My Husband the Chef

There is a common sentiment among TV chefs that it is impossible to have truly delicious low fat, low calorie foods. Most of the time I tend to disagree, though admittedly I have never eaten in one of their restaurants so maybe I don’t know what I’m missing. I think my husband and I manage to make very good food that is also relatively healthy.

However, I do find occasions where this is not the case. Much as I love the recipes in the Leon’s Recipe book, particularly their vegetarian ones, they do tend to use a lot of oil, dramatically increasing the fat content of what is often simply vegetables, beans and spices. My husband sees no problem with this, but then he is the chef in the family, who actually tries new techniques and ingredients, and is perfectly willing to spend hours on one meal. Which leads us to his famous, and now even more delicious, chilli of yesterday. You see, he’s been watching Heston’s new How to Cook show, which featured a chilli recipe this week. This gave my husband several new things to try, all of which worked really well and made a lovely, complex dish. It was only when I was totting up the nutritional score that I realised it also made for a dish much higher in fat and calories. On Christmas Eve we had his chilli which had about 283 calories and 9.5g of fat per 300g serving. Yesterday’s offering? 416 calories and 20g of fat per 300g serving!

I love my husband dearly and am grateful he is able and willing to cook. However, I’m not certain his cooking will help me reach my health and fitness goals, though it may help me reach my happiness goals!  

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2179.42	109.89g	247.13g	60.50g	31.00g	31.78g
	20%	45%	25%	10%
Calories burned through exercise:		314

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:30	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself smoked bacon medallions	71g
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
09:00	Black Tea	500mL
10:00	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
10:30	Brazil nuts	6g
	Cashews	17g
	Plums	110g
11:00	Green Tea	250mL
13:30	King Prawn stir fry in Oyster sauce	355g
	Merchant Gourmet tinned puy lentils	105g
	Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate	20g
14:15	Green Tea	150mL
14:30	Hill run - 25 min
15:15	Lemon Lime Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
15:30	Total Greek yoghurt	125g
	Sainsbury's frozen mixed blueberries and strawberries	90g
	Sponser vanilla Recovery Shake	20g (1 scoop)
	mixed with skim milk	150mL
17:00	Black Tea	300mL
20:00	Camomile Tea	250mL
21:00	Homemade chilli	300g
	Doritos Hint of Lime tortilla chips	40g
	Red wine	150mL
21:45	Red wine	150mL

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.