h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think I've made a spinich chick pea and butternut squash tagine type think too. Very very nice. Completely vegan. I base it on this:

http://dressingfordinner.blogspot.com/2008/11/butternut-squash-and-chickpea-tagine.html

and

I am amused by the thought of a chicke and ham pie without the sauce, chicken or ham.

I've just discovered that despite having ensnared and married a toyboy (toy doctor?) I am apparently 6 years older than my calendar age:

http://realage.netdoctor.co.uk/

Meh.

(Must be true, it was on the net).

Mind you, 5.5 of those years are the stress of moving house and being made redundant in the lsat 12 months.

They are very keen on food supplements and give me pages of advice about what to take, but I would argue that my diet (food, not too much, mostly plants) is chock full of vits and mins.

I'm already working on the socialising and exercising more though.

Considering how one inherited wisdom after another has appeared to have some scientific proof behind the usefulness of it all, I'm sure that in time, spinach soup and eggs will turn out to be *extremely* healthy for you!

I am apparently 0.1 of a year older than my real age. Despite the amount of exercise I get, that site takes a very sniffy objection to drinking and smoking. Oh well. Plus, the Green Police want a word about actively encouraging people to drive larger vehicles.

I'm apparently 10 years younger than my real age.. But the vitamin pill reccomendations are tosh! I don't know how much evidence is behind that site. SOme references would be nice.

>> I'm apparently 10 years younger than my real age

This is getting ridiculous! Cradle-snatching is bad enough, but that's verging on uterous-snatching.

Morning all.

Yes Marv, I know the stories you could tell.

That site thinks I'm about 4ish years older than I am. It doesn't like my weight, drinking or the prescription medication even though I take is as recommended. It could do with knowing better about units also. When it reported my weight at over 200Kg and height as something silly also (74 metres or cm) you can tell it's based on us software (the numbers are about right for pounds and inches). Also the regular diabetes blood sugar measurements are given in us units. Perhaps that's where it's obsession with suplements comes from.

That realAge thing is odd. I came out as around 3.5 years younger than my calendar age.

It recommended I did less cardio exercise and ate more unsaturated fat. I also said I should sleep more - it didn't include having nightmare children in the list of things that may cause a person not to get enough sleep, so failed to recommend a supplement for that but did recommend dozens of other supplements, all of which I am pretty sure are covered in my diet.

But what I'm most upset about is that it reckons that my BMI 0f 24.6 means I am far too fat for my height and advised me to lose weight. Now, I've always been told that a healthy BMI is between 18 and 25. Netdoctor apparently disagrees although it didn't choose to tell me what it *did* consider to be a healthy BMI. I've worked hard to get here but apparently this isn't good enough for netdoctor. *sulk*

PS the reason that has upset me so much is that I was actually looking forward to not being berated about my weight for the first time ever.

Understandable grumping Kelli.

It calcuated my BMI correctly, but got my weight and height right in lbs and inches but reported the units as kgs and cm!

Regarding supplements, it doesn't appear to think you can get vits and mins from eating fruit and veg, only from tablets.

I do wonder if it's sponsored by a food supplement "health" company.

That is just because the boilerplate text says kg and cms, the only bits that change there when they merge in the information in are the numbers - as it allowed me to enter them in stones, pounds and inches I assume everything else is correct and it matches my calculation of BMI.

I just really thought I wouldn't get told I needed to lose weight again

I see no point in going to that site just to be told I'm a wreck of a human being, fit only for the grave. I already know it.

Chard? I dice the stems, and saute them with diced onion in a little olive oil until soft. Then I chop up the leaves, add them to the mix. When they start wilting, I add a dash of salt and balsamic vinegar.

I make a spinach and sorrel soup very similar to Sol's (in fact, I made it last night): boil a couple diced potatoes, a diced onion or a few stalks of scallions, and a fistful of fresh dill in water for a few minutes. Add chopped spinach and sorrel (about a pound), fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until the taters are soft. Beat two eggs with a cup of water in a bowl. Ladle in a couple cups of the hot broth, stir until the eggs are warmed up, then add the eggy slurry back into the soup slowly, so you don't end up with scrambled egg. Then stir in a cup of sour cream and additional fresh dill. Chill and serve. It's sort of a summer soup.

That site made me six and a half years older than my chronological age. Poo.
I think I'll stick to the Wii. It frequently tells me I'm thirty years younger

All these recipes are making me hungry - and I've had more than enough already today. Better go for a walk or summat.

Ben, thanks for the library photos. Now I know where your mechanic is.

If you have kale, use it for caldo verde, which is practically the national food of Portugal. Z won't be able to eat it, but you'll be able to. There are tons of recipes. The one F loved was made with a rich chicken stock and linquica, rather than chorizo. It's very easy. Sweat a large, chopped onion and som fresh garlic in olive oil and add to the hot stock. Toss in diced potatoes, some sliced sausage and the shredded kale. Cook until the spuds are tender. Salt and pepper to taste. Red Russian kale works the best.

You can also make a traditional potato soup with milk and add shredded kale to it while the potatoes cook.

The summer reading food du jour is fruit and cheese skewers. We're doing a beach party, complete with hula lessons.

The site made me a few months older than my age - I was doing very well until it asked about stressful life events, which added 6 years! Although Stuart was not technically family, his illness and subsequent death had (well, let's be honest, have) a massive effect on myself and my other housemates, so I counted them when the site probably wouldn't have wanted me to. Rather beautifully, our networks of relatives and friends have supported us in the way that they would have done had we lost a blood relative as well.

On the other hand, regular exercise through the medium of rehearsals (my goodness, the dance warmup is intense!) helped keep my 'real' age down. I have managed to earn some respect by holding the 'plank' position for as long as, or in mnay cases longer than, the rest of the cast who are mostly 10 years younger than me and almost all trained dancers. It's largely through having a large dose of stubbornness.

I use my sister's Wii so infrequently that it tells me I'm about 30 years older than I thought I was!

The real age test is interesting, but a computer generated thing like that doesn't give enough options for answers to take individual characteristics into account and adjust appropriately. I took one a year or so ago. They don't like my diet. For example, they tell me to eat more grains. Excuse me! I don't think so.

Interestingly enough, when I was flicking through a book about eating healthily based on having everything low GI (it helps my Dad, who is type 2 diabetic), all the things in each section which came up as the lowest GI for each section were all the things Russians eat. Sour cream is the lowest GI cream, rye bread the lowest GI bread, etc, etc. Makes sense of course, slow realease of energy being important in the winters there and their diet still being more bound to seasons and local produce than supermarkets. So spinach and egg soup almost certainly qualifies.

'...almost certainly qualifies as good for you.'

Sorry, got one ear on the Tour de France again. It's a lot like golf, in that the commentators often take a few minutes out to comment on the countryside, the sunflowers, the chatuaxs (how do you spell that), the colourful local characters, the helicopter tourist tour de france holidays you can take, the football.

And there you go, WA. Mark Cavendish just won.