Helix Clinic blog

It’s common to experience sweet cravings during pregnancy, and it’s easier than you think to manage the cravings in a healthy way. Our nutritionist Anneliese has a recipe for delicious muffins that combine lots of wonderful ingredients to support your nutritional needs, as well as satisfying that need for sweet, chocolatey things!

You will need:

Unrefined rapeseed oil, for greasing the muffin tray
40g flaxseed
270g unbleached plain flour
100g Xylitol (sugar alternative, available from health food shops)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 medium eggs
220ml soya milk
225g dark chocolate chips
200g dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4, and then lightly grease a muffin tray with rapeseed oil.

Grind the flaxseed using a processor until they look like flour, then add to a mixing bowl.

Sift in the flour, add the Xylitol, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt until combined.

Whisk the eggs and the soya milk together and add to the dry ingredients, and gently fold the ingredients together until you have formed a batter. Stir in the chocolate chips and the dried cranberries.

Divide between the muffin tins and bake for 18 minutes or until golden.  Allow to cool before turning out. Enjoy!!

Tags: chocolate, muffins, pregnancy, sweet cravings

Ever wondered what it would be like if lemons tasted sweet instead of sour? Well, in 1725 an explorer called Des Marchais found a plant in West Africa that was named Synsepalum Dulcificum, but more commonly known now as the Miracle Fruit plant.

It produces berries that contain an active glycoprotein molecule caled miraculin. When eaten, the molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds and temporarily changes our sense of taste for up to two hours, causing bitter and sour foods to taste sweet!

This is amazing in itself, but potentially there is also a very useful medical application for this fruit. Chemotherapy patients often experience a nasty side effect of their treatment that causes them to develop a metallic taste in their mouth so that normal food tastes awful. Some cancer patients have found that this effect is temporarily helped by eating some miracle fruit, allowing them to enjoy normal tasting food once more.

You can find out more information, order berries or even buy seedlings so you can grow your own plant at the Miracle Fruit website.

Tags: cancer, chemotherapy, miracle fruit

When a patient first comes into the clinic, as well as asking about their primary complaint, we ask other general questions about their health to build up an overall health profile for that person. This helps us to treat in a truly holistic way.

One of the questions we ask is if a person is eating well and do they eat a good breakfast? It is surprising how often someone will come in feeling low in energy, or finding it tough to get through the day and then we discover that they never eat any breakfast, or at most grab a coffee and a pastry on their way into work!

We appreciate that it can be hard to find time in the mornings to make a full breakfast, but it really is the most important meal of the day. So, following on from yesterday’s 5 a day post, we have a delicious, easy to make and most importantly quick breakfast smoothie recipe to help give you a good start to your day.

The recipe serves 2 people. Put 2 bananas, a mug of rolled porridge oats and 4 dates into a blender. Add enough oatmilk to bring the mixture level to 1 and a quarter pints, and then add a quarter pint of blueberry juice to bring the total level to a pint and a half. Blend for 2-3 minutes, then serve and enjoy.

You will be amazed how much better you’ll feel, and the energy from the smoothie should keep you going right up to lunchtime.

Tags: breakfast, smoothie

We all know that we need fruit and vegetables every day to provide the body with the fibre, minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients and trace elements it needs to prevent deficiency related diseases such as scurvy, depression, heart disease and cancer.

Most of us in the UK manage to eat just 2 to 3 servings a day and few realise that ‘5-A-Day’ is the absolute minimum. Other countries exceed our guidelines – some almost double them! For example the Australian government recommends 7-a-day and in Greece it is 9-a-day.

One portion is about 80g of fruit or veg which roughly equates to an apple, an orange, two plums, a handful of grapes or berries, two serving spoons of cooked veg, a dessert bowl of salad, two serving spoons of beans and pulses and a 150ml glass of fresh juice or smoothie

It is not that easy however, otherwise more people would be following the government guidelines. So, to move forward, our nutritionist Anneliese suggests the following.

Keep a note of how many portions of fruit and vegetables you eat each day over the course of a week and then pledge to increase this figure by 1 portion per day each week until you are eating a minimum of five but ideally eight to ten servings a day – at least three of which should be vegetables.

Some easy ideas…

• Eat a piece of fruit mid-morning and mid-afternoon with a few nuts.
• Add chopped apple, pear or berries to cereal or porridge.
• Cook a bowlful of frozen veg with each main meal.
• Drink fresh vegetable juice.
• Add veg to omelettes, lasagne and other typically veg-free meals.
• Eat raw veg with hummus.
• Order salads, soups and side dishes of veg when eating out.

Best of luck!!

Tags: fruit, vegetables