Probably the most famous low carb diet is Dr Atkins' diet. There are quite a few other variations of eating a low carb diet, such as Dr Dahlqvist's, The Dukan diet, the Whole30, the Primal Blueprint, The Perfect Health diet (you'll see a bigger/more legible version of the apple on the left on their site), The Paleo Diet (or 'Caveman' diet), and others. The G.I. and low GL diets are also interesting variations. As with most diets, it's up to you to decide which one, if any, you'd like to follow. You may have heard of health concerns regarding some of these diets, so I would encourage you to research more before deciding to try it. FatHead was one of the first things that convinced me that this way of eating makes much more sense than your typical low fat, calories in-calories out kind of diets. Here's a youtube video clip from his documentary.
For me, I find that I feel bloated and sluggish after eating bread, pasta, and suchlike, and low carbing seems to suit me for weight loss purposes. I also feel like I have more of a spring in my step when I'm not eating carbs. and just feel better in general. I can't be doing with counting points and weighing things either, and I find low fat this, that and the other depressing! I like the idea that I can eat as much meat, eggs and some cheese as I like, am allowed butter and cream, etc... - although most of these diets pretty much rule out most dairy, at least in the 'normal' forms we're used to: I'm doing the whole30 at the moment (March '16), and do miss it, but I'm managing okay - though coffee's weird with coconut cream/milk/oil! :o
Interestingly, the restrictive nature of some of these 'diets' (they're more 'way of eating' / lifestyle changes really) regarding vegetables (and fruit, but I'm not too fussed about that), has encouraged me to experiment, and I find that I now eat more vegetables than I used to, and I eat some now that I rarely ate before (cauliflower and swede mash springing to mind!)
Cheese Straws
- 60g Parmesan, finely grated
- 60g grated Almonds
- 45g cold butter, diced
- Salt and (freshly ground) black Pepper
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped Rosemary/Caraway seeds/Paprika/Chilli/freshly ground black pepper,.. whatever you fancy
Preheat oven to 200 degrees (~ Gas Mark 6)
Mix all ingredients together quickly, shape into a dough ball and leave for 30 mins in the fridge to cool.
Roll out dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut into strips/straws.
Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes.
I've only made these once so far. I only used a 50g bag of Parmesan, bashed almonds in a bag (so they weren't grated), and added a generous sprinkling of dried chilli flakes. 15 minutes was a tad long, as they were a little charred in places. They also spread and joined together. Despite these little 'issues' they were surprisingly tasty. Don't know the carb. content, but it's pretty low. If I find out I'll add it. I will definitely be making them again!
Simple Flax bread
- 1 cup flaxmeal/ground linseeds
- 1 cup ground almonds
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 4 eggs
- 3 tbsp Olive oil
- Seasoning to taste (Salt, Pepper, whatever you fancy)
- A little water for desired consistency
- 100g no/low carb cheese (optional)
Mix dry ingredients together, then add cheese if you like. You could also add herbs, chilli flakes or whatever you fancy trying here. I use a tsp of lo-salt
Beat eggs in a separate bowl, together with oil
Add wet mixture to dry and mix, using a little water if needed, just to make it moist enough to mix easily. Mine ends up like cake mixture and seems to work well
Put in a small loaf tin, or whatever you use for cooking bread/cake-like things in your oven, at 350F/175C/GM4 for ~30-40 mins. When it looks nice and golden it should be ready.
The great thing about this is that it's quick and simple. There's no messing around with kneading, and the measurements don't have to be exact: if you haven't quite got enough flax or almonds, substitute what you have more of, or even a little of something else e.g. Brazil nuts (though they don't grind so well: kind of moist..). Experiment, and enjoy :)
I got the recipe from here after a user posted it on MSE. I've put it here for my easy reference, especially when I tweak it
When I made it with a cheese and a little more salt (1 tsp), it was so yummy I had trouble keeping my hands off it. Just beware, flax is quite a good laxative, so if you're new to it, don't scoff too much or you might find yourself in the bathroom for a long time! 
