Cookery notes

Foreword

Dear Reader,

As Slimming World’s founder I’ve always believed passionately that our members deserve only the very best, and so I’m especially proud to introduce you to World of Flavours, our latest collection of fabulous Food Optimising recipes. With over 120 delicious dishes to try from around the globe, it will take you on a fascinating journey of tastes and flavours.

At Slimming World, our dedicated Consultants help thousands of new members start their weight-loss journey every week. With personal experience of struggling with excess weight, I know only too well how it feels to embark on yet another diet, losing a bit more faith in yourself each time and despairing of ever finding an answer.

Taking the first step on that journey is the hardest of all. So often, you find yourself being held back by unnecessary burdens – not just the burden of excess weight, but also the deadweight of negative beliefs, low self-esteem and guilt. Yet when you take that first step – into a Slimming World group – everything suddenly starts to get better!

The warmth of our welcome and the almost telepathic empathy and support that’s at the heart of Slimming World, added to the inspiration provided by fellow slimmers succeeding beyond their wildest dreams, spark your imagination and make you realise that anything is possible. Then there’s Food Optimising, a fantastic way of eating so that you’re never hungry – and you’re losing weight! Over 40 years on, this system is still light years ahead in its approach to nutrition and slimming psychology. Not that you think about ‘nutrition’ and ‘psychology’ when you’re Food Optimising – you’re too busy enjoying your food, feeling great and amazing yourself as the pounds disappear week by week.

Soon, the ‘life just got better’ moments start to happen again and again: the first time you see a loss on the scales, the first time your waistband feels loose, the first time someone says, ‘Wow – you’re looking great!’, the first time you drop down a clothes size, the first time the doctor reduces your medication. Each positive experience, every encouraging or inspiring word from your Slimming World group, and each time you overcome a problem that’s been holding you back, you can feel your motivation, energy and self-esteem building – each small step becomes a giant step on that road to success.

And just when you thought the service and support you get from Slimming World couldn’t get any better, it does! We’re constantly researching ways to make Food Optimising even easier and more effective for members, and as all our Consultants and staff know, we’re always experimenting and testing new ideas then sharing the best and most effective ones so that everyone benefits.

With Extra Easy, our new Food Optimising choice, we’ve amazed even ourselves! It’s flexible, generous and effective, just like all our Food Optimising options, with even more freedom and choices built in. And it will gently guide you to better, healthier lifestyle decisions so that once you’ve lost your weight, you’ll keep it off for good.

At Slimming World, we always say, ‘There are no strangers; only friends you have yet to meet.’ If you’re already a Slimming World member, you’ll agree that with World of Flavours the best just got better. And if you have yet to join us, let your personal journey of discovery lead you to our door, where you’ll always find the warmest of welcomes and the surest of successes. Together, we really can do it!

With warmest wishes

Margaret Miles-Bramwell, OBE, FRSA Founder and Chairman

About the Book

If you’ve ever thought that curries, pasta or hamburgers were the scourge of slimmers, think again! The Slimming World approach to food optimising means that you don’t have to miss out on your favourite foods, you can enjoy quick and easy, exotic meals every day of the week.

This new book from the UK’s leading slimming organisation takes in all manner of international cuisine. You’ll be able to indulge in Italy’s irresistible plates of pasta, India’s spicy curries, China’s noodle and stir-fry dishes as well as an array of mouthwatering recipes from France, Spain, Greece, Morocco, Thailand, the USA and Mexico.

Packed with all the nutritional, diet and lifestyle information you need if you’re following the Slimming World food optimising plan, as well as more than 120 delicious recipes, this book is ideal for slimmers or simply anyone wanting an exciting selection of healthy, flavoursome dishes.

About the Author

Slimming World’s unique approach to weight loss is an extraordinary success story. Founded in 1969 by Margaret Miles-Bramwell, who remains its managing director, Slimming World is the UK’s largest and most advanced slimming organisation. It manages thousands of classes across the country with over 250,000 members attending every month, and another 15,000 attending free as successful Target members. Each week, around 2000 members reach their personal target weight.

Introduction

Phileas Fogg may have travelled around the world in 80 days in his hot air balloon, but that was fiction. Here’s a fact: our latest recipe collection will take you around the world in over 120 delicious dishes. We’ve gathered together authentic recipes from some of the world’s favourite cuisines, all rich with the colours and vibrancy of the countries they represent. It’s a cook’s tour of global delights, and you won’t even have to leave your kitchen.

Try our recipes and you’ll soon be conjuring up the sunny, fresh tastes of the Mediterranean, the fragrant flavours of Thailand or the sweet and sour tang of Chinese food – whatever you fancy cooking.

The UK is famous for welcoming influences from all over the world into our national cuisine: in fact, it’s said that our favourite dish is chicken tikka masala. So most of us already think of dishes like spaghetti bolognese, chilli con carne and vegetable curry as ‘home cooking’. You’ll find versions of classic dishes like Italian cannelloni, Greek moussaka and Indian chicken vindaloo in the book – losing weight and eating healthily needn’t mean missing out on hearty family favourites.

