Lunch and mid-afternoon snack suggestions, page 1 of 2

Please ensure that you have read the Important Notice in the Introduction and the guidelines for a balanced diet, fat, sugar, and salt. The products referred to below may be available from retailers other than those mentioned.

The Stress-free diet - lunch and mid-afternoon

The ‘suggestions’ for what to eat and drink at different times of the day are given to demonstrate that you can eat enough nutritious food so that you don’t get hungry, and yet still not consume an excessive amount of fat, ‘added’ sugar, and salt (although until manufacturers reduce the amount of salt in their products, that will probably be quite difficult to achieve). You may choose completely different items to eat and drink, but try to have a rough idea of how much fat, ‘added’ sugar, and salt you’re consuming, and ‘spread’ your fat intake throughout the day. Also, remember that it's a lot less stressful to make any changes to your diet gradually - for example, you could start by considering what you eat and drink for breakfast, and then a week later consider what you're eating for lunch, and so on.

‘Skipping’ lunch is not recommended – going too long without food leads to low blood sugar, which can make you crave for junk food – so you may as well eat something nutritious in the first place, so that won’t happen!

Lunch at home:

The fat content of some basic foods, such as margarine and eggs were given in the Guidelines, so they’re not repeated here, and the information will also be on the packaging of the food that you buy anyway. Where a specific product is recommended, the fat and ‘added’ sugar contents will be given, so that you can decide whether to look for it in your local supermarket.

If the weather is warm, then a salad is an obvious choice. If you’ve not had an egg for breakfast, then you could include a boiled egg, and perhaps some cottage cheese as well. Alternatively, you could include a portion of either prawns, crab, salmon or tuna (small tin) – all of which are low in saturates (check the labels for exact amounts), and don’t contain any additives. If you prefer chicken or turkey (both these contain only about 1-3 grams of fat (negligible saturates) – without skin - per 100 grams), then it’s best to use some that you’ve cooked yourself, to avoid the salt (sodium) and preservatives that are contained in most supermarket packs of sliced pre-cooked meats. Most quiches will contain a lot of saturates, and they wouldn’t leave much of your daily fat ‘allowance’ to ‘spend’ on other foods during the rest of the day. If you have a favourite salad dressing, mayonnaise, or salad cream, then consider how much fat and sugar it contains – if it seems to contain a lot of fat and sugar in the amount that you normally use, then you could either use a smaller amount, or look for a healthier alternative – or just sprinkle a little olive oil and lemon juice on your salad.

If you decide to have a sandwich, then you could include one of the items mentioned above, and add as many salad vegetables as possible. Wholemeal or seed bread, with margarine is recommended.

If you want something hot, then Simply Organic’s ‘Pure and Pronto’ Mediterranean vegetable and bean casserole (Just over 4 grams of fat, including about ½ gram of saturates), or Lentil & Winter vegetable stew (10 grams of fat, including 1 gram of saturates) - sold in the chilled cabinets of most supermarkets - are recommended, as they both contain a nutritious mix of vegetables, and are low in fat. Unfortunately, a whole pack does contain between 1 and 2 grams of salt, but it’s better to consume salt as part of a nutritious meal, rather than from crisps and other snack foods which are low in nutrients. Both these meals only take a few minutes to cook in a microwave.

Soups also contain a lot of salt, but if you choose one that contains vegetables and beans or lentils, then it’s also a good choice for a hot lunch – you could have it with some toast.

Baked beans on toast is yet another high-salt choice, but worth considering if you don’t consume much salt during the rest of the day.

Some lower salt choices for a hot lunch are:

· Cheese on toast – with grilled/baked tomatoes and/or mushrooms.

· A baked potato with some grated cheese, and a little margarine (because it’s lower in saturates than butter) – and try to have some cooked ’coloured’ vegetables (e.g. baked tomatoes and sweetcorn) or salad on the side.

· A 2-egg omelette (if you’ve not had eggs for breakfast), which is surprisingly nice with tenderstem broccoli and baked tomatoes – or you could have any vegetables that you prefer, as long as you have some vegetables! If you use 2 eggs and about 10 grams of margarine, this would amount to about 20 grams of fat (about 5½ grams of saturates), so if you wanted a dessert, you would really need to choose a low-fat option.

