Recipe of the Week

Fun, Facts & Fitness from Mary Morris MSc.

This week I plan to focus closely on one of the most important nutrients that we must take in on a daily basis to ensure the best of health. That is Protein. I am aware that we have covered this in the past, but never in this amount of detail. As usual, I have looked at what the research is telling us in order to reach a well-informed decision on what is an adequate intake, and how we can incorporate that ‘required amount’ into our regular meals. So firstly, let's explore why protein plays such an important and vital role in our health as we age.

Protein:  Essential for Life
Protein is one of the 3 Macronutrients in our diet. That simply means that Carbohydrates, Fats and Protein make up by far the greatest part of any eating plan. Micronutrients are those elements of our diet that, while still very important, are needed in much smaller amounts, such as the vitamins and minerals that are also contained within carbs, fats and protein.

We would say that protein is essential for life because it plays two very important roles – it helps to boost our immune system, and our ability to maintain our muscle mass. By helping to maintain our muscles, it helps us maintain our physical ability as we get older - which is top of the list for me personally and I hope it is the same for you.

Put simply, high protein foods help muscle to rebuild itself.

What is Protein? 
Protein is made up of 20 amino acids, with 9 of them being classed as 'essential'. This means that our body cannot make them but they must be provided through what we eat. Animal protein such as meat, eggs, fish and dairy are often referred to as 'complete' proteins, containing all the essential amino acids.

On the other hand, plant proteins are known as 'incomplete' proteins, as they have some, but not all, of the amino acids. However, cleverly, combinations of plant foods can create complete proteins. And those combinations only need to be eaten in the same day, and not necessarily at the same meal. 

Examples of combinations that work well together to create complete proteins are, for instance, beans with rice, nuts or seeds with wholegrains such as cereal or bread, or peanut butter with oats. However, a good variety of plant proteins that are eaten on a daily basis should still ensure that all are consumed, so if you are vegetarian, or follow a plant-based diet, then variety is the key.

Protecting Our Muscles
Maintaining our muscles is vital as we age. We have often mentioned sarcopenia, which is the gradual loss of muscle mass year on year, possibly starting as young as 40 years old. By the time we reach 70 our muscle mass can have shrunk by as much as 30 - 40% but with adequate protein intake, combined with a regular exercise programme that includes plenty of strength work, we can very effectively delay that process. 

Those regular strength workouts which we encourage you to do each week, such as following a resistance programme with a toning band or with weights, will seriously help to keep your muscles strong and delay that decline.

How do we get enough Protein?
Firstly, we need to spread the amount of protein across all three meals, because our body can only use a certain amount of protein at a time. Interestingly, a more even distribution of protein throughout the day has been shown to be associated with a higher muscle mass in older adults. 

When some people start the day for example on a pastry and a cup of coffee, (of course, we wouldn’t do that, would we?), this is devoid of any protein at all, so we do need to be aware of what we are eating.  

So, ideally, we need to aim to try to eat a roughly similar amount of protein at every meal to maximise our protein absorption, and of course, we will be drinking teas and coffees throughout the day with the protein from milk to help top it up.  

Here are some Meal Ideas: 

• 450ml semi-skimmed milk in teas and coffees throughout the day = 17.1g protein

Breakfast
Choose one of these:

• Pot of Greek live yogurt (6g protein per 100g) with high protein breakfast cereal. (Look for a cereal with 10g+ protein but low in sugar)
• Sprinkle nuts and seeds on cereal or straight onto yogurt
• 2 eggs (13g protein each) boiled or scrambled = 26g protein
• Poached egg on large slice wholegrain toast = 18g protein
• 40g porridge oats 4.3g, with 100ml semi-skimmed milk 3.8g = 8.1g protein
• 45g portion Alpen 5gm protein plus 100ml milk 3.8g or 100g yogurt = 6g protein

Lunch
Creating a protein bowl is such a really good way of ensuring adequate protein for lunch as we can introduce such a vast variety of foods. Here is a favourite one that I make:

• Sliced cooked chicken or chickpeas, brown rice, sliced avocado and chopped walnuts, cherry tomatoes, red onion and pumpkin seeds, with balsamic vinegar and lemon juice
• A 2-egg omelette with salad
• Chicken or tuna or salmon or prawn salad with a boiled egg 

Evening Meal
I am fairly confident that your evening meal will have protein included such as meat or fish or eggs. But three of my favourite high protein meals are:

• Grilled salmon, puy and green Lentils (you can buy these in a pouch, which I prefer as it means it is portion controlled and 10+g of protein per portion), plus roasted vegetables including aubergine, courgette, peppers and mushrooms
• Spaghetti Bolognese with wholemeal pasta
• Roast chicken and assorted vegetables

On a final note, it is often difficult to make significant changes to what we normally eat, particularly with breakfast. However, I am of the firm opinion that if, like me, now you are older you take your health so much more seriously, then you will do anything you can to maximise it to the full. Small changes may be all that are needed to boost your protein intake.

1. Understanding how extra protein goes hand-in-hand with strength training, try and complete a 20-minute whole body Strength programme 3 times this week.
    
2. On your daily 30+ minute walk, pause at a park bench or garden wall and do 10 press ups.
    
3. Don't forget your Post-walk stretches.

Did you know... 

The Archers is the world's longest-running present-day drama judged by number of episodes.

Starting on the BBC Midlands Home Service radio with five pilot episodes broadcast in 1950, the first episode broadcast nationally went out on New Year's Day 1951. It continued when the Home Service became BBC Radio 4 and is still the station's most listened-to non-news programme today, regularly attracting more than 5 million listeners.

June Spencer was one of the original cast and clocked up an incredible 66 years playing the character Peggy (Archer/Perkins/Wooley). Had she not taken two periods of three years off in the early run of the show she would have become the longest serving soap actor worldwide eclipsing her colleague Patricia Greene who plays Jill Archer. Even allowing for those periods of time off, by the time she retired in 2022 she had already notched up several more years of acting than the perhaps better known TV actor William Roach, who plays Ken Barlow in the ITV soap Coronation Street.