Table Of Contentcontents
Introduction
What does a healthy lunch look like?
What about snacks?
What about kids?
You eat leftovers a lot for lunch…what’s the trick?
How to use this book
Recipes
5 Inside Out Breads
Totable Mugs and Jars
A Bunch of Salad Jars
Little Lunch
Big Lunch
Sunday Cookup
Soups for All Seasons
A Bonus Office Cake
introduction
At the I Quit Sugar office each day, lunch is a focal point for us all. We are lucky
enough to have a big office kitchen where we gather to assemble our “desk
lunches”. All kinds of ingenious ideas for toting, heating, dressing and adding
pizazz are on display. The team even have Friday cook-offs (follow them on
Instagram!). Consider this book that you hold here a “best of” these ideas,
compiled from a number of my previous print-only books.
Me, I rarely (if ever!) buy lunch out. My midday meal is mostly an opportunity to
ensure I get a big nutritious hit in the middle of the day. And probably not a week
goes by when I’m not asked how I go about doing this, by both busy office workers
and parents. How about we share with you my answers… and some recipes!
Yours in wellness,
Don’t forget to share your creations and tips on social media, tagging us so then
we can share… and on and on goes the love! #IQSlunchbox #IQSJERF
What does a healthy lunch look
like?
At I Quit Sugar we work to the bold aim of getting seven to nine serves of
vegetables and fruit into everyone’s diets each day (the Australian guidelines
recommend six serves; the UK just five).
So lunch should contain about three serves of veg!
Plus a portion of protein.
Add a serve of good fat (your good fats guide is here)… about 1 tablespoon of
extra-virgin olive oil, butter, coconut oil or ¼ cup of cheese or avocado, for
instance. This might come in the form of a dressing.
Most of the wonderful essential vitamins, minerals and amino acids in
our food are fat-soluble only. Without fat, you’re not getting the full
bang for your nutritional buck!
eating full meals
I believe most people do not eat enough – at least enough dense nutrition –
particularly at lunch. I was the same for years. I’d get all modest with my midday
meal, then turn to snacks (sweet ones) around 3pm. It took several visits to Europe
to get a good feel for how a meal should be eaten. Over there, women and men
alike commit to a proper lunch that fills them up until dinner. They don’t do
afternoon tea and snacks are not de rigueur.
Some things to try:
Eat a handful-sized serve of protein at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Include at least 2 cups of vegetables at lunch and dinner. If it’s a salad, it should be 3
cups.
While adjusting to this ‘three meals only’ way of eating, add an extra boiled egg (or two)
or feta cheese (a proper slab) to your meal if you get hungry. Throw on some seeds, nuts
and, of course, a good glug of extra-virgin olive oil or dressing like the Europeans do.
Don’t be shy about including several elements. I’ll often eat a soup or broth and a box
of leftover roast vegetables with a leftover chop.
What about snacks?
The research that backed this approach pertained to diabetics. You could say it’s
a myth borne as a paltry fix for sugar addiction. But most of us were not designed
to eat this way – it’s inefficient and taxing on our bodies, which don’t get the
opportunity to rest between meals. An increasing number of studies are showing
that bigger breaks between meals have big health benefits.
Plus, there’s this:
Full meals tend to be nutritionally dense; snacks rarely.
The good news: Once you’re off sugar for several months, you’ll find you don’t need
to snack.
curbing the snack attacks
Most of the time when I think I’m hungry between meals it’s more a case of my not
being quite satiated... yet. In such cases I find it helpful to:
Wait 15–20 minutes. Sometimes my metabolism is slow to react. Wait a little – go for
a walk, run an errand – and then see if you’re still hungry.
Drink some water. Quite often hunger is actually thirst.
Eat a tablespoon of coconut oil. This works 100 per cent and for a good few hours.
Promise!
If I’m genuinely hungry between meals, I eat. I recommend nuts, cheese or
yoghurt. They can be found most places (even in service stations) and they work fast.
Cinnamon and all things nice
Why do I add cinnamon to my ‘sweet’ recipes? Along with turmeric, cloves and bay
leaves, it stimulates insulin activity (indeed, triples it) and helps process sugar
more efficiently.
Sitting at a café in Paris recently, I heard an old man next to me comment on a
couple walking past eating pizza on sagging paper plates. “Pfft, they are obviously
not European,” he said. The French (and most Europeans) don’t eat on the run, It’s
seen as déclassé (a promenade stroll with a gelato or glace is the exception). I see
it as unhealthful. Full meals are packed with nutrition and satiate. On-the-run food
is junky and leaves us wanting more. The lack of mindfulness and commitment
also means we’re not aware of what and how much we’re eating. Again, no
satiation.
what about kids?
Although we don’t think adults need to snack, kids are a different story. Their little
bodies need as much fuel as possible for all that growing they need to do. Check
out our section on little lunch for some great snack ideas to keep little tummies full
between main meals.
My kids have a no peanut rule at their school…
cool?
Yup. We’ve marked all nut-free recipes as “Kid-friendly”.
