Anyone Else Having a Quarter Life Crisis? : No-bake Blackberry and Lemon Tarts.

I think I’m having a (nearly) quarter-life crisis. The amount of my friends who seem to be having similar weekly existential meltdowns is astounding. Everyone I know seems to be overwhelmed in every aspect of their lives and its’ lead me to the conclusion that being in your early 20s is really damn hard. I mean, its great being young, having your whole life ahead of your and generally being hedonistic. But at the same time it’s pretty scary and confusing.

Think about it, almost nothing in our lives is certain. Most of us have CVs inundated with 6-week unpaid internships in fields that bear no relevance to each other, reflecting that we have no clue what or who we want to be. We’re either still being threatened with a potential grounding for neglecting to tidy our rooms because we live at home with our parents or we’re jumping each year into the next grotty houseshare that eats up our pay cheques and never really feels like home because the landlord won’t even let us use bluetack to stick up the remaining bits of paisley material we kept from that time we went to India and were actually excited about the future. On top of that, all the uncertainty in our careers and location makes maintaining a serious relationship nigh on impossible. Maybe it’s just me but any naive dreams of “finding the one” have been replaced with more realistic goals of finding someone who doesn’t annoy the hell out of me so I don’t have to spend Sundays alone.

I think part of the problem is that being in your 20s is advertised to us as a time of opportunity and adventure, where you can focus on personal development and do what you want. But panicking about how to pay next months rent while you’re waiting to hear back from that job interview where you accidentally gave the interviewer a hug (yes that happened) and watching all your friends get promotions doesn’t really scream adventure. Psychologist Barry Schwartz attributes the quarter-life crisis to “a paradox of choice”. That is, we reach an age where we are presented with many more options than we can handle (from careers, to residence, to life partners), this array of choice becomes so overwhelming until we reach a point when the enthusiasm for “being able to do whatever we want” is replaced with anxiety and self-doubt.

My lovely friend Tasha (whose status showed me just how many people are feeling the same way and inspired me to write this post), summed it up perfectly:

“Recently I’ve been battling a lot of negative thoughts about where I am in my life and what the hell I’m even doing. It wasn’t until speaking to a few other people my age that I realised this is a common theme around 20-something year olds. The fear that you only have yourself to blame for where you end up in life, what your purpose is, what actually even makes you happy. University installs in us that we have to make a career decision at 18 years old and then we are just let loose into the big wide world to make it work. I’ve felt extremely lost over the past few months, not sure what exactly I SHOULD be doing in my life and feeling extremely unmotivated.” – Natasha Bernard

So if everyone is feeling this way, what are we going to do about it? Fake it till we make it and stumble on through until we’re older, wiser and more stable? Or do we waste the seemingly best years of our lives by piling on the pressure until we achieve the security we all desperately seek?

As lame as it sounds I think the key to getting through is to turn to each other. The clearest link to happiness and self-confidence is to feel connected to other people. Although the constant Facebook holiday pictures and Linkedin pleas to “congratulate that random dude you met at a house party on his new job” suggest otherwise, chances are everyone around you is feeling the same. When life is so confusing and you can’t do anything about it, knowing your friends will be there to laugh at your first world problems is kind of the only thing you can guarantee. And hey, if being in your 20s is so damn exciting and fun then we are entitled to make the most of it by getting pissed and complaining together, right?

This recipe is completely unrelated to everything I’ve just written and therefore I have no linking sentence but I wanted to share it coz they tasted really good and sometimes you need sugar to get you through. It’s been a long week, sue me.

No-bake Blackberry and lemon tarts:

Ingredients (makes 12)

 1 handful blackberries

2 tablespoons honey

1 tin coconut milk

2 lemons (use the juice and zest)

2 tablespoons icing sugar

1 packet oreos

2 tablespoons coconut oil

12 cupcake cases

1. Smash the oreos into crumbs using a rolling pin (don’t use your hands or they will go black, I speak from experience)
2. Mix oreos with coconut oil until they resemble a buttery biscuit base
3. Place the cupcake cases on a cupcake tray and push the base mixture evenly into the bottom of the case.
4. Leave in the fridge for 10-15mins
5. Meanwhile, mix the creamy part of the coconut milk with icing sugar, 1 tablespoon of honey and squeeze in the juice and zest of both lemons.
6. Separately, mush up the blackberries using a fork and add two tablespoons of honey.
7. When the base is set, pour the coconut cream mixture on top of the base and set in the freezer for 10mins.
8. When the cream is more solid, spoon the blackberry mixture on top and swirl with a fork.
9. Leave in the freezer and take out 5 mins before serving.

