eaten at which serves gluten free northern indian food - they make a delicious korma - so if I was going to get a takeaway it would be that. But why pay pounds for what I can make myself at home for pennies with the assurance it won't make me ill? Did I mention I love cooking and experimenting with new dishes.
As a disabled person who's been pretty much written off by the DWP and parked in the support group until well after I retire officially next March I have plenty of time to prepare my own healthy foods. Plus being on a low fixed income it's a lot cheaper although I do buy prepared vegetables eg. butternut squash, when necessary as I have arthritis in my hands and trying to cut up the whole ones is difficult and painful.
Eating healthily and doing gentle daily stretching and light exercises is very much key to my remaining independant and being able to stay in my own home. But like a few people here I do make a fakeaway occasionally.
I like to make kebabs with greek style Vivera or a cheese burger with soya burgers and goat cheese and a side salad - I have to watch the calories as it's very easy to put weight on when you're mobility is restricted and crazy hard to lose it. I also do my own marinated baked tofu kebabs. Oddly enough I've never had a real takeaway kebab, they've always looked too greasy and unappealing.
I have not bought a take away for about 2 years now. Before that I may have bought fish and chips twice a year, no more. I am a meat eater about 3 times a week, but I have to know the origins of the meat. I have never ever bought KFC for example. I may buy a sandwich now and again, but NEVER one containing meat.
Your meal is a delicious looking homemade "fast food". I cant really do take out but I wish I could...lol. The closest is purchasing wedge potatoes or plantain chips once a month as a treat.
I tend to avoid take out but it is a nice helping hand when poorly or exhausted. We usually go for something like a salmon poke bowl. It is very difficult to find even marginally healthy take outs. The US has lots and lots and lots of choice when it comes to healthy take out. I'd definitely appreciate that luxury here in the UK.
For me it's got to be good 'ole fish & chips Jerry although it's not that often and where we get ours from, it's excellent and probably the best we've ever had.
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