Archive: Dec 2010

  1. New premises

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    Just to let you know that I have moved from Lushington Clinic and am now working at The Chaseley Trust. The full address is South Cliff, Eastbourne, BN20 7JH and the clinic there can be found between The Hydro Hotel and South Cliff tower flats. I’m very excited to be starting there and am sharing the rooms with ESOPS consultants. Please contact me in the usual way on 01323 737814 for an appointment.

  2. Supermarkets: What price cheap food.

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    Before I leave for my christmas break I hope many of you watched Panaroma’s “Supermarkets: What price cheap food?”. For those of you who didn’t please try to get to watch it. I have written about Nocton mega dairy before on this blog. Nothing in this programme was new to me however I still found it shocking and obscene and very upsetting. As consumers you have the power not the supermarkets and please do not forget that. Do you really want CAFO’s (feeding operations) to produce your food rather than farms -do you want to see cow factories, pig factories, vegetable and fruit factories? I hope not. To see cows indoors their entire lives is shocking. We would all spend a couple of pence more to see British dairy farmers kept in their jobs wouldnt we? If you can afford please do not forget your local butcher, greengrocer and baker. Keeping individual retailers alive is so important for the heart of our society and keeps a heartbeat going for communities. Are you happy to allow the Big 4 (tesco, sainsburys, asda, morrisons) to be the only place you can buy food in the future because trust me thats where we are headed.

  3. Christmas wishes

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    To all my clients, patients, friends and blog readers.

    With all the snow I suspect some of us will not be where we should be this christmas but wish you all a very happy and healthy festive season!

    See you in 2011.

    Kate x

  4. Chickpea patties

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    I dont usually put recipes on my blog but someone made these for me the other night and they were really tasty.

    2 x 400g cans of chickpeas
    4 cloves of garlic
    1 tsp ground cumin
    1 red onion
    20g fresh coriander
    2tbsp plain flour
    olive oil

    Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Blitz them with the garlic, cumin, onion and coriander. Blend until smooth and stir in the flour. With floured hands, shape the chickpea mix into 12 small round patties and chill for 20 mins. Heat the oil, and fry the patties in batches for about 2 mins on each side until heated through and golden. Serve warm with parsley and lemon wedges. These can be cooked ahead and frozen.

    They are not bad re-heated for breakfast either.

  5. River Cottage Christmas Fayre

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    There was something so likeable about Hugh’s River Cottage Christmas Fayre – it gives you that warm ready brek feeling inside that makes you think that Christmas can indeed be an uplifting joyous occasion. It’s a far cry from Kirstie’s how to blow your own glass and embroider a hankie nonsense which makes me want to scream at the tv – I mean who has the time! ………….

  6. The Foods that make billions

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    I hope everyone managed to catch “The Foods that make billions” – a great BBC programme recently. Worth a catch up on iplayer if you can. Charting the rise of the breakfast cereal and how it has shaped our daily lives made interesting viewing.

    “94% of us have breakfast cereals in our cupboards, a century ago, no one had”

    You all know where I stand on breakfast cereals and I hope this programme gives you some more info. Avoid them at all costs – go back to porridge, eggs, beans on toast etc.

    If you’d like to read more about this do read Bee Wilson’s book “Swindled”.

  7. Hospitals: efficient but little care

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    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthadvice/jameslefanu/8058881/Dr-James-Le-Fanu-hospital-stays.html

    Another interesting article by James le Fanu. This is very much what I hear – treatment is quicker, waiting times down, which is fantastic but hospital in patient visits can leave you feeling slightly traumatised. It’s the small things that can make the largest difference – shame really.

  8. Statins again…..

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    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8146022/Dr-James-Le-Fanu-statins.html

    I’m a huge fan of Dr James le Fanu and the article above about statins maybe of interest to some of you. I’d like to share with you a patient of mine who came to see me with a cholesterol of over 7 mmol. Her GP insisted that she go on statins despite the fact that she had no other risk factors and no history of heart disease. The patient decided to see me and I spoke to her GP and said could we have three months grace to see if my patient could get her cholesterol down with diet and supplements. The GP agreed but the information she had was that diet cannot reduce cholesterol levels and even if they did – at the very least only by 0.5mmol. I was astounded – what information is she been given to read? It wouldn’t by any chance be the figures from the pharmaceutical companies would it? Within three months my patients level was down to 5.5 mmol. The patient was thrilled and went back to her GP half expecting a slap on the back for good behaviour but no she was not given any validation for her efforts and told she was still above the accepted levels. So… we bought it down again to 4.5mmol and again no validation from the GP.

    If you do not want to go on statins, that is your right. If you have high risk factors, and a cholesterol that is dangerously high of course it might be a good idea, but for the rest of the nation that is floating around with slightly higher cholesterol, you can try other ways which do work!