The lesbian Donkey - review of an ecofriendly olive oil

Back in July, I blogged about how shocked I was that olive oil production is responsible for millions of birds dying every year (you can read more in my blog post here).

I love olive oil, but I love birds more so I started to search for a bird friendly olive oil.

The one I chose was the Lesbian Donkey which is produced by organic methods on the hillsides of the Greek Island of Lesbos, with olives picked without machinery - the trees are shaken to bring the olives down. Locally available in Edinburgh (from Real Foods).

It's a beautifully packaged product, the bottle design is very elegant and the label is beautifully done. But does the product itself live up to the labelling and ethical standards? 

I've been using Lesbian Donkey for about a month now and I'm very impressed with it. It's a lovely smooth oil and very easy to cook with. I'd definitely recommend it as a quality product, but just as importantly one you can use with no sense of guilt about birds being killed during its production. I certainly wouldn't go back to any other olive oil now.

As ever, red text in this post links to other webpages where you can find out more. 

Searching for a bird friendly olive oil

It had never crossed my mind that olive oil could be environmentally unfriendly, until I read this article which outlines how many producers of the oil use suction to remove the olives from the trees, in the process suctioning out and killing millions of birds a year. I knew that lots of birds were killed in the Mediterranean countries but I had previously thought it was mostly due to hunters shooting them or catching them on lime sticks. The fact that olive oil was implicated in this was a total shock.

So I started researching for a bird friendly olive oil. I guessed that 'hand picked' would be a good indicator of bird friendly. But many producers don't say how they harvest the olives (though most do say how they process the oil - virgin or extra virgin olive oil is pressed rather than treated with chemicals and this is shown on the label by 'produced by mechanical process only' or similar wording.)

I recently saw the film Virgin and Extra at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (you can read my review here) and it seems that the olive farms of Jaen in Spain mostly use manual means to harvest the olives. It would be necessary to research this to find out more, but The Green Gold Olive Oil Company certainly harvests its grapes manually and so is bird friendly.

Locally available in Edinburgh (from Real Foods) Lesbian Donkey is produced by organic methods on the hillsides of the Greek Island of Lesbos, with olives picked without machinery - the trees are shaken to bring the olves down.  I've bought my first bottle of Lesbian Donkey and will review it once I've started using it. (My current organic extra virgin olive oil is possibly bird friendly itself, but the makers haven't got back to me to confirm this and I'd rather know for certain).

There's a useful article in Ethical Consumer here, which outlines the issue and looks into which major suppliers of olive oil may be bird friendly. 

So if you care about the effect of agriculture on nature, it's well worth checking out whether your olive oil is bird friendly.  The trick is to look for hand picked and to be aware that produced by mechanical means only refers to the processing of olives into oil (and indicates Virgin or Extra Virgin) and not to harvesting methods.

Chef Diaries Scotland

 


The three Roca brothers started out as cooks at their parents' Catalan bar/restaurant and are now considered to be culinary celebrities with their Michelin-starred restaurant El Celler de Can Roca. In this documentary they set out to explore the culinary delights of Scotland. From Àrbroath Smokies to oysters from the Isle of Skye to haggis in Dingwall and Aberlour's barrel-aged whisky—this is a real culinary road trip through stunning Scottish scenery.

The diet of the average Scot is usually considered to be unhealthy and unimaginative (though this is changing). The film makes the point that most of the best Scottish produce, particularly seafood, is exported overseas. The Scottish farmers and restauranteurs interviewed here are passionate about good quality, locally produced ingredients though also knowledgeable about how Scottish food has always benefited from foreign influence (the East Asian spices included in haggis for example). The Highland cattle featured are free range and eat a natural diet. A lot of emphasis was put on Scotland's wild larder, though I felt more could have been said about how to make foraging and fishing genuinely sustainable. I'm also not at all convinced by arguments on sustainable wildfowling being at all possible, given how many of our wildfowl species are declining in number.

It's always interesting to see things you think you know well from a different perspective and this documentary is no exception. The brothers compare and contrast Scottish and Spanish did and farming, noting such differences as the fact that Scotland has less sunshine which means our soft fruits ripen more slowly and are sweeter as a result. They also commit to producing a menu inspired by Scottish ingredients and recipes but with a distinctly Spanish flavour. The fact that most of the dishes were meat based did mean that as a vegetarian I wasn't tempted, though I have to say they looked impressive.