The last time I made it, I added two heaped tablespoons of MyProtein Whey powder to the mix. I was very happy with the results. The loaf ended up a little bigger (obviously) which made more 'normal' slices. It also seemed a little more.. 'cohesive'..? - a little more 'bread-like': less 'fragile'.. I will add a 'cup' of Whey next time. It's 6g of carbs/100g, so it's not going to add much to each slice: I got about 20 slices out of the loaf. For my own purposes, I estimate each slice at around 1g carb. but I might try and work it out one day... :o
Low carb whey pancakes
- 3 Tablespoon Vanilla Whey Protien powder
- 2 Tablespoons ground almonds
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 teaspoon splenda (optional: I put mine on the pancake after)
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vegatable oil or butter(melted)
- 1-2 teaspoons water (I tend to need more than this to get a nice, runny consistency.)
- 1/2 teaspoon maple extract (I haven't managed to get this yet, so used Lemon extract last time (and nothing the time before): there's room for experimentation here)
- 1 tsp - 1 tbsp Psyllium husk powder (Optional!)*
Heat up a frying pan.
In a bowl mix up all ingredients.
Spoon batter in to greased (1/4 teaspoon butter is plenty) frying pan. Cook till brown, flip then cook again till other side is brown. Do not over cook!
Roughly 4 carbs for the whole recipe (so 1-2 carbs per pancake, depending how many you make of course). I make 2 medium sized pancakes with this mixture, and find them very filling. I'm going to put half the mixture in the fridge next time (2 carbs for brekkie instead of 4).
Recipe taken from here
*I bought a HOOGE-mongous!! tub of psyllium husk powder a while back because I'd read that it was great for relieving constipation, and in a much 'better' way than laxatives. I'll let you research that yourself if you're interested, but I put a teaspoon of that in my pancake mixture the other day. Well, it made the texture much more 'normal' and 'pancake-like', and was very pleased with the results. This morning, I put a tablespooon of the stuff in with a couple of tbsps of Whey powder, and was also pleased with the results. My conclusion? Well, more experimentation is obviously needed (Thlrrrp!) but I think pancakes allow for great variation in actual ingredients. I didn't want to wake the whole house up by blitzing almonds this morning, so I just used some psyllium instead. Of course the husks turn to their 'gel-like' relatives pretty quick, but it still works fine, and you can always add more water to make a more 'pourable' mixture. I spread mine with butter and low carb jam this morning and it was filling and yummy! :)
My low-carb pancakes
I 'blitz' the flax seeds and almonds in my little Genie blender
Low Carb (/Paleo) Naan Bread
Speaking of pancakes, we got an Indian take-away recently. I thought 'i won't say 'oh but I'm low-carbing', I'll just have the meat/curry and no rice/naan/popadom. Whilst waiting for its arrival I had a browse for lc naan and found this. I didn't have any coconut milk of any description, nor did I have tapioca.. then dinner arrived and I had to make a quick decision, so I did the following:
It worked really well and I thoroughly enjoyed our take-away curry. I would have put a few raisins in it (even though I'm sure they're not low carb: dried fruit is very sweet) as Pashwari naan is my faourite, but had just run out (youngest loves raisins!). It fell apart in the pan, but I'm not sure whether that was the mixture or the cheap pan we just got ('You get what you pay for' is sometimes true). Still, they were soft and coconutty, and I'll be trying different seasonings to see what else they go with (I'm thinking an alternative to these which turned out yucky for me!)
Low Carb Garlic Bread
I made a spicy bolognaise last night (25/08/15)and wanted to have garlic bread with it, so that I didn't feel left out when the family were tucking into theirs with pasta and garlic bread. It was very last minute, so I had a quick search around the internet but didn't see anything that was quick, simple, used the ingredients I have (most seemed to use yeast!), so I just made a 'one-minute-muffin-type mix with garlic
My ingredients/measurements, as always, are very approximate. All these breads are a variation of the one-minute-muffin/low-carb pancake recipes, and it is, of course down to your own personal preference how you want/like it to turn out, so tweak and re-tweak till you get something that suits you ;) If you don't have linseeds, just use another lc-friendly powder/flour/meal such as almond flour; don't like coconut? use Soy flour instead, etc..
