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Introduction: Bush Tomato Chutney

Bush tomato chutney is a delicious and unique condiment that is perfect for adding a tangy and aromatic flavor to your meals. It is made using bush tomatoes, which are commonly grown in the arid regions of Australia. The chutney is easy to prepare and can be used as a dip, spread or a sauce for meat dishes.

Ingredients and Cooking Steps

To make bush tomato chutney, you will need:

  • 500g of bush tomatoes
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 1 cup of vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon of salt

Here are the steps to prepare the chutney:

  1. Wash and chop the bush tomatoes into small pieces.
  2. Place the chopped tomatoes and diced onion in a pot and add the sugar, vinegar and salt.
  3. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has thickened.
  4. Reduce the heat and simmer the chutney for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened and the tomatoes have broken down.
  5. Remove the pot from the heat and leave the chutney to cool. Once it has cooled, transfer it to a sterilized jar and seal.

Tips for Storage and Serving

Bush tomato chutney can be stored in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to 3 months. It can also be frozen for longer storage.

To serve the chutney, you can use it as a dip for crackers or vegetables, or as a spread on sandwiches or toast. It also pairs well with meat dishes and can be used as a sauce for chicken, beef or lamb.

In conclusion, bush tomato chutney is a delicious and unique condiment that is easy to prepare and can be used in a variety of ways. By following the simple recipe and storage tips, you can enjoy this tangy and aromatic chutney all year round.

Introduction: Kaiserschmarrn – A Popular Austrian Dessert

Kaiserschmarrn is a traditional dessert that originated in Austria and has become popular across Europe. It is a fluffy, shredded pancake that is typically served for dessert or as a main course for breakfast or lunch. The dish is made by mixing flour, eggs, milk, and sugar to create a batter that is then cooked in a pan and shredded into pieces. Kaiserschmarrn is a delicious, light, and fluffy dessert that can be served with a variety of toppings.

Ingredients and Preparation of Kaiserschmarrn

The ingredients for Kaiserschmarrn are simple and easy to find. The batter is made with flour, eggs, milk, and sugar. The batter is then cooked in a pan with butter until it is cooked through. Once the Kaiserschmarrn is cooked, it is shredded into pieces and served with powdered sugar, fruit compote, and sometimes whipped cream.

To prepare Kaiserschmarrn, start by mixing flour, eggs, milk, and sugar in a large bowl until the batter is smooth. Heat a pan over medium heat and add butter. Once the butter is melted, pour the batter into the pan and cook until the bottom is golden brown. Flip the pancake and cook until the other side is golden brown. Use a spatula to shred the Kaiserschmarrn into small pieces and serve with powdered sugar, fruit compote, and whipped cream.

Serving Suggestions: Powdered Sugar, Fruit Compote, and Whipped Cream

Kaiserschmarrn is typically served with powdered sugar, fruit compote, and sometimes whipped cream. The powdered sugar adds a sweet touch to the dish, while the fruit compote provides a tangy and fruity flavor. The whipped cream adds a creamy and indulgent touch to the dish.

To serve Kaiserschmarrn, sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of the shredded pancake. Serve with a side of fruit compote, such as cherry or apple compote. Add a dollop of whipped cream on top for an extra indulgent touch. Kaiserschmarrn can also be served with other toppings, such as caramel or chocolate sauce. Enjoy this delicious and traditional Austrian dessert!

As a quick snack, many people like to grab fruity yogurt from the fridge. However, this is usually not touched by yourself, but manufactured industrially – and that’s where the problem lies. Because a recent study found out: that fruit yogurts are sugar bombs! The consumer should therefore raise awareness when enjoying the milk product.

The study

Two students from the University of Hohenheim examined the sugar content in fruit yogurts and found out that there is much more sugar in dairy products than is good for the body. Fruit yogurts are sugar bombs! A total of 600 varieties from various brands were examined in the laboratory for the study. The result: Almost all fruit yogurts contain roughly the same amount of sugar, namely around 14.1 grams in 100 g cups.

A single fruit yogurt thus almost completely covers the maximum value of the daily requirement for energy from sugar. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sugar accounts for only five percent of daily energy requirements – and other sugary foods and drinks are consumed throughout the day.

Pioneers of Norway and Switzerland

Some food companies in Switzerland and Norway are showing a possible solution in the fight against sugary fruit yogurts. The latter offers buyers yogurts in six different levels of sweetness, ranging from 0 to 13 grams of added sugar. A manufacturer in Switzerland reduced the sugar content in its fruit yogurts by 45 percent. It remains to be seen whether the food industry in Germany will react to these results and also reduce the sugar content.

