WHY
Everyone likes ribs, but the secret to making this muscle-building pork feast taste amazing is Chinese five-spice powder. It takes its name not from the number of ingredients, but the way this single spice mix hits on all five principal tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. The sweet, spicy flavour acts like a bridge between salt and the heat of chillies, giving these ribs a really round, warm deliciousness. It also lends meat a handsome reddish tone – like the one you get when you put meat in a smoker – which is a big improvement over the unappetising grey tinge that ribs can take on when they’re cooked in the oven.
WHAT
HOW
1 Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
2 Season your ribs on both sides very simply with salt and pepper and dust with the Chinese five-spice powder.
3 Place the ribs meat-side down in a pair of aluminium or glass baking dishes. Cover the dishes with foil and roast the meat for four hours.
4 Drain off the drippings. Flip the ribs over using two spatulas (and an extra pair of hands, if you have them) so the meat side is now up. Be gentle, as they may be so tender they start falling apart.
5 Paint a layer of palm sugar caramel sauce on the ribs and return them to the oven uncovered for a further 20-30 minutes. Serve straight out of the oven.
Photography Jean Cazals, iStock
Taken from Cooking, Blokes & Artichokes by Brendan Collins (£20, Kyle Books)
Better eating, digested
Make sure you’re getting the most from your food to get lean with less effort
Here’s a truth that might be hard to swallow: even if you’re prepping everything you eat, sticking religiously to your five-aday and eating more wild-caught salmon than a grizzly bear, there’s a chance that your best-laid diet plans are falling apart the moment it all goes into your mouth. The part of the puzzle you might be missing? Digestion – the process by which your body extracts the essential components from all your carefully cooked creations.
“Ultimately, digestion is everything,” says Luke Leaman, body composition specialist and founder of Muscle Nerds (musclenerds.tv). “If you’re not able to digest and assimilate your food you’re not able to get things into your body that you need.” The process starts before you take a bite: when you smell, look at or (according to some research) even think about food, your body begins the processes you need to digest it, from producing saliva to upregulating the enzymes it uses to break the food down.
By giving your system a crucial nudge here and there, you’ll extract more nutrients from what you eat. Leaman explains how to make sure you’re not biting off more than you can, er, digest.
Q HOW CAN I TELL IF I’VE GOT PROBLEMS WITH MY DIGESTION?
A LOOK AT WHAT’S COMING OUT
“First, look in your toilet bowl. If there’s undigested food in there, it’s a sign you aren’t digesting or assimilating your food properly. Similarly if you’re eating and getting bloated, getting gassy, there could be a problem.”
Q WHAT’S THE SIMPLEST STEP TO BETTER DIGESTION?
A MASTICATION
“The first thing to address is chewing your food. William Banting, who wrote what’s often called the world’s first diet book, Letters On Corpulence, said that people weren’t chewing enough, and it’s still true today. Nobody really masticates: it’s just chew, chew, swallow. If you’re shovelling a Tupperware container of food down in 30 seconds, you aren’t helping yourself. It sounds like the dumbest thing ever, but do you chew until your food is liquid? That’s the easiest place to start.”
Q WHY DO I FEEL WORSE WHEN I’M STRESSED?
A BECAUSE YOUR BODY’S NOT FOCUSING ON DIGESTION
“Stress impairs digestive function. If your body’s chronically stressed and in fight-or-flight mode, it won’t care about digestion. Stress also depletes the acids your stomach uses to break down food. If you’re really stressed, you’ll start pulling sodium into cells and retaining it, and you need sodium to make that acid. It’s not just about cortisol – if someone’s stressed for a long time, their body stops producing cortisol and starts running on adrenaline. The key is keeping the sympathetic nervous system in balance and achieving a ‘rest and digest’ state. Stretch, do yoga, have a nap, do some meditation… they all work on stress, and they’re all free.”
Q WHAT ABOUT THE THINGS I ACTUALLY EAT?
A THINK PLANTS
“Eat like a vegan or a vegetarian and add meat if you want. You need vegetables for fibre, phytonutrients and a host of other stuff. A healthy body doesn’t want to be fat.”
Q HOW OFTEN SHOULD I BE EATING?
A PROBABLY LESS FREQUENTLY THAN YOU THINK
“Eat three or four meals a day. People eat six, eight, even ten times a day, but if you’re eating that much a day your body never has a chance to chill out. Aim to have three meals a day, with a shake or a snack around your workout. If you find you’re still hungry add something else elsewhere in the day.”
Q SHOULD I TAKE SUPPLEMENTS TO HELP ME DIGEST?
A MAYBE, BUT FIX THE BIG STUFF FIRST
“There are a few options if you want to do this. A nice broad-spectrum digestive enzyme might help if you’re having issues. Also consider pepsin, which breaks down meat, or ox bile, which emulsifies fat. But they’re for fine-tuning once you’ve fixed the bigger stuff. Start on chewing, stress levels and the veg in your diet, then go from there.”
Photography iStock
ACTIVATE LEAST MODE
Your body doesn’t digest well under stressful conditions, and for good reason: for our ancestors, getting chased by a sabre-toothed tiger was a good time to divert resources to flight (or fighting) and not digestion. Unfortunately, your nervous system has trouble distinguishing between your nine-to-five worries and a life-or-death situation, and so you need to calm down. Download the Headspace app, take ten minutes a day to meditate, and add some mobility to your evening routine.
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THE SIZE, IN SQUARE METRES, OF YOUR SMALL INTESTINE
A key issue with digestion is surface area. Stretched out to full size, your small intestine has the same area as a tennis court. Stress denatures certain tissues in the intestine, which means food moves through your digestive system too quickly because of the reduction in surface area. Keep a handle on stress, and you’ll keep your small intestine in shape.