And if your imagination takes you further afield, feel free to explore the world of flavours. Would you love to bring back memories of a sunshine holiday when it’s cold and wet outside? Then try a feast of souvlakia, dolmades and tzatziki and you’ll be whisked back to that beachside taverna. Recreate your favourite Indian, Chinese or Thai takeaways at a fraction of the cost, or treat your friends to a Tex-Mex cookout – this book is full of bright ideas to fire up your tastebuds. There are plenty of ideas to appeal to your sense of culinary adventure too: if there are exotic dishes you’ve always wanted to make, such as a spicy Thai soup, a real Spanish paella or a Creole jambalaya, this is the book for you.

We aim to make all our recipes quick and easy to cook, so you needn’t spend hours in the kitchen. And although you may be cooking dishes that originated thousands of miles away, you won’t have to go to the ends of the earth to find the ingredients. If you love exploring markets and specialist food shops, that’s fine – but you don’t have to. Most of the dishes are based on healthy foods you find in any supermarket, like lean meat and poultry, fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables, pasta, rice and fat free dairy products. Add in a few extras like spices, herbs and seasonings – all Free Foods at Slimming World – and create a world of flavours, any time you choose.

Eat lots and still lose weight

If you’re aiming to lose weight, you might now be wondering why a book of slimming recipes is encouraging you to eat your way around the world. Shouldn’t you be trying to take your mind off food, instead of savouring the prospect of all these marvellous meals?

The answer is absolutely not, because this is a book of Slimming World recipes, all designed to fit in with Food Optimising, our unique way of eating well that helps you to lose weight safely and healthily and to keep it off beautifully. With over 40 years’ experience of helping people overcome their weight problems, we know that the key to lasting success is to find a way of eating that allows you to celebrate your love of food and enjoy it to the full.

So instead of insisting that you stick to a straight and narrow path of banned foods and bland meals, we invite you on a journey where you decide the route. Food Optimising is flexible and generous enough to fit in with every appetite and every style of eating. French toast with strawberries for breakfast, Thai crabcakes for lunch and Moroccan lamb tagine for tea? No problem – you’ll find recipes for them all in this collection, and dozens of other mouthwatering options besides.

The freedom to eat foods you like, when you like, in the quantities you like is just one of the qualities that makes Food Optimising unique. But that’s not the only reason Slimming World members are encouraged to enjoy a wide range of foods and flavours to the full.

Eating a variety of foods from different food groups, especially different coloured fruit and vegetables, is a good way to ensure our diet is packed with a wide range of vitamins and minerals. And when it comes to food, variety really is ‘the spice of life’; we’re much more likely to make lasting changes to our eating habits if we have plenty of choice with plenty to eat.

At Slimming World, we believe that everyone deserves to enjoy delicious, exciting, inspiring food – and that includes everyone you cook for. Because all our recipes are naturally healthy, filling and tasty, family members and friends will love them just as much as you do and they need never know you’re slimming.

Above all, we know that it’s possible to love your food and lose weight; our thousands of successful members show us that every week. We’ve created World of Flavours to help you discover that Food Optimising is your passport to a lifetime of healthy eating.

For details of a warm and friendly group near you, call 0844 897 8000 or visit www.slimmingworld.com

Food Optimising: the joy of food

Just leaf through the recipes in World of Flavours, and we’re sure you’ll soon be raring to go on a delicious culinary journey, exploring dishes and tastes from as far afield as China, Thailand and North America.

And if you’re unhappy with your weight and would love to find a way to manage it once and for all, then you could be in for the most exciting ride of your life. That’s because our recipes are all designed to fit in with Food Optimising, Slimming World’s life-changing eating plan.

Most of us already know what we ‘should’ be doing to lose weight and eat healthily; it’s just turning good intentions into real, lasting changes that’s the problem.

This is where Food Optimising comes into its own. With over 40 years’ experience of helping slimmers, a deep understanding of how people with weight problems feel and a passionate desire to empower them to change their lives, Slimming World is completely confident that Food Optimising has the answers, even if you’ve tried every kind of diet going and have been disillusioned with them all. It is said that the longest journey starts with a single step, and you could say that Food Optimising starts with a leap of faith – to put to one side everything you ever knew about ‘dieting’.

If, like most of us, you have been led to believe that slimming is about eating less and going without, it can be hard to get your head around a weight-loss plan that encourages you to eat as much as you like, whenever you like – and still lose weight every single week. That is the promise of Food Optimising.

Of course, as the saying goes, ‘Nothing changes, if nothing changes’. Food Optimising requires you to make some adjustments to the way you shop, cook and eat; any weight-loss plan that claims you can slim without making any changes at all is lying to you. But these are manageable changes that are easy, and even a pleasure, to make: many Slimming World members find that they enjoy and savour their food so much more when they’re Food Optimising than they did before.

So what is this amazing system all about? Well, the foundation of Food Optimising is Free Foods – a wide range of everyday, tasty, healthy foods that you can eat in unlimited amounts, whenever and wherever you like. Now, if you’re in the ‘dieting’ mindset of set meals, banned foods and small portions, that can take a bit of swallowing!