Make your own fruit yogurt

The best way to keep an eye on the sugar content is to simply touch the delicious fruit yogurt yourself. This is not only easy on the wallet but also saves a lot of calories! The best thing about it: the fruit yogurt tastes particularly good with your favorite fruits. It gets crispy with a topping of nuts, seeds, or muesli flakes.

When it’s cold and uncomfortable outside, many people have a warming breakfast porridge instead of the usual muesli with cold milk. This is now even available as a ready-made product in supermarkets. Particularly practical: the finished breakfast porridge only has to be poured over with hot water and is ready to eat immediately – although this variant usually also contains a lot of sugar.

Sugar bomb-ready breakfast porridge

Boil water, stir into the ready-made breakfast porridge mixture, refine with seasonal fruits or nuts – and the quick breakfast is ready. Anyone who likes to use prepackaged breakfast porridge from the supermarket should definitely study the list of ingredients beforehand because ready-made breakfast porridge can also turn out to be a sweet sugar bomb.

In addition to added granulated sugar, sugar substitutes and flavorings can also be included in the ready-made porridge. This naturally ensures that more calories are absorbed and a rapidly rising blood sugar level, which leads to renewed hunger after it has dropped – annoying food cravings are the result. Thus, the supposedly healthy breakfast porridge is no longer a full meal, but more like a candy.

Make breakfast porridge yourself

If you want to avoid hidden sugar traps, you should make your own breakfast porridge. Porridge is particularly suitable for this! The warm porridge made from cooked oat flakes can be cooked in just a few minutes in either milk (also soy or almond milk) or water until soft.

Refined with vanilla or cinnamon, the homemade breakfast porridge gets a sweet note – without any sugar. With fruit and nuts as a topping, breakfast becomes a real pick-me-up, provides fiber, minerals, and vitamins, and, thanks to the complex carbohydrates, keeps you full for longer.

Fructose sounds healthy and natural – but is heavily criticized. Because more and more experts are calling fructose the biggest villain in the sugar family.

More dangerous than granulated sugar?

Fructose is naturally found in fruit, vegetables, and honey – but artificially produced fructose also ends up on many people’s plates every day, for example in ice cream or soft drinks. Crystal sugar also consists of half fructose.

While fructose used to be explicitly recommended for diabetics because it doesn’t cause insulin levels to rise as quickly, the good reputation has since disappeared: fructose is considered one of the most dangerous sugars of all. Those who consume too much fructose risk fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, among other things.

“Fructose can lead to a metabolic meltdown,” explains Dr. Detlef Pape, who, like many other experts, identified sugar as one of the main reasons for the increasing obesity worldwide.

Does fructose make you sick and fat?

“It is converted directly into fat in the liver, which then returns to the bloodstream and is stored in the fat deposits.” While our body uses glucose (grape sugar) as a source of energy, fructose causes inflammatory processes and can make us sick and fat. Above all, the particularly harmful visceral fat (internal abdominal fat) is promoted.

“Our body is simply not made for the amounts of fructose that we consume today,” says Pape. And the overconsumption is not due to the fact that so much fruit is eaten. Artificially produced fructose is a billion-dollar business. Soft drinks, ice cream, yogurts, and ready meals, for example, are sweetened with cheap and extremely sweet syrup.

“Especially the drinks are a problem for the figure,” says Pape. “Liquids don’t fill you up, and you simply consume drinks on the side without counting them in the calorie balance.”

In the fight against obesity, the beverage giant Coca-Cola is now giving in: The company wants to significantly reduce the sugar content of its famous drink.

Less sugar in Coca-Cola

The sugar content in Coca-Cola is to be significantly reduced in the future: by 2020, around ten percent less sugar is to be used in the preparation of the popular soft drinks. “That requires a lot of effort. We’re changing recipes, increasingly relying on smaller packages, and, last but not least, clear product information for consumers,” explains CEO James Quincey to “Welt am Sonntag”.

Due to the changed consumption behavior of consumers, sugar has become a new challenge for many societies around the world. The white sweetener is often consumed in excess – in beverages and other foods – which increases the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes, says Quincey.

Soft drinks promote obesity

There are almost eleven grams of sugar in 100 milliliters of Coca-Cola. Converted to one liter, this would be a total of about 35 sugar cubes – a considerable amount. Especially when you consider that Coca-Cola is drunk in large quantities every day as a thirst quencher for many.

