The Wholefood Pantry Journal

Some time after you open a jar of honey, often a few weeks and occasionally just a few days, you notice it isn't pouring the way it used to. It turns cloudy, then thick, then solid enough to stand a spoon in. This is the question we're asked about more than any other, so here's the complete answer. Crystallised honey hasn't gone off Start with the reassuring part. Solid honey is not spoiled honey. It's the same honey, with the same flavour, arranged differently. You can eat it as it is, spread it like butter, or turn it back into liquid in a few minutes. It's so normal, in fact, that some honey is sold crystallised on purpose. Set honey and creamed honey are simply honey whose crystallisation has been controlled to produce a fine, smooth texture. What's happening inside the jar Honey is mostly sugar with very little water, usually less than 20%. That's far more sugar than water can normally keep dissolved at room temperature. Chemists call this a supersaturated solution, and supersaturated solutions don't stay settled for long. Given time, some of the sugar comes out of solution and forms crystals. The sugar responsible is glucose. Honey's two main sugars are fructose and glucose, and glucose is considerably less soluble in water than fructose is. So glucose is the one that drops out first. Each new crystal gives the next one something to grow on, and gradually the process spreads through the whole jar. Fructose stays dissolved. That's why a crystallised jar sometimes has a thin runny layer on top or around the edges. It's the part of the honey that hasn't set. Why some honeys set in weeks and others stay runny for months Every honey crystallises in the end. How quickly depends mainly on three things. The balance of sugars. A honey with plenty of fructose relative to glucose has less glucose available to crystallise, so it stays liquid for longer. Acacia honey is the classic example: it's naturally high in fructose and can remain pourable for many months. At the opposite end, honey from oilseed rape is high in glucose and can set within weeks, sometimes days. Tiny particles. Pollen grains, specks of wax and even small air bubbles all give glucose crystals a place to start forming. Honey that has been heavily filtered has fewer of these starting points. Honey that hasn't tends to crystallise sooner. Temperature. This is the one you can control, so it gets a section of its own. The temperature that matters most Honey crystallises fastest between about 11°C and 16°C. That's a very common temperature for a cool larder, a cupboard on an outside wall, or a kitchen in winter, and it's why so many people notice their honey setting once the weather turns. To slow crystallisation down, keep your honey somewhere steady and reasonably warm. We recommend 20 to 22°C, which in most homes simply means an ordinary kitchen cupboard, away from the back door and out of direct sunlight. There are two places worth avoiding: The fridge. There's no food safety reason to keep honey cold. Chilled honey is stiff and difficult to spoon, and keeping it there gains you nothing. Beside the oven or on a sunny windowsill. Warmth won't make honey unsafe, but sustained heat slowly darkens it, dulls its flavour and raises its level of HMF, a compound laboratories measure to tell how much a honey has been heated or aged. How to make crystallised honey runny again All you need is a bowl of warm water and a little patience. Loosen the lid of the jar. Stand the jar in a bowl or pan of warm water, at around 40°C. That's comfortably warm to the touch, like a bath, rather than hot. Leave it for 10 to 20 minutes, stirring now and then once the honey begins to soften. Top up the water if it cools. Dry the jar, tighten the lid and return it to the cupboard. And a few things not to do: Don't use the microwave. Microwaves heat unevenly, so some of the honey ends up far hotter than you intended. Don't use boiling water or put the jar on the hob. Honey's natural enzymes, including diastase and invertase, break down with heat. So do its more delicate aromas, such as the herbal notes in linden honey, which are usually the first thing to go. Warmed honey will crystallise again in time. You can repeat the process whenever you need to. Just keep it gentle each time. The one jar you shouldn't warm If you have a jar of our Organic Blossom Honey with Honeycomb, leave it out of the warm water. Beeswax softens at fairly low temperatures, and a warm bath will slump the comb. If the liquid honey around the comb sets, cut through it with a knife instead. Set honey alongside a piece of comb is very good on hot toast. There's more on serving it in our honeycomb guide. White streaks and frosting Now and again a jar develops white streaks, patches or a lacy pattern on the inside of the glass, usually near the top. This is known as frosting. It happens when tiny pockets of air become trapped as the honey crystallises, or when the honey shrinks very slightly and pulls away from the glass. Frosting is purely cosmetic and makes no difference to the honey at all. Does crystallisation prove honey is real? You'll see this claim a lot online. It isn't quite right. Crystallisation is normal for genuine honey and nothing to worry about. But it isn't a purity test. Some real honeys, acacia in particular, stay liquid for a very long time. And honey that has been mixed with syrup can still crystallise, depending on what's gone into it. Whether a honey is genuine can only be settled in a laboratory, which is why every batch of our honey is tested four different ways. We explain those tests in our article on honey labels and honey fraud. Can honey go off? Sealed honey is remarkably stable. Its low water content and natural acidity make it a very poor home for the microbes that spoil most foods. When honey is diluted, an enzyme it contains called glucose oxidase also produces small amounts of hydrogen peroxide. The thing that can go wrong is moisture. Honey draws water in from the air around it. Leave a jar open in a steamy kitchen, or keep dipping a wet spoon into it, and the top layer can take on enough water to begin fermenting. You'd notice a sour or slightly boozy smell, and possibly some foam on the surface. Keep the lid on and use a clean, dry spoon, and it won't happen. Storing honey: the short version Keep it at 20 to 22°C if you can. Avoid the 11 to 16°C range, which sets honey fastest. Lid on, a dry spoon, and out of direct sunlight. If it sets, use warm water at around 40°C. Never boiling water, never the microwave. Leave the honeycomb jar out of the water altogether. If you'd like a honey that stays runny for as long as possible, choose Organic Acacia Honey. For how it compares with the rest of the range, see our guide to choosing a honey.

There are two kinds of people when it comes to food between meals. Snackers want one thing, at one time. A biscuit with a cup of tea. A bag of crisps at four o'clock. Grazers are different. A handful of nuts on the way past the cupboard. A couple of apricots with a coffee. A spoonful of something straight from the jar. Grazers rarely sit down to a snack, but they're rarely without something to pick at either. A big bag of one thing gets dull for a grazer within days. What they want is variety, and everything within reach. That's the idea behind this hamper. What's inside Six full-size packs, running from sweet to savoury. RAWGORILLA Raw Organic Pecan Butter, 200g Organic pecans, stone-ground at low temperature, and nothing else. It's mellow and slightly toffee-like, softer and sweeter-tasting than most nut butters, and low in carbohydrate at 4.3 g per 100 g. It's the one item in the hamper you eat with a spoon. Spread it on toast, stir it into porridge, or put it in a small bowl in the middle of a board for dipping apricots and mango. Good to know. There are no stabilisers, so the oil separates naturally. Give it a stir before using. For more on what to look for in a nut butter, see how to choose the best nut butter. Deluxe Mixed Nuts Cashews, almonds, brazils, hazelnuts, walnuts and peanuts, in exactly equal parts: one sixth each. That's less common than you might think. Many mixed nut blends lean heavily on peanuts, which are the cheapest to buy, and go lightly on the expensive nuts. This mix doesn't. The nuts are raw and unsalted, with 18 g of protein per 100 g. Organic Dried Mango Slices Chewy, sweet slices of organic mango from Burkina Faso, with no added sugar. The most instantly likeable thing in the box. Goji Berries, 250g Sun-dried goji berries, also known as wolfberries, from Ningxia in northern China, the region most famous for growing them. They taste sweet and slightly sour, a bit like a raisin with a tangy edge, and they're chewy rather than soft. Natural Whole Apricots, 250g Turkish apricots, hand-pitted and slowly dried in the sun. You'll notice they're brown rather than bright orange. That's because they haven't been treated with sulphur dioxide, which is what keeps most dried apricots that vivid colour. Without it, apricots darken naturally as they dry, and the flavour changes too: deeper, richer and closer to caramel than the bright, sharp sweetness of a sulphured apricot. Organic Omega Seed Mix, 250g Pumpkin, sunflower, linseed and sesame seeds. The one you scatter over everything else: yoghurt, salads, porridge, soup, or into bread dough. Why a grazing hamper works Variety is the point. Six different textures and flavours means there's always something different to reach for. Nothing gets boring. It builds a board in two minutes. Tip the nuts, apricots, mango and goji berries into small bowls, put the pecan butter in the middle, and you have a grazing board with no cooking and no shopping. It keeps. Everything is a store-cupboard item with a long shelf life. It doesn't need eating in a week, which suits a grazer perfectly. Nothing in it is a mystery. Nuts, seeds, fruit and ground pecans. The longest ingredient list in the whole hamper is the mixed nuts, and every ingredient on it is a nut. How to build a grazing board from the hamper Pick a board or a large plate. Wood looks best, but anything flat will do. Place the pecan butter first. Spoon it into a small bowl and put it slightly off-centre. Everything else goes around it. Add the big items. Arrange the apricots and mango slices in loose piles, fanned out rather than stacked. Fill the gaps with nuts. Tip small handfuls of mixed nuts into the spaces between the fruit. Finish with colour. Scatter the goji berries across the board for flecks of red, and sprinkle a pinch of seed mix over the nuts. Add what you have. Cheese, oatcakes, grapes, sliced apple or a few squares of dark chocolate all fit in. The fruit and nut butter together are the best part. Try an apricot dipped in pecan butter. More ways to use everything Pecan butter: on toast or pancakes, stirred through porridge, or with sliced apple Mixed nuts: by the handful, roasted with a little salt and rosemary, or chopped over salads Mango: straight from the bag, or chopped into flapjacks and muffins Goji berries: over a smoothie bowl or granola, or steeped in hot water with fresh ginger Apricots: chopped into a tagine, a stew or a bowl of porridge Seed mix: over yoghurt, soups and salads, or kneaded into bread dough Or combine the mixed nuts, mango and goji berries into your own trail mix for walks and long drives. Who it's for Grazers. Obviously. Anyone who works from home and picks at food throughout the day, or keeps a bowl of something on the desk. Vegans. All six items are suitable for vegan and vegetarian diets. People who like to host. It makes an instant grazing board for friends who drop by. Walkers, cyclists and anyone on the move. Nuts, seeds and dried fruit travel well. Someone trying to eat fewer ultra-processed snacks. Every item is a whole food, with nothing added. Who it isn't for Anyone with a nut allergy. This hamper contains a lot of nuts: pecans in the nut butter, and peanuts, hazelnuts, cashews, brazils, almonds and walnuts in the mixed nuts. The seed mix contains sesame. Everything is packed in an environment that also handles mustard, celery, soya and gluten. Someone looking for a fully organic hamper. Three of the six items are certified organic: the pecan butter, the mango and the seed mix. The mixed nuts, goji berries and apricots aren't. If organic matters most, the Organic Snack Hamper is certified all the way through. Here's what's in it. Chocolate lovers. There's no chocolate in this one. For help matching a hamper to the person, see how to choose a food hamper someone will actually eat. Storing everything Keep everything in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. The pouches reseal, so close them after opening or move the contents into airtight containers. Stir the pecan butter before use and finish it within three months of opening. Full allergy information Contains pecans, peanuts, hazelnuts, cashews, brazil nuts, almonds, walnuts and sesame. All items are vegan and vegetarian, GMO-free and have no added sugar. Full ingredients for every item are listed on the product page. Always read the label on each product when it arrives. Shop the Healthy Grazing Hamper