Free Foods are fabulous

The power of Free Foods is two fold, based on sound science and a deep understanding of slimming psychology. First, Free Foods are those that have been found to have the power to satisfy our appetite and keep us feeling fuller for longer, without being packed with calories. Taking in fewer calories (from food) than we expend in energy (exercise and everyday activity) is the only way to lose weight, but Food Optimisers don’t have to fret about counting or weighing every mouthful they eat – or even mention the ‘c-word’! Filling up on Free Foods means you naturally limit your energy intake without stressing about it.

And if Free Foods are effective for weight loss, they’re even more powerful in liberating slimmers from the fears and anxieties that so often sabotage success. Freed from the fear of being hungry, and from guilt about overeating – because you can’t eat ‘too many’ Free Foods – Food Optimisers can focus on looking forward to meals, enjoying their food and generally relaxing around food, just as slim people do. (For more about Free Foods, see here.)

Home in on Healthy Extras

On top of that firm foundation of Free Foods, Food Optimising then becomes even more generous, flexible and realistic with the addition of Healthy Extras and Syns.

As their name suggests, Healthy Extras are foods that aren’t Free, but are valuable in other ways because they are either rich in fibre or contain essential nutrients, such as calcium. Food Optimisers choose two, three or four servings of Healthy Extras each day. Wholemeal bread, soup, dried or canned fruit, cheese, breakfast cereals, milk and cereal bars are just some of the foods on the Healthy Extras list that can be eaten either with meals or as snacks. (For more about Healthy Extras, see here.)

Syns spell success

And then, on top of all those Free Foods and Healthy Extras, there are Syns. They come last, but by no means least, because although Syns account for only a small percentage of your daily food intake when you’re Food Optimising, they can make all the difference to your long-term success. Foods that are high in Syns are typically those we need to limit if we want to lose weight and for good health: things like fatty, sugary and processed foods, and alcohol. Syns aren’t essential for nutrition, but if you just love chocolate or have a serious biscuit habit, they’re pretty important to you! So, every day, Food Optimisers have between 5 and 15 Syns to use whenever and however they like. In fact, you could say Syns are the icing on the cake – quite literally, if that’s how you choose to spend them. (For more on Syns, see here.)

Freedom to eat and freedom to choose, with just a few checks and balances to keep weight loss progressing healthily and easily – this freedom is at the heart of Food Optimising’s success.

So how do you mix and match your Free Foods, Healthy Extras and Syns into meals every day? Here again, it’s all about freedom and choice; if you’re expecting to be handed a diet sheet, we’re sorry to disappoint you!

Depending on which foods you love to eat and how you prefer to plan your meals, there are five choices, or styles of menu, you can follow when you’re Food Optimising:

Each choice is described opposite and, of course, when you join Slimming World you have the chance to explore each one to find out which works best for you. You needn’t stick to one choice for ever, or even for a whole week: it’s all about being flexible so that you stay positive, focused and motivated to make each week a fabulous weight-loss week.

With so many foods to choose from, and so much flexibility around meals, you can see just how easy it is to fit Food Optimising into your lifestyle, rather than the other way round. Eating with the family, eating out, going to work, going on holiday, having ‘hungry days’ and busy days – whatever you’re doing, you can be confident that you can still Food Optimise successfully. And if you do have a tricky situation to deal with, the support and ideas you’ll get from your Slimming World Consultant and fellow members each week will soon help you to find a way through. You will also find stacks of support on the website, LifelineOnline, which is free of charge for members.

Freedom to explore, choices to enjoy, flexibility to suit your needs, and just enough controls to ensure you stay safe and have a great time – if Food Optimising were a round-the-world trip, it would be the best ever. And if you want to lose your excess baggage and travel light for the rest of your life, it’s definitely the best ticket you can buy.

FOOD OPTIMISING CHOICES AT A GLANCE

Original choice

Roast dinners, a tasty burger, full English breakfast or a mixed grill: if you love hearty meals like these, then Food Optimising’s Original choice is for you. They don’t sound like ‘slimming’ meals? Prepared the Slimming World way, they certainly are. Satisfying protein-rich foods, such as lean meat, poultry, fish and seafood, are all Free Foods on Original, along with all fresh fruit and nearly all vegetables, plus eggs and some dairy products such as fat free yogurt or fromage frais. Add delicious daily Healthy Extras, such as wholemeal bread, potatoes, high-fibre breakfast cereals and cheese or milk, then decide how to use your Syns for the day.

Green choice

Are your favourite meals a heap of pasta with sauce, tasty vegetable chilli with rice or a huge jacket potato with beans and cheese? Then Food Optimising’s Green choice is for you. Yes, you really can eat comforting, carbohydrate-rich foods including pasta, potatoes, rice, couscous, beans and pulses and lose weight beautifully, as well as many other Free Foods, such as all fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs and dairy products like fat free yogurt or fromage frais. Love fish and meat too? Just add them as Healthy Extras, or choose wholemeal bread, high-fibre breakfast cereals and cheese or milk to provide even more energy, fibre, vitamins and minerals, then choose your Syns.

Extra Easy