I spooned my 'garlic bread' mixture into a fairy cake/yorkshire pudding metal oven tin. My mixture wasn't runny enough to pour. I put about a dessert spoon in each of the 4.. err.. 'recesses'? and popped in the oven with the family's garlic bread. Gas mark 6 for ~10 mins. They turned out like little cakey garlic muffins. Nice and firm and toasty. I let my family share one. Hubby said, "It's a muffin", but they all said they were really nice. Very pleased. Might try spreading on a baking tray next time, to make a thinner, more solid 'bread', rather than 'cake', but was very pleased with them :)
Low carb cheesy soy bread
I made some nice bready scone-type things a few months back, but haven't been able to find the recipe again. All I could remember was that they were made with soy flour and also had cheese and baking powder in them. I remembered too that I'd made them a little different somehow than the recipe said.. Well, I think I've found them, at 'The Low Carb Cafe'. I just made them into little 'patties' instead of cutting into squares, and they ended up like scones. Can't wait to try them again!
Just made them again, and did the 'patty' thing again, since my mixture seems a bit too.. 'gooey' to roll.. Anyway, I made 13 little patties/scones/cakes/rolls... which works out at ~ 2.5 carbs each..
Fishcakes
These are simple enough, but I have had to find the recipe a couple of times to check I'm doing it right, so I'll put my link to it here for reference. I just made these again tonight and served them with cauli, broccoli and green beans (those long, thin ones), microwaved. We thought it was SCRUMPTIOUS! I didn't put the mayo in, and did add a generous sprinkling of chilli flakes. I thought I'd messed them up since they kept falling apart when I turned them in the pan, but eventually they were okay.
I'm doing Whole30 at the moment, so dairy is out :o Boo!:( Just made these instead from Nom Nom Paleo. They were pretty good: everyone nomnom'd them up :)
I added a few florets of cauli too, and a sprinkling of garlic powder.
One minute muffin
These are a life-saver if you're low-carbing (/paleo/primal/etc.) and miss bread. I switch the Splenda and cinnamon for pepper/chilli flakes/other seasoning (I tend to avoid salt, as linseeds, to me, seem to have a saltiness of their own..). I usually make them in one of those large 1kg yoghurt pots, and often I'll slice the resultant 'muffin' in half to use as a bun. There are many possibilities/variations. Tweak, tweak, and tweak some more! ^..^
Cauliflower Pizza
Well.. I FINALLY got around to trying this and... WOW! I hadn't bothered before because I just couldn't see it working, but.. IT DOES! I am aMAZED! It's on Mercy's list, but here are a couple of links for convenience. It was the LowCarber one that I tried (the egg whites put me off the other.. what would I do with the yolks..?). It was unplanned and hurried, so room for improvement, but I was very impressed with it and am looking forward to the leftovers for my lunch tomorrow! :D
EDIT: I've made this a few times now and love it. It's becoming a regular Friday evening meal and I really look forward to it. The boys have normal pizza and I have this. Hubby has tried it a couple of times and says it's yummy too. The base doesn't always end up as firm as I'd like, but it's still 'nom'! :D
- Brazil nuts: (250g: £3: Tesco): 2.9g carbs./100g: ~ 0.5g carbs for 4 Brazil nuts (~0.125g each)
- Almonds: 6.9g carbs./100g.. I get mine from my local health food shop who sell these, or Mr T's
- Flax/Linseeds: ~5g/100g
- Whey Protein: 6g carbs./100g
- Psyllium husk powder: I believe that any carbohydrate content in this stuff is fibre, hence, for the purposes of a low-carb diet, negligible carbs. :)
- Soya flour: ~ 16g/100g (Don't use this much, but have used a bit in my morning pancake mix lately because I ran out of Almonds)
- Baking powder: Hmm.. According to LowCarbFriends ~1g carb./tsp.
- Chilli flakes: None..?
- Eggs: approx. 0.6g per egg :)
- Coconoil: Nil. It doesn't 'change' with heat as easily as other oils, it's good for you. Cook with it, eat it, wear it. Just use it! ;)
- 85% dark choc: 2.1g per square
- Cauliflower: ~3g carbs./100g
- Swede: ~2.5g/100g according to lowcarber
- Lettuce: ~ 2-3g/100g
- Water cress: ~1g/100g
- Prawn Cocktail: 2.2g carbs./100g. I did get them from my local Mr T's, but they changed them so they're no longer low carb. I now stock up at the Asda near work. I get about 4 usually and have one for lunch with lettuce, water cress and chilli flakes. Yummm!
"The only thing the high-carb/low-fat diet of the '80s accomplished was renaming adolescent diabetes"
~ Michael Boyle ~
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