Chef's Diairies Scotland is screening as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 at 2035 Friday 21 June at Odeon Lothian Road and 13.00 Saturday 22 June at Filmhouse. Tickets can be booked here.

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If this film appeals to you, why not make a three course film event out of it along with:

The Amber Light which gets its world premier at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 at 1810, Saturday 22 June and screens again at 2020 Sunday 23 June, both at Odeon Lothian Road. (Review to follow).

and Virgin and Extra: Land of Olive Oil screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 at 1540, Saturday 22 June and at 1310 Sunday 23 June, both at Odeon Lothian Road. You can book tickets here.You can read my review of Virgin and Extra here.



You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?


Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.


Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil. 

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

Virgin and Extra: The Land of the Olive Oil (film review)

 


This fascinating documentary explores the history and heritage of olive oil in Jaén, which produces almost half of Spain's olive oil. The film shines a light on the complexity of the product, the diversity of its flavours and colours, the varied ways it is used in cooking, together with its status as a superfood and many recognised health benefits. 

Watching the film, I was astonished by how much of the area is covered in olive groves, extending seemingly forever. Some of them are quite bare of other vegetation, but a couple of interviewees in the film described their concerns for biodiversity and how some of the farms at least are working to increase their biodiversity with ground cover crops. 

Virgin and Extra Virgin olive oils are in themselves relatively new products and it was interesting to watch the competition to find the best oil and hear the judges talk about how many more great oils there are these days than there used to be. Also interesting to see the olives actually being processed into oil. Virgin and extra virgin oils are extracted mechanically and don't contain additives, which mean they are tastier and healthier than other oils. 

Since reading this article I've become very concerned about how olives are harvested, as some of the mechanical methods result in the deaths of large numbers of birds. So I was watching this film very carefully to see how the olives were actually harvested and it seems that in the featured farms at least, the olives are picked mostly by hand with mechanisation used only to transport them. If you want to source a bird friendly olive oil (edited to add, my blogpost on this topic is now up here) you may want to do more research on this, but Jaen based The Green Gold Olive Oil Company certainly harvests its olives manually. 

Virgin and Extra is definitely an interesting film for foodies and you may even pick up some ideas for delicious recipes from some of the featured chefs!

Virgin and Extra is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 at 1540, Saturday 22 June and at 1310 Sunday 23 June, both at Odeon Lothian Road. You can book tickets here.

If you're interested in the role of olive trees in agriculture and culture then you may also be interested in The Olive Tree, screening as part of the Spanish strand at this years Edinburgh International Film Festival. I saw this excellent and moving film when it was first shown at the festival in 2016. You can read my review here.  

 

The Olive Tree is screening as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival at 1800, Saturday 29 June at Odeon Lothian Road. You can buy tickets here. 

You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?

Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

 

A World Without Bees by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum

Where would we be without bees? A third of what we eat and much of what we wear relies on pollination by honeybees. So the fact that honeybees are in desperate trouble as their numbers plummet across the planet is of major concern to all of us.

A World Without Bees, whose authors are keen beekeepers themselves, outlines the history of the human relationship with the honeybee, going back to early cave paintings of bees. It then explores all the stresses that we put on bees, including trucking bees across the USA to pollinate crops across the country (but especially the Californian almond orchards); the effects of pesticides and fungicides and the spread of parasites such as the Varroa mite. The authors speak to scientists, farmers and bee-keepers to try to analyse how these stresses fit in with the widely observed colony collapse disorder which sees hives suddenly lose all or most of their bees.

This is sobering, depressing reading and doesn't really offer any solutions. But one thing is certain, we need to save the bees, if we are to have any meaningful future ourselves.

A World Without Bees by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum published by Guardian Books.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more. 

Nutritional Grail: Ancestral Wisdom, Breakthrough Science, and the Dawning Nutritional Renaissance by Christopher Clark

During the 20th century, flawed nutritional theories and the industrialisation of food production lead to unhealthy dietary changes. Sugar consumption increased dramatically and processed foods became commonplace.