We wanted to build a hamper that avoided everything we dislike about hampers: the straw, the miniatures, the sachet of something nobody asked for. So we started with one rule. Every item had to be something a person would genuinely eat, and every item had to be certified organic. Not "natural". Not "wholesome". Certified. We ended up with five. Here's what they are, why each one made the cut, and who we think the hamper suits, as well as who it doesn't. The five items 1. Chocolate & Love Organic 55% Chocolate with Sea Salt & Caramel, 80g The one to open first. Crunchy caramel pieces through a smooth 55% chocolate, with a pinch of sea salt at the end that keeps it from being too sweet. Why it's here. It's won a Great Taste Award, the food awards run by the Guild of Fine Food, where judges taste every entry blind. They described it as "well balanced and delicious" and said the salty finish "left us craving more". The cacao is bought directly from Fairtrade cooperatives in Peru and the Dominican Republic. Worth knowing. The caramel is made with whole milk powder and butter, so this bar isn't vegan. 2. Bennetto Organic Toasted Hazelnut Dark Chocolate, 80g A 60% dark chocolate with 12% toasted hazelnuts, made in Switzerland from certified organic, Fairtrade ingredients. Why it's here. It's the counterpoint to the first bar: darker, less sweet, and properly nutty. Bennetto is also a certified B Corporation, which means the company has been independently assessed on how it treats its workers, suppliers and the environment. Worth knowing. This bar is vegan and gluten free. If you've ever wondered why a bar like this costs more than a supermarket multipack, we explain it in why real chocolate is so expensive. 3. Stock & Bite Organic Whole Cashew Nuts, 1kg A full kilo. One ingredient, nothing added, with 17 g of protein per 100 g. Why it's here. Because a hamper should outlast the evening it's opened. The chocolate will be gone within days. The cashews will still be in the cupboard weeks later, going into stir-fries and curries, blended into cashew cream, or eaten by the handful. How to keep them fresh. Decant them into an airtight jar once opened and keep them somewhere cool and dark. There's more in our guide to storing nuts so they never go rancid. 4. Whole Food Earth Organic Cacao Nibs, 250g Crushed cacao beans from Peru. This is chocolate before anything has been added to it: no sugar, no milk, nothing but the bean. Why it's here. They're the surprise in the box. Cacao nibs are crunchy and properly bitter, with a flavour somewhere between dark chocolate and roasted coffee. Most people haven't cooked with them, and once they have, they tend to keep a bag in the cupboard. How to use them. Scatter over porridge, yoghurt or a smoothie bowl. Stir through cookie dough or banana bread in place of chocolate chips. Or add a spoonful to granola. 5. Whole Food Earth Organic Dried Mango Slices, 250g Chewy, intensely sweet slices of mango from Burkina Faso, with no added sugar. Why it's here. Something sweet that isn't chocolate. Dried mango sits happily next to the cashews for an afternoon snack, and chopped into flapjacks or muffins it adds sweetness without extra sugar. Why these five work together Something now, something later. Two chocolate bars to open straight away, and three store-cupboard items that keep for months. The gift doesn't end on the first night. Sweet, bitter, salty, nutty. Salted caramel, dark hazelnut, bitter cacao, sweet mango and plain cashews. There's no single flavour repeated. Full-size products. Nothing here is a sample. The cashews alone are a kilo. Certified all the way through. All five items are certified organic, and both chocolate bars are Fairtrade. Who it's for People who care where their food comes from. Someone who reads labels, buys organic and would notice the difference between a Fairtrade bar and a supermarket gift box. Chocolate lovers who've outgrown milk chocolate. Both bars are grown-up chocolate, and the cacao nibs will interest anyone curious about where chocolate starts. Anyone hard to buy for. A hamper of good food is a safe gift that doesn't feel like a safe gift. Someone who cooks. The cashews, cacao nibs and mango are all ingredients as much as snacks. As a thank you. For a teacher, a neighbour, a colleague or a host. It's generous without being extravagant. Who it isn't for We'd rather say this plainly than have a hamper go to the wrong person. Vegans. The Chocolate & Love bar contains milk powder and butter, so the hamper as a whole is vegetarian, not vegan. The Bennetto bar on its own is vegan. Anyone with a nut allergy. The hamper contains cashews and hazelnuts. Some items may also contain traces of almonds and peanuts, and the cashews, cacao nibs and mango are packed in an environment that handles nuts, peanuts, sesame, mustard, celery, soya and gluten. Anyone with a milk allergy. The salted caramel bar contains milk, and the Bennetto bar may contain traces of it. Someone who'd rather have savoury. This hamper leans sweet. For someone who prefers nuts, seeds and something to pick at, the Healthy Grazing Hamper is a better fit. For more on matching a hamper to the person, see how to choose a food hamper someone will actually eat. Storing everything Keep the cashews, cacao nibs and mango in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. The bags aren't resealable, so transfer them to airtight containers once they're open. Keep the chocolate away from sunlight and heat, ideally between 15 and 18°C. The fridge isn't a good place for it: chocolate picks up moisture and other flavours there, and can develop a white bloom on the surface. It's still safe to eat, but it loses its snap. Full allergy information Contains cashew nuts, hazelnuts and milk. May also contain almonds, peanuts and soya. Suitable for vegetarians. Full ingredients for every item are listed on the product page. Always read the label on each product when it arrives. Shop the Organic Snack Hamper

Most of us have received one. A large, handsome basket, a lot of shredded paper, and inside: a miniature jar of chutney, a sachet of hot chocolate, a small packet of shortbread and a mystery condiment that sits in the cupboard until it expires. A food hamper should be the easiest present in the world. Everyone eats. So why do so many end up half wasted? Usually it's because the hamper was designed to look generous in a photograph rather than to be eaten. Here's how to tell the difference before you buy. Look past the basket A wicker basket, a wooden crate, shredded paper and ribbon all cost money, and all of it comes out of what's left to spend on the food. A hamper that looks impressive in a picture isn't necessarily one with much inside. Before you judge a hamper by how big it looks, find the contents list. If you can't find one, that tells you something too. Check the sizes as well as the number of items "Fifteen items" sounds more generous than "five items". It often isn't. Miniature jars and single-serve sachets pad out a list quickly. Look for the weight or volume of each item. A hamper with five full-size products will usually give far more food, and far more use, than one with fifteen samples. A useful test: would you buy each item at that size for your own kitchen? If most of them are too small to bother with, the hamper is mostly packaging. Work out the value Most shops sell the same products individually. Add up what the contents would cost bought separately and compare it with the price of the hamper. A good hamper should come out close to, or below, the cost of its parts. You're paying for someone to choose, pack and present it, which is worth something. But if the hamper costs twice what's inside, the difference is going on the basket. Order earlier than you think Hampers are popular at exactly the times delivery services are busiest, especially the weeks before Christmas. Stock of the best-made hampers can also run short, because they're packed in batches rather than produced endlessly. If the hamper is for a particular date, order a couple of weeks ahead and check the retailer's last posting dates. Store-cupboard hampers make this easy: nothing in them will spoil while it waits in a cupboard for the big day. If you're sending it straight to someone else, check whether the retailer can include a gift note and leave out the invoice, so the recipient doesn't see the price. Think about how long it lasts A hamper full of fresh cheese and cured meat needs eating within days, which is fine for a party and awkward for someone who lives alone or is away for a week. A mix works best. Something to open straight away, like a bar of good chocolate, alongside things that keep for months in a cupboard: nuts, dried fruit, honey, oats, nut butter. The gift keeps giving long after the first evening, and nothing goes to waste. Check best before dates too, especially if you're buying well ahead of an occasion. Read the allergy information properly This is where food gifts go wrong most often, and it matters more than anything else on this list. UK law requires 14 major allergens to be declared on food labels, including peanuts, tree nuts, milk, sesame, soya and cereals containing gluten. A well-made hamper should list the allergens in every item it contains, plus any "may contain" warnings. If you're buying for someone with an allergy, don't rely on the name of the hamper. "Healthy", "natural" and "organic" say nothing about nuts or milk. Read the full ingredients, and if a hamper doesn't list them, choose a different one. The same goes for diets. A hamper can be vegetarian but not vegan because of a single chocolate bar containing milk. If it matters, check each item. Match the hamper to the person The best hampers feel chosen. A few questions help: Do they cook? A keen cook will enjoy ingredients: good oils, spices, honey, speciality flours. Someone who doesn't cook wants things they can eat as they are. How do they eat? Some people sit down to a treat in the evening. Others pick at food throughout the day, a handful of nuts here, a few apricots there. The second kind of person will get more from a hamper built for grazing. Sweet or savoury? It sounds obvious, but many hampers are mostly sweet. Plenty of people would rather have crisps and nuts than another box of biscuits. Any dietary needs? Vegan, gluten free, nut free or organic narrows the field quickly and makes the choice easier. Who else is at home? A family hamper should have things children will eat too. Look for honest labels "Artisan", "gourmet", "luxury" and "wholesome" have no legal definition. Anyone can print them on a box. "Organic" is different. In the UK, food sold as organic must be certified, and each product carries the code of the body that inspected it. If an organic hamper matters to you, check that the individual items are certified. The word on the outside of the box proves nothing. The same applies to Fairtrade. Look for the mark on the product, not the marketing. Our hampers, and who they're for We built our hampers around the idea running through this whole article: full-size products that people actually want, with the contents, sizes and allergens listed clearly. Organic Snack Hamper. Five certified organic items, including two Fairtrade chocolate bars and a full kilo of cashews. Built as a gift for someone who appreciates good food. Vegetarian, not vegan, and it contains nuts and milk. Here's what's inside and why. Healthy Grazing Hamper. Six full-size packs of nuts, seeds, dried fruit and a jar of pecan butter, for people who pick at food throughout the day. All six items are vegan. Here's how it works. School Lunchbox Bundle. Six store-cupboard snacks for a parent to portion out over the school term. Less a gift than a very practical shortcut. Before you buy any hamper, from us or anyone else, check one more thing: could you get the same products for less? Members of the free Whole Food Earth Club see member prices when they're logged in at checkout. A quick checklist Before you buy a food hamper, ask: Is there a full contents list, with sizes? Are the products full-size, or mostly samples? How does the price compare with buying the items separately? Is there a mix of things to eat now and things that keep? Are all allergens and "may contain" warnings listed? Does it suit how this person actually eats? If it says organic or Fairtrade, are the individual products certified? If the answer to most of these is yes, you've found a hamper that will be eaten rather than tidied away.

