Reynierse - Low Carb is Lekker

IN REYNIERSE Photography by Sean Calitz Styling by Brita du Plessis Authors acknowledgements To my husband Louis, who allowed me to feed him thin. Your passion for this lifestyle is contagious. Thanks for challenging me and being my biggest, handsomest fan, protector and provider. To Abia, Timon, Bella and Lizzie my lovely children. Two of you I still need to meet, but all four of you were with me during this process. You are what gives this project weight, significance and meaning.

May you be bright thinkers, planet shakers and pioneers. To my friends Herman and Helena, Francois and Suzanne, Kimmie, and Annie you are the best! Thanks for being the best unofficial campaign team, cheering me on all along. To Linda de Villiers, Joy Clack, Beverly Dodd, Brita du Plessis, Sean Calitz and Elizabeth Ingram, for putting my LCHF passion between the covers of a beautiful book. What an absolute honour to have worked with you. You made my recipes come to life. Published in 2015 by Struik Lifestyle (an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd) Company Reg. No. 1966/003153/07 Estuaries No. 4, Century Avenue (Oxbow Crescent), Century City, 7441 P O Box 1144, Cape Town 8000, South Africa Reprinted in 2015 Copyright in published edition: Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd 2015 Copyright in text: In Reynierse 2015 Copyright in photographs: Sean Calitz/Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd 2015 ISBN 978 1 43230 579 8 All rights reserved. 4, Century Avenue (Oxbow Crescent), Century City, 7441 P O Box 1144, Cape Town 8000, South Africa Reprinted in 2015 Copyright in published edition: Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd 2015 Copyright in text: In Reynierse 2015 Copyright in photographs: Sean Calitz/Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd 2015 ISBN 978 1 43230 579 8 All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders. Publisher: Linda de Villiers Managing editor: Cecilia Barfield Editor and indexer: Joy Clack Designer: Beverley Dodd Photographer: Sean Calitz Food styling: Brita du Plessis Stylists assistant: Elizabeth Ingram Proofreader: Glynne Newlands Reproduction by Hirt & Carter Cape (Pty) Ltd Printed and bound by Times Offset (M) Sdn Bhd, Malaysia Contents s Introduction We have this saying in South Africa: local is lekker. It simply means that local culture is something to be desired and enjoyed. We use this phrase to encourage South Africans to support their local artists, businesses, foods, feasts, produce you name it. Its the glue that makes us proudly South African. After a year on a low-carb diet, I realised that my family had reached the point of no return.

We felt better than ever, dropped some kilos and could think coherently most of the time anyway. We wanted to share the joy of our real, good nutritional values and lifestyle with others, but many people were so overwhelmed by the thought of it and figuring out recipes that I decided it was necessary to take on our proudly South African recipes and decarb them! So I started experimenting and concocting. My kitchen became a test kitchen and my camera and I became a newfound food blogger combo. A survival guide to an everyday South African LCHF (low-carb, high-fat) lifestyle had to see the light of day and mindsets had to change under less overwhelming circumstances. And I wanted to pioneer the process. I began to envision a guide with practical know-how on low-carbing.

A recipe book, a short-cut book a book for dummies who, like me, do not want to study nutrition but want to consume healthy, smart food and ditch disease. I read through the theories, studies and medical journals so that I could understand LCHF. I was saddened by what I discovered: so many food lies! The nutritional arena started to look like a political campaign. Who will be president: sugar or grain? It is truly worrying that people are dying from heart disease, obesity and diabetes like never before in the history of humankind! My goal became clear. I needed to help clarify and simplify LCHF. I needed to take all those big words and turn them into laymans terms and, even better, recipes! Plain and simple.

And all of this needed to happen on a budget, because low-carbing cannot be only for the rich and famous. At this point I need to emphasise that the legacy I am hoping to leave behind with this project is that it must never be seen as a diet book. I dont want you to feel like this may be yet another set-up for failure. I want you to know that this is my truest effort to help you understand and feel excited about an authentic lifestyle that corresponds with our human wiring and confirms the method behind the madness through results that bring your health back into balance. It is a 100 per cent sustainable way of nutrient-dense, carb-smart fuelling that could eliminate obesity and disease for good! THE WHY, IN A NUTSHELL So why would any person in their right mind voluntarily choose to cut back on carbohydrates, starches, grains, sugar, fructose and processed foods? I mean, everything in moderation is okay, isnt it? Is this not leaning towards the fanatical? Many of us are allergic to wheat and gluten. Most of us will never know this because it is sold as healthy food and we wont ever look in that file for the cause of illness.

The wheat we eat today does not remotely have the same genetic make-up as the wheat our great-grandparents ate. Wheat and grains causes inflammation in the brain, intestines and cells. Grains and sugar cause more obesity and heart-related disasters than cream, butter and animal fat put together. Yet fats get the blame and we end up having to use more medication! As a family we have experienced that good fats are our friends and low-fat foods actually hijack the nourishment our brains need and exchange it with harmful ingredients in the form of added sugars. You do, however, get good and bad fats, which I explain in my swap-out system (). These are my six profound, personal reasons why you should change your eating habits: My husband used to eat a healthy breakfast of muesli, yoghurt and fruit.

Around 10h00 he would be ravenous and eat a candy bar. Around 13h00 he would eat his healthy packed lunch of crackers or a sandwich. Around 16h00 he would feel light-headed and would struggle to focus on his work. He would come home and attack a packet of chips or a couple of bananas, cookies whatever he could find. He would then eat two helpings of dinner and fall asleep in front of the television, only to feel tired the next morning. What we did not realise at the time was that he was highly insulin resistant and a breath away from Type 2 diabetes.

He was very overweight, and always tired. After changing to a low-carb lifestyle he shed 37 kg in 14 months, he has more energy than ever and no longer has cravings and sugar spikes and dips. He is now the boertjie (farmers boy) who tells other boertjies that they will survive without their meat-AND-POTATOES regime, and the eat as much as you can buffet has lost all of its carb-filled appeal. Food is not his boss anymore! My son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was only three years old. A few weeks after we had started our low-carb journey, I noticed that most of his tantrums had disappeared and more skills and integrated coping skills had emerged. Upon further research I discovered that a grain-free, low-carb, high-fat diet is the best for kids on the autism spectrum or with ADD or ADHD.