This book explores the social and economic forces that have propelled these changes, including the current unnaturally close relationships between governmental nutritional advisors and biotechnology firms and the industrial processes and companies that produce the unhealthy foods so many of us eat.

The book also explores scientific methodology and explains modern scientific perspectives on nutritional topics including fat, cholesterol, fructose, gluten and detoxification. The narrative is very scientific in parts, so may be heavy going unless you're very interested in detailed nutritional information.

Clark lays out a comprehensive strategy for effortless weight loss, improved digestion, and increased energy including a range of recipes and advice on cooking equipment and techniques. The whole book is exhaustively referenced so you could spend months reading up more on the topics covered here.

This is a very interesting read, though given all the contradictory advice that is out there, this book may only add to your feeling of confusion about what really is a healthy diet. And it's certainly a book to read section by section and then keep to refer to, rather than to read all at once.

Thanks Story Cartel for my free e-copy of this book.

Supernature lemongrass infused rapeseed oil

The Edinburgh ethical grocers Real Foods recently invited people to volunteer as product reviewers and I was delighted to be chosen! For my first review I chose Supernature lemongrass infused rapeseed oil.

It's a beautifully presented product in this attractive bottle. This award winning oil is gently cold pressed at Carrington Barns Farm in the Lothians, 8 miles from Edinburgh. The farm uses a spring rapeseed plant, which is planted in April and harvested in September. Its natural rapid growth means that there is no need for the use of any herbicides or fungicides and the by-product of cold pressing is put to good use as high quality animal feed, ensuring nothing is wasted. I have to admit to not really liking the sight of the excessively vivid fields of rape, but there's no doubting that this is an ethically and locally produced cooking oil, with claims also to be healthier than olive oil. 

So how does it taste? Crafty Green Boyfriend and I initially tried the taste test as done at tasting events in the Real Foods stores - we dipped pieces of bread into the oil. I thought it was delicious while Crafty Green Boyfriend's comment was 'bit too lemongrassy for me, but it might be nice used in cooking'. Which was exactly what I did next using it to fry up onions, mushrooms, carrots and courgettes with a touch of freshly grated ginger and some ground coriander then adding lentils and water and boiling it all up and serving it with noodles. It tasted delicious and the lemongrass taste was subtle enough to keep Crafty Green Boyfriend happy.

There are several other flavours of oils produced by Supernature, the garlic oil sounds particularly appealing. 

Supernature Lemongrass infused rapeseed oil is available instore or online at Real Foods. 

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Not self sufficient but....

We're a long way from being self sufficient but I thought it might be interesting to list the foods we grow ourselves etc:

Grow on our windowsills

tomatoes, salad leaves, herbs (parsley, basil and coriander) - with varying degrees of success

From Crafty Green Boyfriend's parents garden

leeks, courgettes, cooking apples, eating apples

Foraged

brambles, raspberries and sometimes fungi. I definitely want to experiment with foraging for edible leaves from trees next year, basically when I'm cutting down tree branches that cause problems on the Water of Leith walkway, I want to keep the leaves that are edible!

So it's a small contribution to our overall diet, but it's something and not bad for living in the city centre! Theoretically we have a share in the garden at the back of the building, but one particular family have comandeered all the growing area.

What do you grow for yourselves and what kind of space do you have for growing?

Ugly Fruit

Usually UK supermarkets are very fussy about the shape of the fruit and vegetables that they sell and reject any blemished or misshapen items. There have been over the years campaigns to try and change this, because after all a misshapen carrot tastes just the same as a straight carrot. There would be a lot less food going to waste if supermarkets weren't so judgemental about the cosmetic appearance of fruit and veg!

Well, where canpaigning has failed, it seems that the unusally cold Spring that we had this year may have succeeded. According to this article, supermarkets in the UK have started to sell more fruit and veg that is “good quality but cosmetically imperfect".

Independent retailers, specially those that specialise in organic produce, have long been happier to sell ugly fruit and veg. Real Foods, an organic grocers in Edinburgh likes ugly fruit so much that it has even opened a photo competition to find the ugliest or funniest examples of fruit. You have until 6 October to send in your photos for a chance to win a Real Foods Goodie Bag.