A recipe asks for coconut milk. The cupboard holds a tin of coconut cream, a hard white block and a carton from the chiller. Will any of them do? Some will, with a little adjustment. One definitely won't. They're all made from the same nut, but they're made in different ways, and the difference is mostly about how much fat and how much water you're getting. Where they all start Every one of these products begins with the white flesh of a mature coconut. It isn't the clear liquid you hear sloshing about inside the nut. That's coconut water, a different thing entirely. To make coconut milk, the flesh is grated and pressed, usually with some water, and the rich white liquid that runs out is collected. Change how much water goes in, or what happens to the flesh afterwards, and you get each of the products below. Coconut milk This is the everyday one. Coconut milk is the pressed liquid from the grated flesh, loosened with water to a pourable consistency. Our RAWGORILLA Organic Coconut Milk contains 11 to 12% fat and just two ingredients: organic coconut extract and water. That's rich enough to make a proper curry and light enough to go into porridge or a smoothie without taking over. Use it for: Thai and Indian curries, laksa, dhal, soups, rice pudding, overnight oats and smoothies. Coconut cream Coconut cream is made the same way but with much less water, so it's thicker, richer and more intensely flavoured. Think of it as the double cream to coconut milk's single. RAWGORILLA Organic Coconut Cream is 24% fat, roughly twice as rich as the milk. It contains small amounts of guar gum and xanthan gum, two plant-based thickeners that help keep it smooth rather than grainy. Use it for: richer curries and satay sauces, desserts, dairy-free ice cream, panna cotta, and as a dollop over fruit. It also works in cocktails such as a piña colada. A note on whipping. Coconut cream will whip once the solid fat has been chilled. For the most reliable result, use a cream made specifically for it, such as Biona Organic Coconut Whipping Cream, at 30% fat. Chill the tin overnight, open it without shaking, scoop the thick part into a cold bowl and whisk. Creamed coconut This is the one that trips people up. Creamed coconut isn't a liquid at all. It's the whole coconut flesh, dried and ground into a dense paste, then set into a hard block. Nothing is pressed out and thrown away, so the fibre stays in. That makes it the most concentrated of the lot. Biona Organic Creamed Coconut is around 68% fat, with 16 g of fibre per 100 g, and its only ingredient is organic coconut. How to use it. Grate or chop what you need straight into a simmering curry or soup, and it melts into the sauce as it cooks. To make a quick coconut milk from the block, dissolve 50 g in 100 ml of warm water and stir until smooth. Use it for: curries and stews where you want coconut flavour without adding more liquid, and for baking, fudge and coconut ice. Because it keeps well in the cupboard, a block is handy to have in reserve for the evening you discover you've run out of tins. Coconut milk in a carton The coconut milk sold in cartons, often in the chiller or next to oat and almond milk, is a drink rather than an ingredient. It's much thinner than tinned coconut milk and is made to be poured over cereal or into tea and coffee. Many brands add calcium and vitamins, as Koko does. It won't give you a rich curry. Keep it for the breakfast table. Cream of coconut and condensed coconut milk Two more to know about, because they're sweetened and a mix-up can ruin a savoury dish. Cream of coconut is a sweetened coconut cream made mainly for cocktails. It's a different product from coconut cream, despite the near-identical name. Sweetened condensed coconut milk is the dairy-free equivalent of a tin of condensed milk: coconut cooked down with sugar until thick. Biona's version is made from organic coconut and organic cane sugar. It's brilliant in banoffee pie, fudge and iced coffee, and a disaster in a Thai green curry. If a tin says "sweetened" or "condensed", it belongs in pudding. Coconut milk vs coconut cream vs creamed coconut at a glance Coconut milk: pourable, around 11 to 12% fat. The everyday choice for curries and soups. Coconut cream: thick, around 24% fat. For richness, desserts and satay. Coconut whipping cream: thick, around 30% fat. For whipping and topping cakes. Creamed coconut: a solid block, around 68% fat, with the fibre left in. Grate it into sauces or dissolve it into a quick milk. Carton coconut milk: thin and drinkable. For cereal and hot drinks, not cooking. Cream of coconut and condensed coconut milk: sweetened. For cocktails and desserts only. Can you swap one for another? Mostly, yes. Here's how. Coconut cream instead of coconut milk. Mix the cream with roughly the same volume of water. Since the cream is about twice as rich, halving it with water brings it close to milk. Coconut milk instead of coconut cream. Harder, because you can't take water out easily. Use the milk and simmer the sauce for longer to reduce it, or stir in a little grated creamed coconut to make up the richness. Creamed coconut instead of coconut milk. Keep to the ratio of 50 g of block to 100 ml of warm water and scale it up to the amount the recipe needs. The result is a little thicker and more textured than tinned milk, because the fibre is still in it. Carton milk instead of tinned. Only in a pinch, and expect a thin, pale sauce. Why is my coconut milk solid in the tin? Nothing has gone wrong. Coconut fat is solid below about 25°C, which means a tin kept in a cool British cupboard will often have a thick white layer on top and thin liquid underneath when you open it. It's a sign of real coconut, and there's no harm in it. Either shake the tin well before opening, or tip everything into the pan and stir as it warms. It will come back together within a minute or two. Coconut milk with no added thickeners, like ours, separates more readily than one with stabilisers, for the same reason. Cooking tips that make a difference Simmer, don't boil hard. A rolling boil can make coconut milk look split or curdled, with oil pooling on the surface. It's perfectly safe to eat, but a gentle simmer keeps a sauce smooth and glossy. Add it towards the end if you want it fresh. Coconut milk added in the last ten minutes keeps a brighter, sweeter coconut flavour than one that has cooked for an hour. Try the Thai trick. In many Thai curries, the thick cream from the top of the tin is heated first until its oil begins to separate, and the curry paste is fried in it before the rest of the liquid goes in. It gives a deeper, more aromatic sauce. Store opened tins in the fridge. Decant what's left into a clean container, keep it chilled and use it within about three days. Leftovers freeze well in an ice cube tray, ready to drop into a sauce or smoothie. Where to start If you only keep one thing in the cupboard, make it a tin of coconut milk. Add a tin of coconut cream for puddings and richer sauces, and a block of creamed coconut as your backup. For a ready-spiced shortcut, the Wild Elephant Organic Green Curry Coconut Milk has the paste already stirred in. And for the rest of the coconut, including why virgin coconut oil behaves the way it does, see our guide to raw organic virgin coconut oil.