A nasty sugar trap if you look at the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO): It recommends no more than 25 grams of sugar per day – that’s about ten sugar cubes.

Now the sugar content in one liter of cola is to be reduced to 31 sugar cubes. The beverage giant wants to support the WHO in its goal that people consume no more than ten percent of their calories from added sugar. Currently, this would correspond to 250 milliliters of cola.

Store-bought vegetable juices are super healthy. Indeed? Unfortunately, this is not always the case and it is worth taking a look at the nutritional value tables – especially with regard to the sugar content! Öko-Test tested various vegetable juices from the supermarket shelf – with interesting results.

The German Society for Nutrition (DGE) has been advising for several years that more vegetables and fruit should be included in the daily menu. It should be three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit per day if possible.

In order to do something good for themselves every now and then, many people reach for fruit or vegetable juices. Per capita consumption is currently less than two liters per year, but the trend is rising sharply. This development is positive because vegetables and fruit provide the body with vitamins, roughage, minerals, and secondary plant substances. For example, the risk of cardiovascular disease can be reduced.

But are juices really a suitable substitute for freshly prepared vegetables and fruit? Nutrients are lost when the juice ingredients are processed. However, vegetable juices are mostly not-from-concentrate juices that are produced gently. However, the juices are pasteurized to preserve them, i.e. heated.

Therefore, especially heat-sensitive vitamins, especially vitamin C with about 50 to 70 percent, can be lost. Dietary fiber also largely disappears in the process. Potassium, on the other hand, is relatively insensitive to heat and beta-carotene becomes more readily available to humans.

Juices as a vegetable substitute?

Vegetable juices are therefore not a full substitute for daily vegetable portions – especially not in the store-bought version. Freshly prepared juices or smoothies, on the other hand, contain significantly more healthy ingredients. According to the DGE, a glass of vegetable or fruit juice can replace one of the five servings of fruit and vegetables from time to time.

But here, too, it is important to check the sugar content more closely. Most people now know that too much sugar is not exactly healthy, but can even be harmful. Some juices are additionally sweetened, about which the nutritional value table provides information at the latest.

Sugar in vegetable juices

All juices tested by Ökotest are free of pesticide residues, most of them achieve an overall rating of “good”, some even “very good”. However, some juices are surprisingly sweet – some vegetable juices contain up to 100 grams of sugar and thus almost reach the sugar content of fruit juices. However, the sugar content depends heavily on the type of vegetable: beetroot juice has the most sugar, and sauerkraut juice has the least.

Such high values ​​are also often the result of the fact that vegetable juices can be sweetened. However, since the desire for a healthy diet is often behind the consumption of vegetable juices, the additional sweetness should be viewed critically.

The test winners

A total of 20 vegetable juices were tested – pure juices made from carrots, beetroot, and sauerkraut from supermarkets, organic shops, and discounters. Three of the juices scored “very good” overall.

On average, the products cost 1 euro per pack and scored best in terms of ingredients. Only the carrot juice has a fairly high sugar content, which is still low compared to other juices tested. These are the top 3 rankings:

  • Jacoby organic sauerkraut juice, fermented with lactic acid, with sea salt, 1.19 euros per pack
  • K-Bio carrot juice, Kaufland, 0.59 euros per pack
  • Voelkel sauerkraut juice, with sea salt, Demeter, 1.59 euros per pack

Beetroot juices should also not be drunk too often, as they are often contaminated with nitrate.

Ingredients for 2 people

  • 1/2 liter of milk
  • 50 g soft wheat semolina
  • sugar
  • Cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1 pinch of salt

Preparation of semolina porridge with cinnamon and sugar

  1. Pour the milk into a saucepan, reserving about 1/2 cup.
  2. Bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan with a pinch of salt. Then stir in the semolina and pour over the rest of the milk when everything is cooked. Now stir constantly on a medium flame for about 2 to 3 minutes until the semolina porridge has a nice creamy consistency.
  3. Now just serve with simple sugar and cinnamon mixture and refine with melted butter.

Useful additional knowledge

  • The cream is also suitable as a refinement.
  • You can refine your sugar and cinnamon mixture as you like with seasonal spices or according to your taste. Vanilla is very good for giving things a fresh touch.
  • It is better to use a stainless steel pot, as the semolina porridge does not burn as quickly. It also helps to prevent the pot from burning if you rub the bottom of the pot with a little butter.

Very tasty, but extremely unhealthy: Sugar is in various forms in almost every food. However, particularly large amounts of the fattening agent are hidden in processed products. Here are the consequences of eating too much sugar and the best tips for eating less.