Brewed awakening: The truth about caffeine – coffee marinated steak

Lets talk about coffee. Wonderful, vibrant, sharp coffee that has got us through exam periods we thought would never end; deadlines we thought we’d never make and lunch with parents who never notice that we still haven’t slept from the night before. Coffee is loved by all old and young, whether it’s the suits who need it to function at 6am starts or the pretentious hipsters who reveal in pointing out it’s ‘ warm acidic body with caramel undertones’ while wiping coffee granules off their ever-growing beards.

People have even come up with a test to psychoanalyse your coffee preferences. It’s definitely total crap but still fun to do in a buzzfeed-y kinda way.*

* Turns out my coffee personality test got me spot on so maybe there is some truth in it – but still take it with a pinch of salt (…or milk and sugar)

With such a widespread fan-base, it seems strange that no one seems to know the real benefits or consequences of our beloved coffee. Actually, our nation is dangerously dependent on caffeine, beating even nicotine for the title of world’s most addictive drug.

Now I could ramble on about the links between caffeine consumption and depression, anxiety, cancer, heart disease and all the other scary things that we are constantly warned will inevitably occur. But I won’t because we NEED coffee to wake us up and makes us feel more alert right? Doesn’t coffee improve cognitive function and turn us from lazy slobs into productive humans in one sweet sip?

WRONG. There are pretty much no studies that have significantly proven coffee has any influence on cognitive functioning. Furthermore, caffeine hasn’t even been shown to increase alertness beyond natural levels. It is suggested that coffee consumption only makes us feel more alert because we tend to be in withdrawal when we drink it. When caffeine and non-caffeine consumers are compared in the withdrawal stage, non-consumers are obviously more alert. However, when the two groups are compared post-coffee consumption, the levels of alertness are the same. What this means is that the only effect of caffeine is reverse the effect of withdrawal by increasing alertness to the level it would naturally be if there was no addiction in the first place.

So the new lease of life we feel after that a cup is simply our functioning being returned to normal levels, rather than an enhancement above the normal state.

After learning this last year, my housemate and I (heavily addicted coffee-drinkers) decided to give up coffee. After a week of horrible withdrawal symptoms, all I was craving was the sweet sweet nectar. But then I started to be concerned about the potent effects of caffeine if I was getting headaches and shakes from not drinking it for just a few days. We persevered and the effects were rather glorious. I woke up feeling naturally fresher and less blerry-eyed. My usual 4-o’clock wave of tiredness (usually combatted by a strong black americano) was no more. I really couldn’t believe how different it felt. I had spent my whole life thinking that coffee was an upper, when actually it was a downer – only making me feel temporarily better because of the way not drinking it was making me feel. Coffee isn’t the hero that saves us from collapsing with exhaustion, but the villain that makes us need it to stay standing.

So my advice is not to stop drinking coffee altogether, it definitely has it’s place. I still have a few cups a week, but only when I really need it. The best way to reap the benefits of caffeine is to have it in moderation, so it’s alerting effects can be felt without the accompanying withdrawal symptoms.

Coffee is often used in desserts, but i thought I’d try it in a savoury dish – It’s bitter flavour bought both me and the dish to life!

Coffee marinated steak on a bed of spinach:

Ingredients

1 cup coffee

1/4 cup black pepper

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1/4 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon mustard

1 clove chopped garlic

chopped parsley

1. Mix the olive oil, coffee, mustard, balasmic vinegar, pepper and garlic

2. Coat steaks in the marinade. Season with salt and pepper and leave for 1 hour

3. Sear on a hot pan for 5-10mins until cooked to your liking.

4. Rest for 10mins before slicing. Serve on bed of spinach and garnish with chopped parsley

Eat normally.

Social norms have a huge influence over our decisions and actions. If you saw someone dancing down the street with paint all over their face while chanting and rubbing their belly, you’d probably cross over…or subtly take a picture. But in some tribal communities, this would seem totally normal. Culture and society underpins almost everything that makes us individual, from our thoughts and behaviours to our eating habits.

When it comes to food, each country has their own way of doing things – Nepalese tend to use their hands, posh Brits feel the need to have excessive cutlery and Aussie’s are happy as long as it’s on a barby. The same differences apply to manners, while slurping your soup as loud as possible might be polite in Japan, it might not go down so well with your friends in Budapest (unless they were really Hungary…).