Pick up a jar of supermarket honey and turn it round. Somewhere near the barcode, in small print, there's a good chance you'll find the words "blend of EU and non-EU honeys". It sounds official. It isn't telling you very much. What the phrase tells you, and what it doesn't Honey labels have to state where the honey came from. When a jar holds honey from a single country, that country is named. When it holds honey from several countries, the label can use a general phrase instead, and "blend of EU and non-EU honeys" is the one you'll see most often. Read literally, it covers honey from almost anywhere in the world. It doesn't say which countries are in the jar, how many, or in what proportions. It doesn't name the beekeeper or the season. A packer could change the mix from one batch to the next and the wording on the label wouldn't need to change at all. None of this means blended honey is bad honey. It does mean the label gives you nothing to judge it by. Why honey is worth faking Honey is slow and costly to produce. Bees gather nectar from a huge number of flowers, carry it back to the hive, and then fan it until most of the water has evaporated. Only then is it honey. Sugar syrups made from rice, maize, beet or cane can be produced in bulk for a fraction of the cost. That price gap is the whole problem. A well-made mixture of honey and syrup looks like honey, pours like honey and tastes close enough to honey that nobody standing at a supermarket shelf could tell the difference. What the European Commission found Between November 2021 and February 2022, the European Commission ran a coordinated check on honey being imported into the EU. National authorities took 320 samples from incoming consignments and sent them for laboratory analysis. 147 of those 320 samples, or 46%, were flagged as suspicious of being bulked out with sugar syrup. "Suspicious" is a careful word. It means the laboratory results didn't match the profile of genuine honey closely enough to be passed, rather than that every one of those consignments was proven fake. Even so, it's a remarkable figure. The Commission published its findings under the title "From the Hives", and the full report is available on the European Commission's food safety pages. How syrup gets past a basic check For a long time, honey fraud was relatively easy to catch. Cheap syrups were mostly made from cane or maize. Both are what botanists call C4 plants, which process carbon slightly differently from most flowering plants. That difference leaves a measurable trace in the ratio of carbon isotopes in their sugars. Nectar comes mainly from C3 plants, so a laboratory could compare the two and spot syrup that didn't belong. Fraud adapted. Syrups made from rice or sugar beet come from C3 plants, so their carbon signature sits much closer to honey's own. Some syrups are now produced specifically to slip past the standard tests. The result is that no single test can be relied on any more. Serious producers use several, each looking at the honey in a different way, so that a sample has to pass all of them. The four tests behind every batch of our honey Every batch of RAWGORILLA honey is checked four ways before it goes into a jar. NMR profiling. Nuclear magnetic resonance reads the chemical fingerprint of a sample as a whole, measuring many compounds at once, and compares it against a large database of authenticated honeys. Added syrup changes that fingerprint even when the main sugars look normal on their own. Stable isotope analysis (IRMS). Isotope ratio mass spectrometry is the carbon test described above, used to look for sugars from both C4 and C3 sources that shouldn't be there. Pollen analysis. Honey carries pollen from the plants the bees visited. Identifying and counting it confirms the botanical source. This matters most for single-variety honeys such as acacia or linden, where the name on the jar is a promise about which flowers the bees worked. HPLC sugar profiling. High-performance liquid chromatography separates the individual sugars in a sample and measures each one. Genuine honey has a characteristic balance of fructose, glucose and smaller sugars. Syrups tend to disturb that balance or leave traces of sugars that have no business being in honey. The same batches are also tested for residues. Glyphosate, pesticides, heavy metals and a full panel of antibiotics all come back as not detected. What "organic" means for honey Bees fly wherever they please, so organic certification for honey works differently from organic certification for carrots. Under the EU's organic regulation, Regulation (EU) 2018/848, the rules reach out beyond the hive: Within 3 km of the hives, the bees' forage has to consist essentially of organic crops or wild vegetation. The hives themselves have to be built mainly from natural materials. Synthetic chemical repellents can't be used while the honey is being extracted. Colonies must be left with enough of their own honey and pollen to get through the winter. Feeding is only allowed if a colony's survival is at risk, and then only with organic honey, organic sugar or organic sugar syrup. Our honey is certified organic under that regulation by certification body BG-BIO-02. How to shop for honey you can trust You can't run an NMR scan in your kitchen. You can read a label properly, though, and a few habits go a long way. Look for a stated origin. A named country tells you more than a blend statement ever will. Look for a single producer. Honey from one producer can be traced back to its source. Honey pooled from many suppliers is much harder to vouch for. Look for an organic certification code. Certified organic honey carries the code of the body that inspected it. It's small, but it's there. Don't rely on kitchen tests. You may have come across advice about dropping honey into a glass of water, dabbing it on your thumb or trying to set it alight. None of these reliably detects added syrup. A thick, well-made adulterated honey can pass every one of them, and some genuine honeys fail. Crystallisation isn't a purity test either: it's perfectly normal for real honey, but it proves nothing on its own. We explain why in our guide to why honey goes solid. Be wary of a price that seems too good. Honey costs real money to make. A very cheap jar of it had to come from somewhere. Why our honey is sourced this way Everything above explains how the RAWGORILLA honey range is put together: a single European producer, certified organic beekeeping, and four separate authenticity tests on every batch. There are five honeys in the range, and they're very different from one another: Organic Acacia Honey, pale, mild and slow to set Organic Linden Honey, intensely aromatic with a herbal finish Organic Wildflower Honey, the everyday jar, varying gently with the seasons Organic Forest Honey, dark, malty and made from honeydew rather than nectar Organic Blossom Honey with Honeycomb, liquid honey with a hand-cut piece of comb in the jar If you're not sure where to start, our guide to choosing a honey takes you through all five, from the palest jar to the darkest.

Packing a school lunchbox is a daily puzzle at the best of times. Add a nut-free rule to the mix, whether because of an allergy at home or a whole-school policy, and it can feel like your options shrink overnight. The good news is that a nut-free lunchbox can still be varied, filling and, crucially, one your child will actually eat. Here are plenty of ideas to keep things easy all term. The nut-free hero: seed butters If the ban on nuts has taken your peanut butter off the table, seed butters are the answer. They spread just like a nut butter, taste creamy and satisfying, and are completely nut-free. Our Raw Organic Sunflower Seed Butter is made from nothing but organic sunflower seeds, which makes it perfect for lunchboxes and nut-free classrooms alike. Spread it on wholemeal bread with sliced banana, swirl it with a little fruit jam, or use it as a dip for apple and carrot sticks. For a change, our hemp seed butter does the same job with its own nutty character. Simple sandwiches and wraps The humble sandwich still does the heavy lifting, so keep it interesting. Beyond seed butter and banana, try hummus with grated carrot or cucumber, mashed avocado with a squeeze of lemon, cream cheese with sliced tomato, or a wrap rolled around hummus and roasted vegetables. Cutting sandwiches into fingers, triangles or shapes genuinely helps with younger children, and swapping bread for a wrap, pitta or oatcakes now and then keeps lunch from feeling repetitive. Naturally nut-free snacks This is where a well-stocked cupboard pays off. Dried fruit such as raisins, apricots and dried mango satisfies a sweet tooth without a sugary wrapper. Seeds like pumpkin and sunflower add crunch and are a safe nut-free alternative for lunchboxes. Plain popcorn is light and fun, oatcakes and wholegrain crackers travel well, and a little pot of natural yoghurt with fruit rounds things off. Add some chopped fresh fruit and a few veg sticks, and the box is looking colourful already. Easy homemade treats A batch of homemade snacks at the weekend saves money and means you know exactly what is in them. Seed-butter oat energy balls come together in minutes: mix sunflower seed butter with oats, a little honey or mashed banana, seeds and dried fruit, roll into balls and chill. Flapjacks made with oats and seeds are a lunchbox classic, and homemade granola bars beat the shop-bought kind hands down. All of these are naturally nut-free when you build them around oats, seeds and dried fruit rather than nuts. A few tips to make it stick Getting children to eat what you pack is half the battle, so a little strategy helps. Let them help choose and assemble their lunch, since a child who picked it is far more likely to eat it. Keep some variety across the week so nothing gets boring, and don't be afraid to repeat the things they love. Above all, keep it simple: a nut-free lunchbox does not have to be elaborate to be healthy and happily eaten. With a jar of seed butter, a cupboard of dried fruit, seeds and oats, and a few easy homemade treats, nut-free lunches stop being a chore and start being genuinely enjoyable, for them and for you.

Every September, organic food and farming get their moment in the spotlight. Organic September is a nationwide campaign that runs throughout the month, encouraging people to give organic a go and to think a little more about where their food comes from. You don't need to overhaul your whole shop to take part. A few simple swaps are the whole idea. Here is what it's about, and why it might be worth joining in. What does organic actually mean? Organic is a way of growing and producing food to a certified set of standards. In practice, that means farming without synthetic pesticides and manufactured fertilisers, no genetically modified ingredients, and stricter rules on additives. Organic livestock is reared to higher animal-welfare standards, with more space and no routine use of antibiotics. When a product is labelled organic, it has been independently certified against these rules, so the word carries real meaning rather than being marketing language. Healthy soil, healthy food At the heart of organic farming is something easy to overlook: the soil. Rather than relying on synthetic chemicals, organic growers work to build healthy, living soil, using crop rotation, natural compost and careful land management. The thinking is simple and powerful. Healthy soil grows healthy plants, healthy plants make nourishing food, and the whole system supports the wildlife, insects and pollinators that our food ultimately depends on. Choosing organic is a vote for that way of doing things. Why people choose organic People come to organic for different reasons, and most are perfectly sound. Some want to reduce their exposure to synthetic pesticide residues, particularly on foods with thin, edible skins. Many choose it for the environment, because organic farming tends to support more wildlife, cleaner water and healthier soil. Others care most about animal welfare. It's worth being balanced here: the evidence that organic food is dramatically more nutritious is mixed, so the strongest case for organic is really about how the food is produced and its impact on nature, rather than a promise of a nutritional miracle. How to take part without overhauling everything The spirit of Organic September is small, doable changes, not perfection. The easiest place to start is with the foods you buy most often, since a swap you make every week adds up. Store-cupboard staples are perfect: think organic oats for breakfast, organic flour for baking, organic dried fruit, pulses and grains, and organic oils. Our organic range, certified to recognised organic standards, is full of exactly these everyday basics, from Organic Jumbo Oats to organic pulses and organic olive oil to organic flour. Eating organic on a budget Organic sometimes has a reputation for being expensive, but it doesn't have to be. The trick is to focus your organic spending where it matters most and to buy smart. Choosing organic versions of the staples you get through in quantity, and buying them in larger, better-value sizes, keeps the cost down. Members save more too, since our free Club unlocks lower prices across the range. Eating a little more organic really can fit a normal weekly budget. Organic September is simply an invitation to try. Swap one or two everyday items, notice how it feels, and see whether it becomes a habit that lasts beyond the month. It fits neatly with our own Whole Plate idea, that most of your plate, most of the time, should be real, thoughtfully produced food. Pick a couple of swaps, and you've already begun.