Crafty Green Boyfriend's parents have a couple of apple trees in their garden. Any supermarket would describe the fruits of these trees as ugly, but their cooking apples make a wonderful apple crumble (with added cinnamon and raisins) and the eating apples are just about the only apples I actually really like to eat raw.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Berry picking

We had a lovely time today picking blackberries and raspberries on Wester Craiglockart Hill. On our visit there last week we had notice the cast number of bramble bushes and today we decided to go back with our bags and tubs and do some collecting! We collected a lot of blackberries and quite a few raspberries, most of which Crafty Green Boyfriend's Mum will make into jam.

Here are some of my thoughts about foraging berries:

a) leave enough for other foragers and the wildlife too
b) be careful of the brambles and the other plants, often raspberries and blackberries grow near stinging nettles and gorse (which can scratch quiet badly just as brambles themselves can). Good idea to wear long sleeves and hardwearing fabrics
c) don't pick by the side of roads because of the fumes and particulates from car exhausts
d) don't pick from plants right next to the pathway if they're under the height of a dog
e) while foraging take time to enjoy the nature all around you.

Today it was quite breezy and at times the air was full of thistledown and the seeds of willowherbs. The gorse pods were audibly popping as they split to release their seeds. Robins were singing their wistful autumnal song all around us.

Plus, I saw my first small copper butterfly of the year! This is such a lovely butterfly, tiny and beautifully patterned with a gorgeous rich orange colour. They're quite common on the hills of Edinburgh, so I'm surprised this was my first of the year. This photo is a close up that I then severly cropped so you can see the detail, which may make the butterfly seem much bigger than it is.

Shark fin soup

I was very happy to see a new Chinese restaurant open in our neighbourhood.

However I was less than happy when I looked at their menu and saw that they are selling shark fin soup.

Shark finning is a cruel practice. Sharks have their fins removed and are then tossed back into the ocean where they die a slow and painful death.

A shocking ten million sharks a year are killed to satisfy global demand for shark fins. Twenty species of sharks are listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). In a few years many species of shark could become extinct if shark finning is not stopped.

India recently banned the practice of shark finning and China last year announced it would no longer serve shark fin dishes at official banquets. I've respectfully written to our new local Chinese restaurant and asked them to take shark fin soup off the menu. Crafty Green Boyfriend and I will not eat at this restaurant until they take shark fin soup off the menu.

You can find out more about the issues on these pages:

 Shark Trust.

Stop Shark Finning

Windowsill Garden - update

We've grown tomatoes for several years now and have nad good crops every year. This year, one of our tomato plants is producing full size tomatoes rather than the cherry tomatoes we nromally get.

And for the first time, we're growing parsley this year:

and Crafty Green Boyfriend's parents just gave us a lovely lemon basil plant, the leaves are quite different from normal basil, but the perfume is just the same!

foraging few flowered leek

I've blogged about few flowered leek before. This is a rather distinctive looking plant as seen from the photo below,

though from a distance it can be confused with wild garlic (which you can see in this post - that year wild garlic had flowered mid April, this year it's barely yet starting to flower!).

I've noticed few flowered leek much more over the last few years and realised it wasn't a native plant. But it was only on reading this article from Plantlife that I realised it is classed as an invasive plant, and is gradually taking over from the wild garlic, bluebells and other flowers of the woodland floor.

But you can be part of the solution! Few flowered leek (and its near cousin three cornered leek) are edible and because they're invasive plants you can pull up the whole plant! (But if you're picking wild garlic just pick the leaves, wild garlic is native to our woodlands and it's illegal to uproot it!). There's a good video here about how to recognise few flowered leek (Thanks to Howard for sharing this link on Facebook).

You can chop up either of these invasive leeks and use in potato salad or to make pesto. 

Of course, as when foraging for any plants, choose areas that aren't used by dogs.



For Nature Notes. 


As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Foraging the Hermitage of Braid

This morning I joined a group of City of Edinburgh countryside rangers and volunteers who've been involved with the walled garden project at Hermitage of Braid for a session of foraging.  I blogged here and here about the writing workshops I attended at the walled garden last year. The photo below shows what the walled garden looks like just now, all ready for planting!

