Like most malaises, there is a wealth of advice on the interweb (some of it's actually been published in quack science books too) about what you should and shouldn't eat to keep the symptoms at bay. For endo, the list of things I should eat is as follows:
- fish oils
- Walnut oil
- flax seeds/oil
- olive oil
- whole grains (excluding wheat and rye)
- beans, peas and pulses
- brown rice
- vegetables and fruits
- oatmeal
- mustard greens
- broccoli
- cabbage
- turnips
And I should exclude
- wheat and rye
- red meat
- refined carbs
- refined sugar and honey
- caffeine
- chocolate
- dairy
- eggs
- fried foods
- saturated fat
- soy and soy protein
- tinned foods (but I can eat tinned tomatoes - whoop whoop)
- convenience foods
- alcohol
One thing I do try to do is maintain my iron levels. My mother keeps threatening to force feed me liver when I go to visit because I rarely eat red meat when I'm at home. To compensate, I've started taking an liquid iron supplement which seems to help - I got a sample of it in my goodie bag after running the Bath Half Marathon last month and it's much more tummy friendly than the stuff the NHS prescribe. I'm also looking at ways to eat more beans and pulses - hence tonight's recipe of choice which was on the BBC Good Food website under their Iron Rich Vegetarian Recipes section.
Halfway healthy mixed bean chilli |
It was an interesting recipe - using Spanish paprika rather than regular chilli. This, in conjunction with the cumin and cider vinegar gave it a really nice flavour range. Since starting this blog, I've been paying more attention to all the little bursts of flavour you get from the different herbs and spices etc and although the odd hit of a sour taste of vinegar was a bit weird at the start, I have to say that it really worked.
Rather than using just black beans, I had a tin of mixed beans from Asda. I don't normally shop there but was pleased with this find as most tins of mixed pulses also include chickpeas which don't always work well in some dishes. This dish would've been one of them in my opinion.
Do pay attention to the advice to cook the tomatoes for a while first as I missed the bit that said to wait ten minutes before throwing in the beans and consequently found it a little watery. And of course, I served it with white rice - naughty - but life is too short to boil brown rice. Seriously. It seems to take forever!
Will definitely be making this again on a regular basis. Warming, filling and packed with iron. And I'm sure it would be really nice with some chopped chorizo thrown in too.
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