Take a look inside a typical school lunchbox and you'll often find the same cast of characters: a bag of crisps, a shiny cereal bar, a fruit-flavoured yoghurt, maybe a packet of sweets dressed up as fruit. They're convenient, and children like them, but most are ultra-processed, and British children now get a striking share of their calories from these kinds of foods. The good news is that you don't need a total overhaul to change that. A handful of simple swaps can quietly whole-food your child's lunchbox, without a fight at the kitchen table. Why bother swapping? Ultra-processed snacks tend to be high in sugar, salt and additives, and low on the fibre and goodness of real food. They're also designed to be moreish, which is exactly why the packet always comes home empty. Swapping them for simple whole-food alternatives means fewer hidden sugars, more of the nutrients growing children need, and often a smaller bill too. And because the swaps below are built around foods kids already enjoy, they rarely notice they've been made. Swap crisps for popcorn, seeds or oatcakes The lunchtime crisp packet is the obvious place to start. Plain popcorn gives you the same light, crunchy, moreish appeal for a fraction of the cost, and you can pop a big batch at home in minutes using our Organic Popping Corn. Roasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds are another satisfying, crunchy option that happens to be nut-free, which suits most school policies. Wholegrain oatcakes and crackers do the job too, especially with a little hummus or cheese. Swap sugary cereal bars for homemade oat bars Cereal bars sound wholesome, but many are closer to a biscuit, held together with syrups and sugars. Homemade oat bars and flapjacks are far better, and genuinely easy to make. A tray of flapjacks made from oats, a little honey or mashed banana, seeds and dried fruit will fill lunchboxes all week for pennies. Our Organic Jumbo Oats are the base for these, as well as for no-bake energy balls, which children love helping to roll. Swap sweets for dried fruit and fresh fruit Those brightly packaged fruit sweets and winders are usually more sugar than fruit. Real dried fruit satisfies the same sweet craving with fibre and nutrients along for the ride. Raisins, chopped apricots and dried mango all travel brilliantly and keep for ages, so a bag of our organic raisins in the cupboard is a lunchbox lifesaver. Add some fresh fruit too, cut into easy-to-eat pieces, and the sweet slot is more than covered. Dried fruit is sticky and sugary, mind, so it's best packed alongside a meal rather than grazed on all day. Swap fruit-flavoured yoghurts for plain yoghurt and fruit Flavoured children's yoghurts can carry a surprising amount of sugar. A pot of plain natural yoghurt, topped at home with fresh or dried fruit and a sprinkle of seeds, gives you all the creaminess with none of the syrup, and lets you control the sweetness. A drizzle of honey keeps fussier eaters happy. Swap biscuits and chocolate for simple homemade treats Lunch doesn't have to be joyless, and a treat has its place. Rather than shop-bought biscuits, tuck in a homemade oat cookie or an energy ball made with seeds and dried fruit. If it's chocolate they're after, a couple of squares of good dark chocolate, or a homemade seed-and-fruit bar, does the trick with far less sugar than most lunchbox chocolate bars. Make it easy on yourself None of this has to mean more work on a Monday morning. The secret is a little batch cooking at the weekend: make a tray of flapjacks or a jar of energy balls, portion up dried fruit and popcorn into small tubs, and the week more or less packs itself. Get the children involved in choosing and making their snacks, and they're far more likely to eat them. And don't aim for a perfect lunchbox every day, just a bit more real food and a bit less of the ultra-processed sort. Small swaps like these are the everyday heart of our Whole Plate idea, that most of your plate, most of the time, should be real food. Start with one or two, build from there, and before long the lunchbox looks after itself. If you'd like more gentle ideas, our free Whole Plate Pledge shares a simple swap or recipe a day.

Cayenne pepper is one of those spices that quietly earns its place at the front of the rack. A small jar delivers a lot of heat, a warm depth of flavour, and a splash of colour to all sorts of dishes. If you have a jar sitting unused, or you are wondering what all the fuss is about, here is a practical, evidence-based guide to organic cayenne pepper: what it is, how to cook with it, and what the science says about its benefits. What is organic cayenne pepper? Cayenne pepper is made from dried, ground cayenne chillies, a type of hot red chilli pepper. It sits in the medium-to-hot range on the Scoville scale, which measures chilli heat, so it is noticeably fiery without being extreme. The heat comes from a natural compound called capsaicin, which is what gives all hot chillies their kick. Beyond the heat, cayenne brings a warm, slightly fruity, earthy flavour that works across a huge range of cooking. How to cook with cayenne Cayenne is wonderfully versatile, and a little goes a very long way. Stir a pinch into curries, chillies, stews and soups for warmth and depth. Use it in spice rubs and marinades for roasted vegetables, tofu or meat, where it forms a lovely savoury crust. Add a small amount to sauces, salad dressings and dips to wake them up, or sprinkle it over eggs, roasted potatoes and popcorn. For something different, a tiny pinch in hot chocolate or a rich chilli-chocolate bake brings a gentle, warming heat. The key is restraint. Start with less than you think you need, taste, and build up, because you can always add more but you cannot take it out. If a dish becomes too hot, a little dairy, acid such as lemon or lime, or a touch of sweetness helps to balance the heat. Our Organic Cayenne Pepper Powder is a good, versatile choice for everyday cooking, and our Wild Elephant Organic Cayenne Pepper Powder is another quality option to keep to hand. Does organic cayenne have health benefits? Cayenne, and the capsaicin it contains, has been the subject of a fair amount of research, and there are some interesting findings, though it is worth keeping expectations realistic. Capsaicin has been studied for a modest effect on metabolism and appetite, and it is widely used in topical creams for pain relief. Chillies also contain vitamins and antioxidant plant compounds, although because cayenne is used in such small amounts, its contribution to your overall nutrition is minor. The honest summary is that cayenne is a flavourful spice with some promising but modest research behind it, best enjoyed as part of a varied diet rather than treated as a remedy. A note of caution too: for some people, spicy food can aggravate heartburn, reflux or a sensitive stomach, so if that applies to you, use it sparingly and see how you get on. Getting the most from your cayenne Like all ground spices, cayenne is at its best when fresh, so store it in an airtight container away from heat and light, and buy sensible quantities you will use within a reasonable time. Adding it earlier in cooking mellows and spreads the heat through a dish, while adding it near the end keeps the kick sharper, so you can adjust to taste. Toasting it very briefly in a little oil at the start of a curry helps release its flavour. Organic cayenne pepper is a small spice with a big impact: genuine heat, warm flavour and real versatility, all from a single jar. Use it with a light hand, build the heat gradually, and enjoy it as a flavourful part of your everyday cooking. Whether you like a gentle warmth or a proper kick, cayenne is one of the most useful spices you can own.

Cutting down on sugar is one of the most common health goals, and the shelves are full of alternatives promising to help. But not all sweeteners are created equal, and some of the "healthy" ones are less different from sugar than the marketing suggests. Here is an evidence-based look at which sweeteners are worth considering, which are best limited, and what the science actually says. First, why limit sugar at all? The concern is mainly about free sugars: the sugars added to food and drink, plus those naturally present in honey, syrups and fruit juice. Health bodies including the World Health Organization recommend keeping free sugars to less than 10 percent of daily energy, and ideally below 5 percent, because high intakes are linked to tooth decay, weight gain and related health problems. Importantly, this applies to most "natural" sugars too. Honey and maple syrup still count as free sugars, a point that often gets lost. The better everyday options If you want to sweeten food with something less refined, a few whole-food based options have small advantages, mostly because they bring a little flavour and trace nutrients rather than pure sweetness alone. Coconut sugar has a slightly lower glycaemic index than table sugar and retains small amounts of minerals, though nutritionally it is still very close to ordinary sugar and should be used in the same modest amounts. It works well as a like-for-like swap in baking. Our Organic Coconut Sugar is a popular choice for exactly this. Dates and date syrup are another useful option, since they bring fibre and a rich caramel flavour, which is why blended dates are so popular in energy balls and baking. Honey and maple syrup can add distinctive flavour, so you may use less of them, but they remain free sugars and offer no meaningful nutritional free pass. If flavour is the reason you reach for honey, it is worth choosing one with enough character that a smaller spoonful does the job. A strongly aromatic honey such as organic linden honey, or a dark, malty organic forest honey, carries far more flavour per gram than a bland blend. That is a matter of taste rather than nutrition, and the free sugars still count the same, but it does make moderation easier in practice. You can compare the options in our honey range. Non-nutritive sweeteners: the sugar-free route Sweeteners that provide little or no calories are a different category. Stevia, a plant-derived sweetener, and sugar alcohols such as erythritol and xylitol deliver sweetness with minimal effect on blood sugar, which is why they are common in low-sugar and keto products. For people managing blood glucose or cutting calories, these can be genuinely useful swaps. A couple of caveats are worth knowing. Sugar alcohols can cause bloating or a laxative effect in larger amounts, and xylitol is highly toxic to dogs, so keep it well away from pets. It is also worth noting that the World Health Organization has advised against relying on non-sugar sweeteners for long-term weight control, since the evidence that they help is limited. They are best seen as a tool for reducing sugar, not a health food in their own right. The ones to limit most At the other end of the scale sit the sweeteners with the least to recommend them. High-fructose corn syrup, common in mass-produced soft drinks and processed foods, is a concentrated source of free sugars with no nutritional benefit and is strongly associated with excess calorie intake. Ordinary refined white sugar is not "toxic," but it delivers pure free sugars with nothing else, so it is the one most of us should cut back on. Agave syrup deserves a mention too: often marketed as a healthy choice, it is very high in fructose, so it is best treated like any other syrup rather than a virtuous upgrade. The most powerful change is not swapping one sweetener for another but gradually reducing how much sweetness you use and expect. Our taste for sweetness adapts over time, and palates adjust when given the chance. Whole-food options like coconut sugar and dates can be a helpful step, and non-nutritive sweeteners have their place for specific goals, but no sweetener is a licence to over-indulge. Used thoughtfully and in moderation, though, the right swaps can make cutting back on sugar a good deal easier. If you are managing a condition such as diabetes, it is always worth discussing sweetener choices with a healthcare professional or dietitian.