Anna Canning of Floramedica took us on a walk round the Hermitage of Braid and along to Blackford Pond, identifying and picking plants that we would use in preparing lunch! We picked wild garlic, lesser celandines (the leaves are only edible when they're very young, once the plant starts flowering the leaves become inedible), bittercress, nettles and sorrel.

Anna told us about the medicinal uses of these plants and gave us advice on when to pick them if we want to eat them and how to serve them. I've got a Botany degree, but it was heavily weighted towards biochemistry and the internal workings of plants and though my field botany is reasonably good it's not brilliant (though every year it improves dramatically once plants start flowering!).  I'm also trying to learn about foraging but am still a real beginner so I found this session really interesting.

After we had picked a fair amount of plant material, we went back into the rangers centre and prepared lunch: potato salad with wild garlic and the most delicious pesto made from a mixture of all the herbs we had gathered (basically you can make a good pesto with the leaves of any edible herb).

Served with organic brown bread, a delicious Ninemaidens Mead and tea made from sticky willy (also known as goose grass or cleavers), The tea was very tasty and also pretty in colour!

I'm currently reading Richard Mabey's book Weeds (which contains quite a lot of information about the history of foraging and which I'll review at a future date) and studying A Handbook of Scotland's Wild Harvests (I attended the book launch for this!) in preparation for a year of teaching myself at least a bit of foraging. 

The real challenge with urban foraging is to avoid dog dirt, it's something that I find really affects my attitude to picking wild plants (that and feeling I'm stealing food from the birds and wild animals, though in the case of really weedy plants like nettles and brambles, that's not really an issue as they grow so fast).

If you're interested in foraging in Scotland, you can find out quite a lot from the Scottish Wild Harvests Association and if you're looking for inspiration for recipes try the Eat Weeds website.

linking up with Nature Notes

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more. 

Festive Spicy Tomato and Mushroom Sauce

One of the things I love about Twitter is the unexpected connections you can make and the interesting conversations that can happen. Some things though are too long for Twitter, like recipes. So, in response to a Twitter conversation with @centre_alt_tech about festive food (that links to this post on the Centre for Alternative Technology blog) here's my recipe for festive spicy tomato and mushroom sauce. It's perfect to serve with nut roast, potatoes and vegetables, that staple vegetarian festive meal. (The sauce also goes beautifully with fish, in fact I originally started making this sauce to go with the Malawian chambo fish (now threatened by overfishing!) when I lived on the shores of Lake Malawi.). All quantities are approximate as I don't actually use a recipe to make this. I always make quite a generous amount though as Crafty Green Boyfriend likes it so much.

Festive Spicy Tomato and Mushroom Sauce (to serve two Crafty Green people)

olive oil
half an onion, chopped
quarter of a small pepper, chopped (I try to buy one of those multi-coloured peppers but you can use red or green pepper depending on which you prefer)
six medium mushrooms, washed and chopped
six medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped
water
cinnamon or mixed spice to taste (or another spice if you want, it might be nice with paprika for example)

1. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan
2. Add the chopped onion and cook until it goes clear
3. Add the chopped pepper and stir
4. Add the chopped mushroom and allow to brown just slightly
5. Add the chopped tomatoes and some water and stir
6. Turn the heat right down and let the mixture simmer, adding water as necessary to stop the mixture sticking to the pan and to create the required consistency
7. When the sauce is almost ready, add some cinnamon or mixed spice, stir thoroughly, allow to simmer for another few minutes and then pour over the nut roast and potatoes.

I tend to start making this as soon as I put the nut roast in the oven and let it simmer all the time the roast is cooking.

Oh and if you're ever in Machynlleth, Wales, do visit the Centre for Alternative Technology, it's a fascinating and inspiring place!

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more. 

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Discover Organic

I seem to be having a lot of luck in winning things at the moment! I was delighted to win this cookery book from a Twitter competition run by Dads Cooking Tonight.

The book is beautifully designed with a nice hard cover, lots of photos and nicely laid out recipes. It also has lots of extras, in addition to the recipes. These include a potted history of organic food, quotes from well known people as to why they love organic and brief articles from the celebrities who have shared their recipes in these pages.

