Eat Smart - Eat Healthy

How healthy is your shopping basket? The recent Slán survey shows that one in four Irish people is now obese – hopefully the recession will make us think more carefully about the food we buy, but it can’t be relied on to reverse this alarming trend. 

Addressing this problem is central to The Nutrition and Health Foundation’s annual Eat Smart Week, which begins on Monday 11th May. “How you shop can have a major impact on your diet and indeed your wallet”, says NHF Manager, Dr Muireann Cullen, “If you put some thought and planning into your weekly shopping, then you are more likely to eat healthily for the week.”

This time-honoured principle is overdue for a revival – see also the Bord Bia website, where you can download their 7 Day Healthy Eating Planner, which  features appealing no-fuss recipes for a week and a lot of succinct nutritional information and advice.   

The key message for this year’s Eat Smart campaign is that, despite the current economic climate, you can still eat very well on a budget - so the focus is on recession busting nutritious meals and shopping tips, supplied with the help of Derry Clarke of L'Ecrivain, who was given a budget of €100 to devise one quick, tasty and healthy main meal per day for a week, to feed a family of four – the recipe given below is a variation of one of his dishes, and illustrates the theme.

Further information is given on the NHF website

Recessionary RECIPE:

Braised Shoulder of Lamb

This is really a pot-roast by another name - pot-roasting and braising are much the same thing, ie slow cooking with flavouring vegetables and stock for a succulent, moist dish with its own built-in gravy. It’s back in fashion, and ideal for cooking cheaper cuts of meat, which will be tender – and feed a hungry family well.

In this case mature lamb (hogget) is used – the shoulder is sweetly flavoured and not strictly a budget cut, but it is good value; less expensive forequarter joints of beef (eg housekeeper’s cut) could also be used.

Some recipes discard the cooking vegetables (used only for flavouring) and replace with fresh ones, which can seem wasteful to home cooks although it would be the usual practice in restaurant kitchens; in this one the vegetables are added later, so they can be eaten. The rules are flexible, as is the cooking temperature; this is the kind of dish you can safely leave in a very low oven or slow cooker for a whole day or overnight if you like.

The temperatures given allow you to get it onto the table in about 21/2 hours, making a seriously tasty Sunday lunch for 6-8 people.

Click for recipe