Peanut and almond butter get all the attention, but there's a quieter spread that deserves a spot in your cupboard: sunflower seed butter. It's creamy, rich and satisfying, it works anywhere a nut butter would, and it has one big advantage the others can't match. It's completely nut-free. If you've never tried it, here's why it might just become a new favourite. What is sunflower seed butter? Sunflower seed butter is exactly what it sounds like: sunflower seeds ground into a smooth, spreadable butter. The best versions keep it simple. Our Raw Organic Sunflower Seed Butter from RAWGORILLA is made from carefully selected organic sunflower seeds, stone-ground raw at a low temperature into a smooth spread, with nothing else added. No sugar, no palm oil, no salt. Just seeds. The nut-free advantage This is where sunflower seed butter really comes into its own. For anyone with a nut allergy, or feeding a family where nuts are off the menu, it's a genuine game-changer. It brings all the creamy, nutty satisfaction of peanut butter with none of the actual nuts, which makes it perfect for lunchboxes, nut-free schools and shared kitchens. Everyone can enjoy it, and nobody has to read the label with their heart in their mouth. Seriously good nutrition Sunflower seeds pack a lot into a small kernel, and that goodness carries straight into the butter. It's a natural source of healthy unsaturated fats and plant protein, and sunflower seeds are one of the best food sources of vitamin E, an antioxidant that supports the body's cells. They also bring magnesium and other minerals along for the ride. As with any butter it's calorie-dense, so a spoonful rather than a ladleful, but what you get in that spoonful is genuinely nourishing. What does it taste like? People are often surprised by their first taste. Sunflower seed butter is mild, smooth and pleasantly nutty, with a gentle earthiness and a hint of natural sweetness. It's a little lighter than peanut butter and less rich than almond, which makes it wonderfully easy to use across sweet and savoury dishes without taking over. How to use it Anywhere you'd reach for peanut butter, reach for this instead. Spread it thick on toast or oatcakes, swirl it through porridge, or blend a spoonful into a smoothie for staying power. It's brilliant in baking and no-bake treats, from flapjacks and cookies to energy balls. On the savoury side, loosen it with a little soy sauce, lime and garlic for a nut-free satay-style sauce or dip, or drizzle it over roasted vegetables and grain bowls. It also makes a lovely partner for sliced apple or banana as a quick snack. A note on natural separation Because there's nothing added to hold it together, a layer of natural oil will often rise to the top of the jar. That's a good sign, not a fault. It simply means the butter is pure seeds with no stabilisers. Give it a good stir before the first use and you're ready to go. Keep it in a cool cupboard, or in the fridge if you prefer it firmer. Sunflower seed butter is one of those simple swaps that quietly makes life easier: allergy-friendly, nutritious, endlessly versatile, and made from a single humble ingredient. Whether you're avoiding nuts or just fancy a change from the usual jar, it's well worth a place on your shelf.

Have you ever opened a bag of crisps, a chocolate bar or a box of cereal and felt sure it used to be bigger? You are probably right. The pack looks much the same, the price is much the same, but there is less inside. This quiet shrinking of products is common enough to have earned its own name: shrinkflation. Here is what it is, why it happens, and how to spot it so you always know what you are really paying. What is shrinkflation? Shrinkflation is when a product gets smaller while its price stays the same or falls only slightly. Instead of raising the sticker price, the manufacturer reduces the quantity, so you pay the same money for less food. The result is a higher price per gram or per kilogram, even though the headline price on the shelf has not moved. It is, in effect, a price rise in disguise. Why companies do it The honest driver is cost. When the price of ingredients, energy, packaging, labour or transport rises, manufacturers face a choice: raise prices, accept lower profit, or give you less for your money. Research into shopper behaviour consistently shows that people are very sensitive to the headline price of a product but far less likely to notice a small change in weight or the number of items in a pack. Shrinking the product is therefore the change customers are least likely to spot and object to. It is a way of passing on higher costs without triggering the reaction a visible price increase would. Where you'll notice it most Shrinkflation tends to show up in packaged, branded and processed foods, where the pack design does the talking and the exact contents are easy to adjust. Multipacks quietly lose an item, chocolate bars lose a chunk, and packets are filled with a little more air. Because the packaging often stays the same size, the change can be almost invisible unless you check the weight printed on the front. The products least affected are usually simple, unbranded staples sold by weight, where the quantity is the whole point and there is nowhere to hide. How to spot it The single most useful habit is to look at the unit price rather than the pack price. In UK shops, shelf labels are generally required to show the price per unit of weight or volume, such as price per 100g or per litre, usually in small print beneath the main price. That figure lets you compare products fairly regardless of pack size, and it is where shrinkflation shows up clearly. If the pack price has held steady but the price per 100g has crept up, the pack has almost certainly shrunk. It is also worth glancing at the stated weight now and then on the products you buy regularly, so a quiet reduction does not slip past you. How to protect your basket A few simple habits make a real difference. Compare on unit price, not pack price, every time. Be a little wary of clever packaging that looks generous but weighs less than you expect. And where you can, favour simple foods sold by weight over heavily packaged ones, because they make it far harder to hide a reduction. Buying larger formats of the staples you use often is one of the most effective defences, since the price per kilo is usually lower and there is no shrinking pack to worry about. Our Organic Jumbo Oats, for example, come in sizes from a modest bag up to bulk, all priced by weight, so you can see exactly what you are getting and what it costs per kilo. The Whole Food Earth way: sold by weight, honestly This is exactly why we sell the way we do. At Whole Food Earth, our foods come in a clear range of weight-based sizes, from a small bag right up to bulk, so you choose the exact amount you want and pay a straightforward price per kilo. There is no clever packaging disguising a smaller portion, because the weight is the whole point and it is printed plainly on every product. What the label says is what you get. When you buy by weight from us, shrinkflation simply has nowhere to hide. Shrinkflation is not a conspiracy, it is a predictable response to rising costs and to the fact that we notice prices more than portion sizes. The good news is that it only works while it goes unnoticed. Check the unit price, keep an eye on pack weights, and lean towards simple foods sold by weight, and you will always know whether you are getting a fair deal, however the packaging changes.

What you drink is shaped, more than we like to admit, by what happens to be in the cupboard. When the easiest thing to hand is a sugary fizzy drink, that's what gets poured. Stock the good stuff instead, and the healthy choice becomes the lazy one. Here are four kinds of drink worth keeping in permanently, so there's always something better than a can of pop within reach. Magnesium water Magnesium water has become a bit of a wellness talking point, and there's a sensible idea underneath the hype. Magnesium is a mineral the body needs for normal muscle and nervous-system function, and plenty of us don't quite get enough of it from food. Magnesium water simply means water with extra magnesium in it, whether that's a naturally magnesium-rich mineral water or plain water with a drinking-grade magnesium or electrolyte supplement stirred in. It's a gentle way to top up while you hydrate. One important safety point. Magnesium water for drinking is not the same as Epsom salts, which are magnesium sulphate meant for the bath, never the glass. If you want to try it, use a product made and labelled for drinking, follow the dose on the pack, and check with a pharmacist or doctor first if you take medication or have kidney problems. Natural juices A good natural juice earns its place too. The ones worth keeping are 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with nothing added, rather than the sweetened "juice drinks" that are mostly sugar and water. A splash brings flavour, a little natural sweetness and some vitamins to breakfast, smoothies or a jug of water. Two honest caveats. Juice still counts as free sugars, so it's a small glass alongside a meal rather than something to sip all day. And it's no replacement for whole fruit, which brings the fibre juice leaves behind. One juice that pulls its weight is prune juice, a traditional aid for digestion. Our prune juice is a handy one to keep in the door of the fridge. Fermented drinks If there's one category to add to your cupboard this year, make it fermented drinks. Kombucha and kefir are lightly fizzy, tangy and full of the live cultures associated with a healthy gut. They make a genuinely satisfying swap for a soft drink, with far less sugar and a lot more character. The research on gut health is still developing, so treat them as a tasty part of a varied diet rather than a cure, but they're an easy, enjoyable habit to build. Our kombucha range runs from classic ginger to zesty citrus and low-sugar options, so our Organic Ginger Kombucha is a good place to start. And for a version that lives in the cupboard rather than the fridge, our instant kombucha sachets stir straight into water, ready whenever you want one. Plant-based milk Plant-based milk is the quiet workhorse of a well-stocked pantry. Oat, soya, coconut and almond drinks all keep unopened for months in their ambient cartons, which makes them ideal to buy ahead and always have in. You'll reach for them constantly: in coffee and tea, over cereal and porridge, blended into smoothies, and in cooking and baking wherever a recipe calls for milk. A couple of pointers when you choose one. Go for unsweetened where you can, and look for versions fortified with calcium and vitamins if plant milk is a regular part of your diet. Oat drinks are the most versatile all-rounder, so a carton of organic oat milk is a sound default to keep on the shelf. Building your drinks cupboard You don't need all of these at once. Pick the ones that suit how you actually drink, keep a small stock in, and let them become the easy option. A carton of oat milk for the everyday, a bottle of real juice for flavour, a kombucha for when you fancy something fizzy, and a magnesium or electrolyte drink to hydrate with. Fill the cupboard with the right things and the rest takes care of itself.

