I’ve been meaning to try the 4 cups of fruit and 1 tin sweetened condensed milk ice cream idea for a long time. I’m always looking for ways to utilise lots of fruit in yummy dishes for our pro metabolic diet. This is perfect with Summer coming on here in Australia.
I happened to have an unused container of sour cream that was rapidly heading for it’s use by date, so I thought I would use it up at the same time and see what transpired. This is the Strawberry Ice Cream recipe…
Transfer to a shallow, air tight container and freeze overnight.
It scoops best if you leave it out of the freezer for say 10 minutes before using.
It tasted beautiful in terms of texture and sweetness, but I’m not a fan of the fattiness of the sour cream. When you look at the nutrition stats below, it’s not too bad in terms of overall fat content. But I think I am more attuned to less fat these days and prefer that clean, fresh taste rather than fatty, buttery taste.
When I make it next time, I think I will put either cottage cheese in it like my high protein ice cream or low fat Greek yogurt. At least then it will fit more in our protein & fruit combinations, so we can eat it for breakfast in summer and have all macros balanced.
Here are the nutrition stats for the recipe above:
Whole recipe
1896 calories
42g protein
339g carbs
43g fat
It makes 8 serves with the stats below for each serve…
237 calories
5 g protein
42g carbs
5g fat
I’m actually surprised that it has that much protein in it at all.
Anyway, at least I had a chance to try it and it was delicious. I will certainly do it again when I finish this batch.
In our private facebook group we were talking about how much fruit people buy in their weekly shop. It was prompted by me trying to organise myself better, to make sure I was sticking to my ZEN Beach Diet.
It’s one thing knowing WHAT to do and HOW to do it,
but actually DOING it is another thing entirely.
Some people are super focused on food prep and planning their meals and to be honest, I wish I was far more like that. But I’m not, so that’s why the basic outline of a meal in the ZEN Beach Diet is so helpful, because at least you easily know what each meal is supposed look like macro-wise.
So in each meal we talk about 2 cups of fruit. So three meals a day and that would equate to at least 42 cups of fruit in the week. Roughly one piece of fruit like an apple, pear, medium banana would be equivalent to 1 cup, when you chop it up and put it in a cup.
As I write this, we are one month away from Summer here in Australia. In Queensland where I live it’s already 30C (86F), sunny and beach weather. Fruit is plentiful in the stores and when it’s warm like this, you actually feel like eating fruit. Last week this is what I purchased in my shop for myself:
8 cups mango (4 large mangoes)
8 bananas
10 apples
4 pears
2 cups strawberries (one punnet)
3 cups rockmelon (was half of one)
3 cups blueberries (Frozen 1 packet)
4 cups mango (Frozen 1 packet)
42 cups total
I also purchased more cucumbers, tomatoes and other fruit that my husband likes to eat, but the above list was all for me. (Please note the image doesn’t match the list above, as it is a picture of this week’s shop which was slightly different.)
Now over winter, there is no way that I would have bought all of this and matching the amounts was purely an accident. But at least doing this exercise, I now know the quantity I do have to buy to get close.
I only know how much the rockmelon and strawberries cut down to in the cup measures, as I always cut up the rockmelon and put it in air tight containers to eat for the week. With the strawberries I chopped them all up to try a new ice cream recipe (will post it soon.)
Some of the fresh mango went into a variation of the 3 Ingredient Yogurt Cake to try versions with fruit in it. I haven’t quite perfected that recipe yet, but I will post it as well when I do.
Through the week some of the ways I am eating all this fruit is:-
Just sliced up with turkey breast slices and cheese slices
Apples go in Turkey Burgers & I eat them with more fruit on the side
Frozen mango & Blueberries, with cottage cheese & sweetened condensed milk (I take this to work in a container and by the time I’m ready to eat it through the day, the fruit has defrosted and softened up.)
Some of the additional fruit I bought goes in my husband’s quick muffins—recipe here.
Smoothies
Applesauce
Fruit ice cream
Cucumber & Mango salad – I have this with chicken or tuna
Sometimes I just eat a mango, pear or apple by itself as that’s what I feel like eating for a snack.
In a pro metabolic diet, it’s really important to get a handle on incorporating fruit in our diet. Nutritionally it’s the most beneficial for carbs, as well as water, fibre, vitamins, minerals and enzymes from fresh fruit especially.
We almost need to take the lead from the raw vegans who eat/prepare the volume of fruit we should be eating – with all their beautiful smoothie bowls and brightly coloured smoothies. We just pair it with animal protein though, as we know that it’s the most nutritionally beneficial to do it this way.
Discovering Australian grown frozen fruit over past few weeks has been a great boost to my fruit consumption. It’s just so convenient and already chopped up which is always a help. I plan to continue this as there is no wastage, which is brilliant. (The frozen mango in the picture is not Australian grown as this is not yet available yet where I live. This one is from Peru.)
I must add too that this fruit haul doesn’t include my fruit juice which I buy as well. Usually about 2 litres (half a gallon.)
I hope this has given a little insight as we all navigate our way through the pro metabolic lifestyle. Lots of fruit for the win!
This 3 ingredient yogurt cake is tangy with a texture kind of like a cross between custard and cheesecake. Recipe first, then a bit of explaining later…
Ray Peat mentioned that he is trying a bit of Oat Bran recently and feeling better for it. I personally feel better minimising starches and grains. I still have 25% of my carbs as starch because I find just sugar/fruit alone doesn’t feel quite right, especially in winter.
So I bought some Oat Bran this Australian winter just to try it.
Interesting topic raised in our private facebook group about the Bean Protocol by Karen Hurd. A member asked if anyone had tried it and discussion ensued about whether they had or hadn’t, and what they thought of it.
Now bottom line, this “diet” is completely contradictory to everything Ray Peat says.
Ray Peat has shocked his followers by declaring on some recent podcasts that he has been experimenting with lower protein. (Date for reference July 2022.)
The amount he mentioned was 50g being the minimum for health and he was at about 60g at the moment. He found that if he reduced his protein to this amount, he was able to use less of his thyroid supplement and stay in good health.
A person online was asking about the ZEN Beach Diet and said “does it involve laying on the beach in the sun?” I think they were trying to be funny but it may have shocked them a little when I replied, “absolutely it does!!”
Many people are really not aware of the importance of sunlight and light generally, when it comes to their health. It is actually critical for both physical and mental health and should be a regular part of your lifestyle. That is, if your health is important to you.
We recently conducted a survey in our private Facebook group and 60% of respondents said they experienced constipation some of the time with 40% of those advising it was quite frequent.
I usually write about issues that I have personally and how I overcame it, and this one is no exception. A weird thing happened a few weeks back where out of the blue, I felt like I was no longer having any urge to poop.
When you have issues with food, diets and weight loss, the thought of constructing a meal plan can be overwhelming.
For me personally, the less I focused on food in the past, the more successful I was in terms of weight control. I would just eat whatever, when I was hungry.
Then I started a blog about food, weight loss and diets and now am torturing myself a bit more!