How much sugar is ok?

Assuming an average calorie consumption of 2000 kcal, that is 50 grams of sugar that you can consume per day. That corresponds to about half a liter of lemonade, 17 sugar cubes, or 100 grams of chocolate. So the recommended amount is reached quickly – but how do you manage to eat less sugar effectively and easily?

There are many different testimonials from people who give up sugar, but not every way works. First of all, the most important thing is to reduce the daily amount of sugar – this is particularly difficult for many at the beginning, because our body and our taste buds are used to the sweet experience.

Ways to eat less sugar

The aim of the reduction is to sensitize our taste for sweets again. Because if you eat sugar again after giving up, it tastes all the sweeter. Now you have to either continue to do without sugar or cut out sugary foods. For example, Ökotest suggests diluting juices with water or mixing fruit yoghurt with plain yoghurt.

You should also pay attention to the list of ingredients when shopping: Sugar is often added as a flavor enhancer to many processed products. Especially here you can eat a lot of sugar quickly. The bestselling author of the “Nutrition Compass”, Bas Kast, therefore always recommends: “Cook yourself with fresh, natural food” – because this is the only way to really have control over the ingredients and the sugar intake.

Eat sugar: Less is always better

The realization that sugar is unhealthy and that we should eat as little of it as possible is nothing new. However, the fact that the health consequences can go as far as cancer is very shocking. So in order to really pay attention to a healthy diet with little sugar, the best thing to do is simply stop eating.

That means no sugar in the coffee, no sweets in the evening and always cook with fresh ingredients. This is difficult for many to implement, but reducing the amount of sugar is a step in the right direction. “Enjoy, the dose makes the poison,” agrees the expert Bas Kast.

Intermittent fasting, low-carb & Co. – alternative forms of nutrition are all the rage. This also includes a new, old form of nutrition: the sugar-free diet. With this, it is not enough to do without for a short time, but you should change your diet in the long term. Read here how exactly the zero-sugar diet works.

Living sugar-free – that’s how it works

To understand how a sugar-free diet can succeed, it is necessary to define the type of sugar involved. In the case of the sugar-free diet, it is not about the strict omission of carbohydrates, nor about the complete renunciation of table sugar. Rather, it targets the so-called “free sugar”. The World Health Organization understands the type of sugar to be all types of sugar that are added to food and drinks. This also includes the sugar found in fruit juices, honey and syrup.

The question that most people ask themselves when it comes to a sugar-free diet is what is still allowed to be eaten. If you start with the sugar-free diet, it is enough to do without the usual household sugar. So on the so-called sucrose, which is present in large quantities in sugar beets, sugar palms and sugar cane. This includes omitting the sugar in coffee and adding additional sugar to various dishes.

They rely on mostly unprocessed foods. As a result, you eat fewer calories over the long term and thereby lose weight. The hardest part is identifying where that sugar is. You often don’t suspect it at first glance. The following foods are taboo in this diet:
Sweetened drinks (soft drinks,..) and food (fruit yoghurt, jam…)
fruit juices, smoothies and fruit juice concentrates
Industrially heavily processed foods (fast food, white bread, sauces…)
Sweets (chocolate, gummy bears, cake, ice cream,..)
Dried fruit (mango, figs, dates,..)
Dishes from restaurants or snack bars

Even if that sounds like a lot of renunciation at first glance, there is not too little that you can still enjoy. Especially if you cook a lot yourself, the problem almost solves itself. Some foods that one is allowed to eat and drink are as follows:
Mineral water, unsweetened coffee or tea, calorie-free light drinks
vegetables and fresh fruit
fish, meat and eggs
Natural dairy products (cheese, natural yoghurt…)
Whole grain products (bread, pasta, rice…)
Legumes (peas, beans and lentils…)
Nuts, seeds and kernels (walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds…)
Oils and fats (oil, butter…)
Sugar free sweets

Most people don’t even know how much sugar they’re consuming without realizing it. This also leads to withdrawal symptoms when giving up, because sugar is addictive. These can last one to two weeks. After that you should have overcome the following symptoms:
mood swings
headache
cravings
fatigue
exhaustion

Once the body has gotten used to the abstinence, people actually only benefit from the effects of the zero-sugar diet. On the one hand, you lose weight and become fitter in general. The otherwise tempting craving for sweets does not occur and the blood sugar level levels off constantly. On the other hand, this has the consequence that the risk of diabetes also decreases. The risk of other diseases also decreases. These include cardiovascular diseases, cancer and osteoarthritis.