Desserts - only eat one if you want one!

Try stirring-in one or two teaspoons of organic cocoa into a tub of HiPP organic ‘Purely Fruits’, apple and banana version – available in packs of 4 x 100 gram pots in the baby food section in most supermarkets. They can be chilled in the fridge, or eaten at room temperature The combination of apple and banana puree and cocoa looks like chocolate mousse, but cocoa only contains just over 1 gram of fat (just over ½ gram of saturates), per level teaspoon, and the puree doesn't contain any ‘added’ sugar.

You could obviously have some fresh fruit for a dessert, but Organix produce pots of Organic Fruit Purees (no ‘added’ sugar) – again available in packs of 4 x 100 gram pots in the baby food section in most supermarkets. They are available in a range of flavours, and can also be chilled in the fridge, or eaten at room temperature. It’s best just to have one pot, to avoid consuming too much natural sugar during a single meal.

If you’ve had a low-fat lunch, then you could have a Wholemeal muffin (recipes on this website) - a Spiced choc-chip muffin contains 6 grams of fat (2 grams of saturates), and 9 grams of ‘added’ sugar. A Double choc-chip muffin contains 7 grams of fat (2½ grams of saturates), and the same amount of ‘added’ sugar.

Another dessert choice that you could have after a low-fat lunch is a small amount of plain chocolate – 20 grams, or a fifth of a 100 gram bar. - but you would need to ask yourself if you could limit yourself to that amount! Plain chocolate is recommended because a small amount provides the same ‘boost’ as a much larger portion of milk chocolate. The original bars of plain chocolate tended to be bitter, but these days there a quite a few varieties available in most supermarkets, so it's worth reconsidering plain chocolate again if you've previously decided that you don't like it. It isn’t a good idea to eat more than about 20 grams of chocolate in a day, because it is likely to contain about 9 grams of total fat, and about 5 grams of saturates, which is a ¼ of the recommended maximum daily allowance for saturates, and you really need to ‘spend’ most of that allowance on more nutritious foods.

It’s best to have a drink that doesn’t contain any ‘added’ or natural sugar with a muffin or chocolate, such as ‘ordinary’ tea without sugar, a herb or green tea, or mineral water. However, if you want a cup or small mug of coffee, remember that each flat teaspoon of sugar contains 5 grams of ‘added’ sugar.

Lunch at work:

Staff restaurants tend to offer a great deal more food for lunch than most people would eat at home, but it’s tempting to eat it just because it’s there! It’s unlikely that everything in a staff restaurant will have a card which states the nutritional content of all the food (but if your staff restaurant does, then it should be easy for you to have a good idea as to how much fat and ‘added’ sugar you’ll be consuming from your lunch). However, if you’ve studied the Guidelines on this website, then you should be able to avoid choosing meals at work which contains an excessive amount of fat, including saturates, and ‘added’ sugar.

You may recall from reading the Guidelines, that all pies contain a lot of fat, so they’re not recommended. Slices of any lean roast meats available are a better choice (as a rough guess, regard it as about 4 grams of fat, including 2 grams of saturates, there’s no need to worry about the exact amounts when it’s going to be low anyway) – if the meat is served with gravy, you can assume that you are likely to have consumed about a gram of salt – so it’s not a good idea to have soup (remember that soups are usually high in salt) before a main course that includes gravy. Mashed, creamed, roast, and chipped potatoes will contain a lot of fat in proportion to the amounts of vitamins and minerals in them, so it’s best to either not have them, or ask the restaurant staff for a half or third of a regular portion. It’s better to eat more ‘coloured’ vegetables, such as carrots, peas, cabbage, sweetcorn, or broccoli, etc., as they are more nutritious. However, if they’re served with melted butter (regard it as about 8 grams of fat, including 5 grams of saturates), then that’s another reason not to have any kind of potatoes as well. It would be a good idea to ask the restaurant manager if vegetables can be served without butter, or at least with margarine.

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