I have to say my first impression of the recipes was, oh my goodness, that's a lot of meat! I knew the book wasn't vegetarian and in fact had entered hoping to win it as a gift for someone else (who isn't vegetarian!). Plus of course, some recipes can be adapted - I'm sure you could substitute mushrooms for the prawns in the Spicy Prawns with Apple and Mint Yoghurt Chutney or even for the beef in the Asian Beef Salad and end up with something equally palatable (I'm certainly willing to try). But Braised Lamb Steak and Roast Chicken are shockingly meaty dishes for this veggie (which isn't a criticism of the book, it's much more about my dietary preferences and what I'm used to seeing in the pages of veggie cookbooks.) More seriously, I have a feeling that reducing the carbon footprint and environmental impact of one's food by going organic naturally fits with going veggie too so I expected an organic cookbook to be a little more veggie friendly.

Having said that there are some excellent veggie recipes in here - the Roast Tomato and Basil Pesto Pasta looks amazing, as does the Tofu and Shiitake Stir Fry. There's a whole array of delicious deserts - including Plum and Cardamon Brulee and Chocolate and Amaretto Panna Cotta. A couple of the recipes include elderflowers, which can be gathered from your local elder bush, bringing in foraging, which I recently talked about here and here. You can't help too but love a cookbook that includes a Treasure Hunt Salad and an ultra simple recipe for Tomatoes on Toast.

So, if you're not a vegetarian and you're wanting to learn more about organic food, this is a highly recommended book. If you are vegetarian though, you will probably want to search out a specifically vegetarian recipe book.


Discover Organic is published by Organic Food UK.

Cholesterol in the Vegetarian Diet

It's very easy to think that as a vegetarian you have a healthy diet. However, most vegetarians eat a lot of dairy products (most of which are high in saturated fats, which increase blood cholesterol levels) and eggs (which are high in cholesterol). This can lead to high blood cholesterol even if you are not overweight. High cholesterol levels have been linked to increased risk of heart disease and strokes (though the health issues around cholesterol are complicates, as I'll talk about later in this post).

So, if you need to control your cholesterol levels, what can you do within a vegetarian diet?

You can cut down on eggs, but for some people eating eggs doesn't raise their blood cholesterol level even though eggs are themselves high in cholesterol (its complicated).

Dairy products (specially cheese) are always a problem though because they contain lots of saturated fats, which increase blood cholesterol levels. So you may want to replace them with something else. The obvious choice as any vegan would tell you is to use soya products - most people have heard of tofu and soya milk but there are also soya cheeses and soya yoghurts. I've been trying soya cheeses and struggled at first, because quite frankly some of them are pretty disgusting (no matter the cheery slogan on the packaging that says: "A Delicious alternative to cheese!") though I have now found one that's palatable. Soya products can actively reduce cholesterol and can also reduce the risk factors for certain types of cancer. However, there are some health concerns about soya products, you can read about some of them on the EnviroSeeker blog and some people suffer from soy allergy. There are also concerns about the amount of processing required to make soya beans palatable, though many cheeses and yoghurts are highly processed anyway.

Other foods that can help to reduce cholesterol include foods that contain soluble fibre (such as oats and pulses), some nuts (particularly almonds) and dark chocolate (with cocoa content over 70% - you can see a video of the many health benefits of dark chocolate here).

Other foods that are high in saturated fats (which increases blood cholesterol) include coconuts and palm oil (and you should avoid palm oil anyway because of its connection with the loss of rainforest in Indonesia and across the world). Palm oil crops up everywhere, even in health food snacks and mueslis that are otherwise full of oats and almonds, so you have to keep your eyes open! It's generally a good idea to cut down on processed foods.

Of course, I'm not a qualified dietician, and can't guarantee this post is entirely free of contradictions (though I have tried to make it as accurate as possible). If you're really interested in finding out more, there's a good, detailed article about cholesterol and dietary fat here. And it really is complicated because cholesterol is thought to be necessary for brain health, so you don't want to cut it out of your diet altogether. There's a very good article about the benefits of cholesterol here (thanks Diana Moll for that link).

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.