A study by professor Burger (yes, that is his actual name) investigated the influence of social norms on food choices. Participants are asked to choose nutri-grain or a snickers bar. Before the decision they are shown wrappers from past experiments, leading students to believe that previous participants typically pick one more than the other. When asked to pick, their choice tended to be consistent with what they believed other had picked. This shows that our behaviours are heavily guided by social norms, so much so that we alter our food choices just because we think others did the same.

So what does this mean for healthy eating? Well, if you live in Sweden where healthy, high-fat/low-carb diets are gradually becoming standard, then you’re set! But for the rest of us, when stuffing your face with maccy d’s or eating nutella from the jar is the norm, going against the grain can be difficult.

Professor Burger (still funny) suggests creating the impression that healthy choices are more popular by limiting the unhealthy choices in the canteen. If people are led to believe that eating vegetables is more common than pizza than they are likely to make healthier food selections. Of course, we can’t change the choices given to us in shops or restaurants but we CAN decide where we buy our food. For example, you could start getting lunch at cafes like pret or itsu, where healthy eating really is the norm. Alternatively, people in whole food shops are probably going to buy more fruit and veg than people in lidl (no offence to lidl-lovers). Buy sourcing food from healthier places we can increase our exposure to nutrition, so that healthy diets become our new normal.

Or perhaps encourage the people around you to eat healthy too…that way you don’t have to feel like a freak for picking the salad over cake. Below is a recipes you can share with your friends and family that they are bound to love!

Nutella cookies:

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown sugar

Spelt flour (can use oat flour)

2 tablespoons cup coco powder

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 cup coconut oil (or vegetable oil)

Handful of dark chocolate piecew

Handful of chopped hazelnuts

Few spoons Nutella (Preferably homemade by processing hazelnuts for 15 mins)

1. In a bowl Mix all the flour, coco and sugar together. Then add the oil and almond milk. If your mixture is too wet, add a little more flour.

2. Fold in the chocolate chunks and nuts

3. Roll mixture into balls and place on greased baking try.

4. Spoon a blob of nutella into the centre and flatten

5. Bake at 180 for 8-12 mins, keep checking as they burn easy!

6. I served mine with a drizzle of honey for extra sweetness!

Sugar and mental health: 2-ingredient, healthy ice cream

It is common knowledge that eating sugary foods makes your fat, gives you diabetes and generally doesn’t do the body much good. But far less attention is given to the effect of a high-sugar diet on our mental health. Many studies have shed light on the negative impact of sugar on mood and quality of life. In fact, associations have been made with a high-sugar diet and increased risk of depression, anxiety schizophrenia as well as a poorer recovery rate that those with a low-sugar diet.

It is easy to blame mental health problems on predisposed genetics but when a shocking 1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem in our lives, we have to look at the change in environment that is causing the rise in psychological diagnoses. It is no coincidence that sugar-intake is at an all time high.

Sugar suppresses activity of a hormonal activity and the immune system- issues common to people with depression. Interestingly, the countries with the highest rate of depression also have a high sugar intake.

Similarly, sugar had been found to worsen anxiety symptoms and weaken our stress coping ability.  A sugar high and subsequent crash can cause shaking, fatigue, which can make anxiety worse or induce a panic attack.

If you or anyone you know are experiencing depressive or anxious symptoms, I would really advise cutting down on sugar. This doesn’t mean excluding it from diet all together, but it could be doing a lot more harm than you think.

SO…I GIVE YOU SUGAR FREE ICE CREAM! 

I think this recipe is the best healthy substitute I have found to date. It requires zero effort, only 2 ingredients and actually tastes better than real ice cream. Honestly you have to try it, it is unbelievably good! I can now have ice cream for breakfast without feeling guilty.

Ingredients

4 frozen bananas

1/2 cup Milk (I used almond milk but you can use whichever you have around!)

Flavouring/toppings (e.g. cocoa, honey, nuts, dark chocolate chips, berries)

1.  Freeze the bananas (with the skins off!) for a few hours. May be helpful to chop roughly them before freezing.

2. Place the bananas and milk in blender or food processor. I had to stop and scrape off the sides a few times but continue until mixture resembles ice cream!

3. Add whatever flavouring, I used cocoa topped with sugar-free chocolate chips and nuts.

N.B To make strawberry/raspberry flavoured ice cream add frozen berries in with the bananas.

