Have you ever skipped a meal? You’re not alone! 56% percent of Australians say they regularly skip 1-3 meals a week. And what’s the reason we’re skipping meals? The key reason people give is that they are too busy, or have overslept.

Although we are skipping meals, we don’t want our family to miss out. According to Melanie McGrice, one of Australia’s leading dieticians, it’s still important for us to have our family sitting around the table eating together. Despite this desire, because of busy schedules and a lack of meal planning, the way many Australian families eat has changed. Unfortunately, the classic family dinner is becoming less common.

Your mood can be affected when you skip meals. When your brain is not well fed, your mood changes, you can become more irritable and foggy. You’re also more likely to get crazy food cravings that you can’t resist, making you eat more next time.

You might think that if you skip a meal you’ll lose weight, yep it’s proven, but there’s a catch. You’ll most likely drop weight in the short term, but eventually gain back dangerous belly fat, because when you skip meals, those lost kilos are from your muscles, not fat (Ohio State University, 2012). There are some advantages in skipping meals, but losing weight isn’t one of them.

We’ve all been there: losing weight is the number one priority, however, skipping meals is not the answer. For starters, it might cause your blood sugar levels to dive. Sugar is fuel for your body, and if the body doesn’t get the proper amount, your whole body will not function well. Your metabolism slows, and the next food you eat isn’t burned efficiently.

Our suggestion? Don’t skip your meals. Eat regularly, eat food that will sustain your body with energy throughout the day. Remember, having a healthy body and mind has a healthy heart ♥.

Happy eating!

If you’ve ever had the thought; “I’d love a chocolate milkshake right now”, but have been lacking the traditional topping and blender… we have a solution. Driven by desire and a lack of milkshake making equipment, the You Plate It office enjoyed this quick and delicious milkshake – sans blender.

In this video we show you how to make a delicious Nutella flavoured milkshake with just a couple of ingredients, a jam jar and a little upper-body strength.

Ingredients
120 mL milk
1 tablespoon Nutella
2 tablespoon vanilla ice cream

As relations between the US (Australia) and Cuba thaw, we felt it was the perfect time to reacquaint ourselves with the Mojito – a classic Cuban cocktail.

The Cuban capital, Havana, is birthplace of the Mojito and home to the famous La Bodeguita, a bar where Ernest Hemingway allegedly penned the paean “My mojito in La Bodeguita del Medio, my daiquiri in El Floridita”.

The Mojito is a sweet drink, but with mint and lime it’s refreshing and clean tasting. Although a summer drink, limes and mint are available all year round so there is nothing stopping you from enjoying this drink in any season.

Ingredients:

60 mL white rum
juice of one lime
dash of simple syrup (more or less to taste)
4 freshly plucked mint leaves
60-120 mL soda water

Technique:

In a highball glass, muddle (that is, crush with a pestle) mint leaves in the sugar syrup and lime juice. Add rum, ice and stir. Top with soda water and garnish with a sprig of mint.

Or, shake vigorously with ice all but the soda, and strain into a highball glass with ice. Top with soda and garnish with mint.

Be sure to avoid crushing the stems of the mint. Enjoy this delicious drink & remind yourself of sunny times spent on beautiful beaches.

Proof that good service doesn’t always cost more.

Because planning a weeks worth of healthy and delicious dinners is hard work and remembering to buy all the ingredients almost impossible, the weekly food shop is as tedious as it is difficult.  Joining You Plate It gives you the unique opportunity to have a team of people who are passionate about their food do all the work for you. Each week, we create 6 new and exciting recipes, you then choose the 4 or 2 (depending on your subscription) you want.  Each recipe is a balanced meal between 500-700 calories per plate.  We pre-portion the ingredients and provide almost everything you need, which means there is less food waste and you can plate a delicious dinner in around 35 minutes.

Having your weeks menu planned and the shopping done is convenient, but we wanted to show it’s also affordable.  I finally put my legal and economics degrees to good use and crunched the numbers.  I estimate you save 20% when compared to the supermarkets.

Here are the 4 recipes we looked at and all the ingredients you get delivered (these were the recipes we delivered on Sunday 14 Sept):

 

It would cost $119.06 to buy the ingredients from a supermarket and have them delivered (supermarket delivery costs about $11):

At $99 delivered, You Plate It would save you 20%!

It may be winter outside, but that shouldn’t stop us dreaming of a summer holiday. What better way to escape the reality of a cold winter in Perth than with a tropical cocktail.  “Escape (If You Like Piña Coladas)” by Rupert Holmes tells the tale of two lovers meeting in a bar and discussing the concoction of rum, coconut milk and pineapple juice. Like the song, the drink is a guilty pleasure for many.  It’s a sweet, rum-based cocktail made with rum, cream of coconut, and pineapple juice, usually served either blended or shaken with ice.

Popular cocktails invariably have an interesting tale about their creation – the Pina Colada is rumoured to have been invented by a pirate, Roberto Cofresí.  We’re not sure on the validity of that, but we’re reliably informed by Wikipedia that the earliest printed reference is in a Travel Magazine from December 1922.

Ingredients:

one part white rum

one part coconut cream

3 parts pineapple juice

1 cocktail umbrella

Preparation:

Shake ingredients together on ice and serve immediately. Garnish with mini umbrella and some pineapple.

From dive bar to home bar, the Negroni is a classic that will never fail.

When it’s time for Friday cocktail hour, one of our favourites is the Negroni. The story goes it was invented in 1919 by a Florentine aristocrat, Count Camillo Negroni who wanted something stronger than his Americano. We don’t know how true that is, but we do know it’s a great drink to unwind with on a Friday arvo.

To make: mix equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and campari and serve over ice with a twist of orange peel.

Mixing a good Negroni is foolproof. It’s made of equal parts so all you need to do is add the ingredients into a rocks glass with ice and give it a few stirs. See? Easy. Add an orange twist if you want to increase the level of fancy.