|
Broke on Lamma? Eat Well For $20 a Day!!
This diet was well researched by Roy and I as a young couple in Africa in the 50s. We survived!!!
The Lamma Diet
A healthy lifestyle is important for everybody, but on Lamma your health can be affected by your wallet. There is a solution. You can have a healthy diet on about $20 a day, without resorting to Pot Noodles, boiled rice with tomato ketchup, “picking up” vegetables in the dead of night, hunting stray cats and dogs, or turning to religion. If you are really hard-up, it’s a sustainable diet, leaving those much needed resources for the important things in life (Gin & tonic, party frocks, and shoes), and allowing you to maintain your normal lifestyle even in the hardest of times. Your friends will never guess, and even compliment you on how well you look!!!
The Lamma Diet Recipe Page may be influenced by market conditions in the Main Street, so feel free to experiment on your own. An occasional bar of chocolate, scoop of ice cream, or slab of Stilton won’t destroy your budget or your waistline. The diet can be complimented by scrumping for fruit, so they are excluded from the shopping list. A “starter” Natural Yoghurt will also be needed & costs $13 from the "3 Piggies”. But if it's carefully looked after it can last till payday.
The Lamma Diet Shopping List is for guidance only and assumes you have a gas supply, fridge, cooking & eating utensils, water, cooking oil, and condiments. If you don’t [we didn’t]… that may be covered in a later article.
The Lamma Diet Suggested Cooking Tips is just a way I like doing things. Yours are probably better.
There is an Analysis of the Lamma Diet, but the important thing is to balance your lifestyle with regular exercise, plenty of water, and this survival diet. Balance, variety, and value for money are the keys. Your health is important but stay obsessed with those dollars. Early-morning shopping is suggested so your friends don’t notice. Stay current on research but don't make any drastic lifestyle changes based on this article. Be smart about your choices… and have fun! Roy and I did! If this isn’t for you, print it out and give it to that persistent dinner guest.
(Grandma) Hilda
P.S. Comments and remarks will be responded to in the “cooking” forum or by post to “Grandma” c/o L-G in an envelope containing a fresh Standard Chartered $20 note with a stamped but not self-addressed envelope. Next month's sequel may be The Lamma Diet for Children: “THE PARENTS ARE BROKE ON LAMMA?....... SHUT UP & EAT WELL FOR $70/WEEK OR NOT AT ALL!!
Footnote from (Boompa) Roy: Harrumph, she thought it was fun all those years ago as well.
The Lamma Diet Shopping List
Prices & Where to Shop
End of day bread and cake sales at the Green Cottage and in Tropicana are a lot cheaper! But most bread is no good for you anyway, and then you need butter or margarine. So don’t bother. Free buffets abound at bars and restaurants, but take your own beer. You can always pop round to us for a fresh baked fruit cake as well.
Analysis of the Lamma Diet
Calcium is important for bones and blood pressure. Protein through combinations of vegetables, if you are a vegetarian, but I’m not, and I don’t know the combinations anyway. Tofu is a good source, if you can’t afford meat. Raw, on its own it’s tasteless, but not if added to anything else that tastes really good. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains lower your risk of disease, cancer and pennilessness. Tomatoes clear constipation. Garlic is good for the blood and avoiding herpes. Coriander seeds are narcotic (a great family favourite). Brown rice tastes good sprinkled with Soy sauce, white rice doused in tomato ketchup.
To get the best from your foods, eat plenty of yoghurt. Yoghurt lays down a bacteria carpet in your stomach to help digestion, and is best eaten before a meal. All 3 litres of milk on your shopping list are for making yoghurt. Don’t cheat and drink the stuff, you’ll end up with a heart bypass like Roy, and it’ll be your own fault. It’s nice with the muesli or for grazing during the day.
Beef is good for black eyes. Eggs are good if pierced with a pin and hidden in the house if you’re forced out by the landlord [or so they tell me]. Ginger is good for colds or diced and mixed with yoghurt 5 minutes before eating.
Grains are short on lycin and high on melanin. Vegetables are high on lycin and low on melanin, so a good idea is to combine grains with vegetables. But they must be eaten at the same sitting.
Vegetables are best eaten raw but most taste bland unless dipped in mayonnaise, but that’s not on my list because your armpits will smell. Tomatoes, instead of raw vegetables or fruit, are good protection of your skin and eyes from the sun, but don’t eat too many nor put them on your eyes, it gets messy both ways (wish somebody had told Roy earlier). Raw beansprouts are good because they have lots of antibodies against disease-producing bacteria, but make sure they are washed beforehand otherwise you will get a mouthful of nasty stuff intended for bugs.
Other recent Articles by the same Author
THE LAMMA DIET is also available from www.Amazon.com in hardback version.
The Lamma Diet Recipe Page
Omelet 1 tbls cooking oil 2 whisked eggs 1 teaspoon of fish sauce 1 teaspoon of chili powder 1 small onion
Heat oil. Stir fry the onions & garlic together for about 3 minutes on a high heat. Mix the fish sauce & eggs together. Pour the egg mixture in with onion & garlic & cook to suit.