Prune juice has a reputation as a bit of a grandparent's remedy, wheeled out only when digestion needs a nudge. That sells it short. This dark, sweet, surprisingly versatile drink has real, science-backed benefits and plenty of uses beyond a morning glass. Here is an honest, evidence-based look at what prune juice does, how it compares to whole prunes, and the best ways to enjoy it. What is prune juice? Prune juice is made from dried plums, or prunes. The prunes are rehydrated and the juice is extracted with water, producing a thick, dark, naturally sweet drink. Because it starts from an already concentrated dried fruit, prune juice is rich in flavour and natural sugars, which is why a small glass goes a long way. What prune juice actually does The best-known benefit of prune juice is supporting healthy digestion, and there is good reason behind it. Prunes, and the juice made from them, are naturally high in sorbitol, a sugar alcohol that draws water into the gut and has a gentle softening effect. This is the main reason prune juice is such a well-known, traditional aid for keeping things regular. It is one of the few home remedies with a genuine, understandable mechanism rather than just folklore. Prune juice also provides some useful nutrients, including potassium, which supports normal muscle and nerve function, along with plant compounds that act as antioxidants. It is worth being realistic, though: prune juice is a helpful, natural option for occasional digestive support, not a treatment for any medical condition. If you have ongoing digestive problems, it is worth speaking to a healthcare professional. Prune juice or whole prunes? This is the key question, and the honest answer is that they do slightly different jobs. Whole prunes keep all of the fruit's fibre, which juice largely loses during extraction, so whole prunes are the better choice if you want the full fibre benefit and a satisfying snack. Prune juice, on the other hand, still delivers plenty of sorbitol, is quick and easy to drink, and suits people who find it hard to chew dried fruit or who simply prefer a drink. Many people use both. If you would like to try them, our prune juice is an easy way to enjoy the benefits in liquid form, while our Organic Pitted Prunes give you the whole fruit and its fibre. For more on the fruit itself, our guide to the health benefits of prunes goes into more detail. How much prune juice should you drink? A small glass, around 120 to 150ml, is a sensible serving. If you are new to it, start with a smaller amount and see how you get on, because the same sorbitol that helps digestion can cause wind or a loose stomach if you drink a lot at once. Many people find a small glass in the morning works well, and you can always warm it gently, which some prefer on a cold day. Clever ways to use prune juice Prune juice is far more versatile than its reputation suggests. Beyond drinking it neat, try it in these ways. Blend a splash into a smoothie for natural sweetness and a digestive boost, especially alongside banana and oats. Use it in place of some of the sugar or liquid in baking, where it adds moisture and a deep, fruity sweetness to cakes, loaves and flapjacks. Reduce it gently in a pan to make a rich, sticky glaze or sauce for roast meats, which works beautifully with pork or lamb. Or drizzle a little over porridge or yoghurt instead of honey or syrup. If you enjoy cooking with the fruit, our guide to cooking and baking with prunes has plenty more ideas. A few sensible things to know Prune juice is a natural product, but a little honesty helps. It is concentrated, so it is naturally high in sugar, and juice sugars count as free sugars, the kind UK guidance suggests we keep an eye on. Stick to a small glass rather than drinking it like water, and be mindful of teeth, as with any sweet drink. Prune juice is not suitable as a remedy for babies or young children without medical advice, and if you are managing a health condition or taking medication, it is worth checking with a healthcare professional first. Prune juice deserves better than its dusty reputation. It is a naturally sweet, easy-to-use drink with a genuine, well-understood benefit for digestion, and it earns its place in the kitchen as much as the medicine cupboard. Enjoy it in a small glass, or get creative with smoothies, bakes and glazes, and this old-fashioned favourite quickly starts to feel a lot more modern.

Once a niche drink found only in health food shops, kombucha now lines supermarket fridges and pops up on cafe menus everywhere. This fizzy, tangy, fermented tea has built a loyal following, and much of the excitement comes down to one thing: gut health. But what exactly is kombucha, how is it made, and does it live up to the hype? Here is everything you need to know about the fermented drink everyone is talking about. What is kombucha? Kombucha is a fermented tea drink with a lightly fizzy texture and a distinctive sweet-and-sour taste. It starts life as ordinary sweetened tea, usually black or green, which is then fermented using a living culture of bacteria and yeast. The result is a refreshing drink that sits somewhere between a soft drink and a cider in character, without being either. People reach for kombucha as a lower-sugar alternative to fizzy drinks, as a caffeine-light pick-me-up, and above all for its reputation as a gut-friendly tipple. It has been enjoyed for centuries, and its recent revival is part of a much wider interest in fermented foods and the health of our digestive systems. How kombucha is made The magic behind kombucha is a curious-looking culture called a SCOBY, which stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. This rubbery, pancake-shaped disc is added to sweetened tea, where it gets to work over a week or two. During fermentation, the yeast and bacteria feed on the sugar and transform the tea. They produce the gentle fizz, the tangy acidity and a range of beneficial compounds, including organic acids and live cultures. Because the culture consumes most of the sugar as it ferments, the finished drink contains far less sugar than the sweet tea it started as. The longer it ferments, the sharper and less sweet it becomes. Kombucha and your gut The reason kombucha is so closely linked to gut health comes down to what fermentation creates. Like other fermented foods, kombucha contains live cultures, sometimes described as probiotics, which are the friendly microbes associated with a healthy digestive system. Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria, collectively known as the gut microbiome, and a growing body of research suggests that a diverse, well-balanced microbiome supports everything from digestion to immunity and mood. Fermented foods and drinks are one way people look to support that balance. It is worth being realistic, though. Research into kombucha specifically is still at an early stage, and while fermented foods are a positive addition to a varied diet, kombucha is best thought of as one helpful piece of the puzzle rather than a cure for anything. A few things to keep in mind Kombucha is generally enjoyed as part of a balanced diet, but a couple of points are worth knowing. It still contains some natural sugar, so it is not sugar-free, and amounts vary between brands, which makes the label worth a glance. Fermentation also produces a very small amount of alcohol, usually well below the level of an alcoholic drink, but something to be aware of. Because it is made from tea, it contains a little caffeine too. Anyone who is pregnant, immunocompromised or managing a health condition may want to check with a healthcare professional before making kombucha a regular habit, particularly when it comes to raw, unpasteurised versions. How to enjoy kombucha Kombucha is at its best served cold and straight from the fridge, where the chill keeps it crisp and refreshing. It makes a lovely alternative to a fizzy drink with lunch, a bright non-alcoholic option at a gathering, or a light afternoon refresher. You can also use it as a mixer or as the base for a fruity mocktail. If you are new to the taste, start with a milder, fruit-flavoured variety and work up to the sharper, more traditional styles. Finding your favourite flavour One of the best things about kombucha is the sheer range of flavours to explore, so there is something to suit every palate. If you like a bit of warmth and zing, our Organic Ginger Kombucha from Equinox is fresh, fizzy and invigorating. For something brighter, the Sicilian Orange Kombucha brings a sunny citrus twist. And if you are keeping an eye on sugar, our Zero Sugar Ginger & Lime Kombucha from Karma delivers all the tang with none of the sugar. These are just a few of the flavours in our range, which spans classic ginger, tropical fruits, zesty citrus and low and zero-sugar options from brands like Equinox, Karma, Ucha and more. Browse the full kombucha collection to find the one that suits you. Kombucha on the go: sachets If you love the idea of kombucha but not a fridge full of bottles, there is a handy alternative: instant kombucha sachets. Our Gut Kombucha Drink Powder from Purearth comes as single-serve sachets of grapefruit-flavoured powder that you simply stir into water for a quick, lightly tangy, gut-friendly drink. They are light, shelf-stable and easy to slip into a bag or a desk drawer, which makes them ideal for work, travel or anywhere a chilled bottle is not to hand. It is the same refreshing idea, made even more convenient. Kombucha is a refreshing, fermented tea with a real place in a gut-friendly diet. It will not work miracles on its own, but as part of a varied way of eating that includes plenty of fermented foods, fibre and fresh plants, it is a tasty and worthwhile addition. Pour it cold, sip it slowly, and enjoy a little gut health in a glass.