Hopefully this recipe will give help you realise that fruit is a great alternative to man-made sugary products. Although it contains some sugar, it is more natural and less damaging for the body and brain. Enjoy!

Care less, eat more.

I found out something really cool and interesting that has really helped me to change the way I think about food…

The attitude we have towards a meal can change the way we metabolize it.

The limbic system regulates emotions, rewards and thoughts. Within the limbic system is the hypothalamus which integrates the processes of the mind and body. The hypothalamus also alters metabolic activity, and takes into account our emotional states when doing so.

If you are super excited about eating that pizza you’ve been craving all day and eat it with delight, the hypothalamus with increase activity to the digestive system, helping you to burn calories quickly and efficiently. However, if you are feeling really guilty about eating the pizza and are already working out how long you’ll have to spend in the gym to burn it off, the hypothalamus dampens its activity to the digestive system, inhibiting caloric breakdown and causing more to be stored as body fat.

In other words, our attitude towards food can be as important its nutritional value. I think it is’ so cool that your thoughts and emotions toward a meal can actually change the physical response you have to it.

Knowing this really motivates me to try and change the way I feel before I eat food that I know is bad for me. I am finding it really difficult to kick my chocolate addiction and always feel so guilty before I eat anything sweet. With this new information in mind, I am going to try and embrace the fact that I am going to eat it and let myself enjoy the deliciousness. Firstly, it is a much nicer experience actually enjoying the food you secretly want but know you shouldn’t eat. Secondly, being happy about my choice may actually make me digest it faster it…it’s a win-win situation!

Check out my new recipes for Cinnamon roasted butternut squash with leeks, pecans and cranberries and Tomato and mushroom dhaal (pictured above)…These are some recipes you know you’ll be happy about eating!

Eat fat, lose fat.

When trying to lose weight, one of the first things that we are told to do is to cut out high-fat food.  Public health campaigns and articles promote this idea, and as a result many people will avoid foods with high-fat content. Supermarkets make this easy, giving us a ‘low-fat’ alternative to nearly every product.

But in reality, many of the products marketed as ‘low in fat’ or ‘light’ contain the same number of calories and have more sugar than the high-fat option. This is a huge problem! We are fooled into picking the unhealthy option under the pretence that we are eating healthier foods!

A recent study showed that people regularly under-estimate the amount of calories in low-fat foods and over-estimate the calories in high-fat foods by a whopping 35%. How unfair is it that even when we consciously try to improve our diets, the mislabelling by food companies is stopping us.

If I am going out of my way to choose the healthy option, I want it to actually be the healthy option!

Actually, we should not be completely avoiding foods high in fat, as fat is a necessary part of our diet. Our brains are made up of a mainly fats, so our dietary fat intake influences our mental state. Evidence even suggests that increased fat consumption can prevent disorders of cognitive function.

It is important to state that these studies are mainly talking about good fats. Monounsaturated fats have been associated with enhanced memory, learning and decreased risk of Alzheimer’s. So despite what we are lead to believe, fats are not all bad. By all means exclude saturated fats, but it is encouraged to increase intake of healthier fats such as eggs, avocado, olive oil. Plus, natural fats are totally delicious and can turn a boring meal into a taste sensation. I have spent so much time this week experimenting with avocados that the man at vegetable market has been saving me the biggest and ripest ones each day…I think it’s safe to say we have bonded.

My main message here is that fat is an important macro-nutrient that we all need for well-balanced, efficient functioning. While it may feel like we should choose ‘low-fat’ products, a small amount of good fat is so much better for you than the sneaky sugar they add and don’t advertise!

Here are some recipes high in unsaturated fats, that will do your brain the world of good: Poached eggs and smashed avocado on toast or baked egg in avocado.

Poached eggs and avocado on toast

This mouthwatering recipe is high in unsaturated fats, cheap and takes 5 mins- I’m obsessed!

Ingredients

2 pieces of wholewheat/multi-seed bread

1/2 avocado

2 eggs

Balsamic glaze

1. Mash 1/2 avocado in a bowl and then spread over bread (you can toast the bread first if you prefer)

2. Poach two eggs. Boil water and start gentle swirling with a spoon. Crack the egg into the middle of the whirlpool and spin until the white encases the yolk. Leave for 2-3mins.

3. Add the eggs to the bread and top with balsamic glaze, salt and pepper.