Muesli with 2 cups of prepared yoghurt w/"scrumped" fruits & Fried Eggs & Bacon 2 tablespoons cooking oil, 2 eggs, 2 rashers of bacon
Cooked hot or cooled or cold rice. Heat oil. Cook the eggs & bacon to suit. Serve on a bed of rice with a dollop of tomato ketchup/pinch of salt/sprinkling of Tabasco Sauce.
Snacking
Tuna in Mayonnaise w/cold rice (a personal favourite) 1 tbls Tuna 1 tbls Mayonnaise Leftover rice from the previous day Soy Sauce Cold Rice
Shred the tuna. Mix together with mayonnaise. Serve on a bed of rice & add soy sauce to taste (yummy)
Broccoli & Bacon w/Rice Use the bacon fat/Oil from breakfast in the morning 1 tbls Oil 2 Cloves of garlic (chopped) About 6 florettes of Broccoli
Heat the Oil/Fat mixture. Add the garlic & stir-fry till golden. Add the broccoli & stir fry to suit. Add 3 tbls of water or stock. Serve on a bed of rice (you have a nice bacon flavoured broccoli dish). You can’t use the left-over oil for dinner because there isn’t any.
Dinner
2 tbls Oil, 2 cloves garlic ½ chicken breast cut into bite sized pieces 1 ½ tbls Fish Sauce 1 tbls Oyster Sauce ½ tsp pepper, 1 tsp sugar Lots of Beans 3 tbls Water or stock (optional)
Heat Oil in Wok. Stir-fry garlic briefly. Add chicken pieces & stir-fry for a few minutes (do not overcook otherwise you lose the flavour). Stir in fish & oyster sauces and pepper & sugar. Add Beans & stir-fry for a minute or longer to suit. Add 3 tbls Water or stock for additional gravy. Serve with rice.
1 tbls Oil 1lb lean beef (1” thick steaks) ¾ cup of water 1 cucumber (peeled & finely sliced) 2cm of Fresh Ginger (cut into matchsticks) Marinade 4 tbls of soy sauce 2 tbls of oil 6 coriander roots 3 tbls ground black pepper 1 tbls of sugar
Preparing the Marinade. Combine ingredients in a blender & process into a smooth paste. Smear beef with marinade & marinate for at least 10 minutes. Smear wok with oil. Sear marinated Beef. Add water & braise briefly to suit. Remove Beef & cut into bite sized pieces & reserve the sauce. Place the Beef on a bed of cucumber. Simmer the reserved sauce & add the ginger. You can add a little more soy or sugar to taste. Pour the sauce over the beef. Garnish with coriander leaves & serve with rice.
Lamma Diet Suggested Tips Rice Take a cupful of brown rice, add a tbls of oil & heat for about 3-4 minutes or until the “nutty” smell just starts to come through. Add enough water to cover plus about another 1" above the rice level. Put on a high heat for 5 minutes. Add a cupful of washed white rice, mix, and top up the water level to about 2 inches above the rice level. Boil until the water has disappeared and the “holes” in the rice level just stop bubbling. Turn off heat & leave for about 15 minutes. This will give you a nice brown rice taste with the “filler” white rice. You should have enough left over for “cold rice” meals all the next day. Don’t forget to store it in the fridge, it goes off fairly quickly. Or alternatively just throw the rice into the rice cooker with plenty of water and wait till it’s ready.
Yoghurt Boil 1 litre of milk in a saucepan until it has reduced by about 10% - gets the nasties out. Cool in the pot immersed in a bowl of water until the milk is just above room temperature. Put one tbls natural yoghurt in a non-metallic container. Add the cooled milk – cover & leave to stand for about 5/6 hours at about 30 C. Fruit etc. can be added after the yoghurt has already “set”. Can be stored in the fridge for a week, but remember to save a tbls of your yoghurt for the next batch. Or alternatively get your starter, add the milk, stir it, and leave it to stand overnight. Tastes as good and does the same job.
The trick is lots of rice with everything, seasoned with chicken, beef, or tamarind cubes makes a delightful change. When things get really difficult, take a look in the fridge, you’d be surprised. A fingerful of Mango Chutney, Peanut Butter, Dijon Mustard, honey, or shrimp paste. That Xmas pudding that wasn’t eaten last year (good for 3-4 days), Brandy Butter, cake toppings, cat or dog biscuits - (All of the above can be used with rice or yoghurt all together or separately to add variety to your diet). Then there are the goodies laid out by your neighbour to appease the spirits (everybody wins). If you supplement this diet with vitamins or “Sunday Lunch Special” at Diesels (we like the roast chicken) then you will need to refer to “The Other Lamma Diet” not yet published.
Other Suggestions
|
The best time to buy vegetables is from the main
street sellers late in the day when they are closing, or early in the day
from the little old men and women with trolley loads of goodies dotted
around the village. Us grave dodgers are a little less attractive and
crotchety, but nonetheless serve our purpose. Fruit is available cheaply if
overripe.
Stir Fried Chicken & Green Beans
Marinated Braised Beef w/cucumber