Pick up a jar of quality coconut oil and the label often reads like a little string of promises: raw, organic, virgin, cold-pressed, unrefined. They sound impressive, but what do they actually mean, and do they make any real difference? As it happens, they do, and understanding each one tells you exactly why a good coconut oil is worth choosing over a cheap, refined tub. Here is what is behind the words. Virgin: pressed from fresh coconut Virgin is the word that matters most for flavour and quality. Virgin coconut oil is pressed from fresh coconut flesh, rather than from dried, aged copra the way cheaper oils are. Because it comes from the fresh fruit, it keeps far more of the coconut's natural aroma and delicate, slightly sweet flavour. Refined coconut oil, by contrast, is usually made from copra and then bleached and deodorised to clean it up, which strips out most of that character. Virgin oil tastes and smells like the coconut it came from, which is exactly what you want. Raw: never overheated Raw tells you about temperature. A raw coconut oil has not been exposed to high heat during production, which helps protect the delicate natural compounds and flavour that gentle handling preserves. It is the difference between an oil made with care and one pushed through an industrial process. If you value keeping a food as close to its natural state as possible, raw is the marker to look for. Organic: grown without synthetic chemicals Organic is about how the coconuts were grown. Certified organic coconut oil comes from coconuts cultivated without synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, to a recognised standard. For a product you cook with and often rub straight onto your skin, that reassurance is worth having, and many people choose organic for the wider environmental benefits too. Cold-pressed and unrefined: the gentle method You will often see cold-pressed and unrefined alongside the others, and they describe the method. Cold-pressed means the oil is extracted by pressing rather than with heat or chemical solvents, and unrefined means it has not been put through the bleaching and deodorising that refined oils undergo. Together they simply mean the oil is as close to natural as possible: pure coconut, and nothing done to it that did not need doing. Why all of this actually matters Put the words together and you get the full picture. A raw, organic, virgin, cold-pressed coconut oil is pure coconut, gently made, full of natural flavour and aroma, and free from the processing that flattens cheaper oils. You can taste the difference in cooking and baking, where it lends a lovely subtle coconut note, and you can feel it when used on skin and hair, where its purity is exactly what you want in a single-ingredient natural product. If you would like an oil that ticks every one of these boxes, our Raw Organic Virgin Coconut Oil from RAWGORILLA is cold-pressed the traditional way from fresh organic coconut flesh, with no refining and nothing added. How to store it, and a note on balance Good coconut oil is solid and creamy white at cool room temperature and turns clear and liquid once it warms above about 24 degrees. Both states are completely normal, so there is no need to worry if your jar changes with the seasons. Keep it in a cool cupboard away from direct heat and light and it will last well. One honest point worth making: coconut oil is high in saturated fat, so it is best enjoyed as part of a varied, balanced diet rather than in large amounts. Choosing a better-quality oil is about flavour and purity, not a reason to use more of it. Used thoughtfully, a good raw, organic, virgin coconut oil is a genuine pleasure to cook with, and one of the most versatile jars you can keep in the kitchen.

Year after year, the Mediterranean diet is ranked among the healthiest ways to eat in the world. It is not a fad or a strict regime, but a simple, generous way of eating built around real, whole foods, and at its heart sit some of the humblest ingredients of all: beans and pulses, one of the best plant-based proteins around. Here is what the Mediterranean diet actually is, why it is so good for you, and how our Nóstimo range of organic beans makes eating this way genuinely easy and affordable. What is the Mediterranean diet? The Mediterranean diet is less a diet than a pattern of eating, inspired by the traditional habits of countries around the Mediterranean Sea. It is not about counting or cutting out, but about what you fill your plate with. That means plenty of vegetables and fruit, wholegrains, and above all beans, lentils and other pulses, generous use of olive oil, a regular handful of nuts and seeds, some fish, moderate amounts of dairy, and only small amounts of red and processed meat. Herbs and spices do the work of flavour, and meals are built from simple, minimally processed ingredients. In other words, it is a way of eating that would look very familiar to your grandmother, and very unfamiliar to the modern ultra-processed shelf. Why it is so good for you The Mediterranean diet is one of the most thoroughly studied ways of eating there is, and the research is consistently encouraging. It is widely associated with better heart health and a lower risk of several long-term conditions, and it is regularly recommended by health bodies as a sensible, sustainable pattern to follow. Much of its benefit is thought to come from the sheer quantity of fibre, healthy fats and plant compounds it delivers, and from what it naturally crowds out: sugary, salty, ultra-processed food. It is worth being measured about this. No single way of eating is a magic cure, and diet works alongside sleep, movement and the rest of your lifestyle. But if you were to choose one eating pattern with a strong body of evidence behind it, the Mediterranean diet would be a very reasonable pick. Why beans and pulses are the secret If there is one food that defines Mediterranean eating, it is the pulse. Chickpeas, lentils, cannellini, butter beans and their relatives appear in soups, stews, salads, dips and sides across the whole region, day in and day out. There is good reason for it. Pulses are naturally high in plant protein and fibre, they are filling and satisfying, they are gentle on the budget, and they let you eat well while relying less on meat. They are, quite simply, the engine room of a healthy Mediterranean plate. The only catch with dried pulses is the planning: the soaking and the long simmer. That is exactly the barrier our Nóstimo range removes. Beans and pulses: an everyday plant-based protein Pulses are one of the best plant-based protein sources you can keep in the cupboard. A single tin delivers a genuinely useful amount of protein along with plenty of fibre, which is a rare and valuable combination, since most protein-rich foods bring very little fibre with them. For anyone eating less meat, whether vegan, vegetarian or simply cutting back, beans and lentils are an easy, everyday way to keep your protein topped up. There is a simple trick worth knowing, too. Beans and grains each provide slightly different building blocks of protein, and together they complete the set. Pairing pulses with a wholegrain, think beans on wholemeal toast, lentils with rice, or chickpeas with couscous, gives you a complete plant-based protein in the most natural way imaginable. It also costs far less than meat and is much lighter on the planet, which is part of why plant-based protein has become so popular. How Nóstimo makes it easy Nóstimo is Whole Food Earth's Mediterranean range of organic tinned beans and pulses. The name is a Greek word meaning tasty, and the range is cooked and canned in Italy in nothing but water, so what you open is simply beans and water, ready to eat. Turn the tin over and there is no long list of additives, just real food that happens to be convenient. It is the perfect proof that eating a healthy Mediterranean diet does not have to mean spending your evening at the stove. Each bean brings something to the table. Our Organic Chickpeas are the everyday all-rounder for hummus, salads and curries. Creamy Cannellini Beans and velvety Butter Beans are made for Italian soups, stews and simple dressed sides. Ready-cooked Lentils drop straight into soups and salads, while Black Beans and Red Kidney Beans bring heartier bowls and stews to life. Easy ways to eat more Mediterranean You do not need to overhaul your kitchen to eat this way. Build most meals around vegetables, a pulse and a good drizzle of olive oil, and you are most of the way there. Blend chickpeas into hummus for lunch. Simmer cannellini beans with tinned tomatoes, garlic and herbs for a fast stew. Toss any bean through a salad with olive oil and lemon. Stir lentils into a soup, or spoon butter beans alongside roasted vegetables. Add a handful of nuts, some fruit and wholegrain bread, and your plate is Mediterranean without any effort at all. Healthy eating that is genuinely affordable One of the best things about the Mediterranean diet is that its staples are cheap. Pulses, grains and seasonal vegetables cost very little, which makes this one of the most affordable healthy ways to eat. Nóstimo is deliberately priced to match, with tins starting at well under two pounds and multipacks that bring the cost down further, and our free Club unlocks lower prices across the range. This is the whole idea behind the Whole Plate: that most of your plate, most of the time, should be real, minimally processed food, and that eating well should be easy and affordable rather than a luxury. A cupboard of good tinned pulses is one of the simplest ways to bring a little of the Mediterranean into your kitchen. If you would like some gentle encouragement, our free 30-day Whole Plate Pledge is full of simple ideas to help you eat this way, one plate at a time. This article is for general information and is not medical advice. If you have a health condition or specific dietary needs, it is worth speaking to a doctor or registered dietitian.

Every good kitchen needs a hero it can rely on, and few earn that title as quietly as a tin of beans. It sits in the cupboard costing very little, keeps almost indefinitely, and turns into dinner at a moment's notice. Nóstimo is our own Mediterranean pantry range, built around exactly this kind of honest, useful food: organic beans and pulses, cooked and tinned simply, ready whenever you are. Here is what the range is, why it deserves a place on your shelf, and how to make the most of it. What is Nóstimo? Nóstimo is Whole Food Earth's Mediterranean range of organic tinned beans and pulses. The name is a Greek word meaning tasty, and it captures the spirit of the range: simple, everyday Mediterranean staples that make good food easy. Our Italian Collection is cooked and canned in Italy in nothing but water, so what you open is genuinely just beans and water, ready to eat straight from the tin. Real food, made convenient There is a common belief that convenient food has to be heavily processed. Nóstimo is proof that it does not. Turn the tin over and read the ingredients, and you will find just two: beans and water. No added salt, no sugar, no emulsifiers, no additives, no long list of things you cannot pronounce. That is genuinely all there is. This is whole food that happens to be quick, which is a rare and useful thing. It also removes the one barrier that puts people off dried pulses: the planning. Dried beans are wonderful, but they need soaking and a long simmer. A tin of Nóstimo skips all of that. You get the same real, nourishing pulse, cooked and ready in seconds, which makes eating whole genuinely realistic on a busy weeknight. Why beans and pulses are worth eating more of Pulses are one of the most useful foods you can build meals around. They are naturally high in plant protein and fibre, filling and satisfying, and remarkably cheap for what they deliver. They are a staple of the Mediterranean way of eating, which is one of the most studied and well-regarded diets in the world. Eating more beans and lentils, and a little less meat, is good for your budget as well as your plate. And because Nóstimo tins add nothing but water, you get all of that fibre and protein with no added salt or sugar to worry about. Meet the range Each bean has its own character and its own best uses, so it is worth getting to know a few. Our Organic Chickpeas are the everyday all-rounder, perfect for hummus, curries, salads and roasting. The creamy Cannellini Beans are made for Italian soups, stews and simple dressed sides, while the large, velvety Butter Beans are gorgeous braised, mashed or folded into a salad. For heartier dishes, our Red Kidney Beans are the backbone of a good chilli, and the earthy Black Beans are brilliant in tacos, bowls and warming stews. Our small, creamy Haricot Beans are the classic bean for homemade baked beans and casseroles, and the ready-cooked Lentils drop straight into soups, salads and sauces for an instant protein and fibre boost. How to use them The joy of a tin of Nóstimo is how little it asks of you. Drain and rinse, and you are ready to go. Blend chickpeas with tahini, lemon and garlic for hummus in minutes. Simmer cannellini or butter beans with tinned tomatoes, garlic and herbs for a quick Mediterranean stew. Toss any bean through a salad with olive oil and lemon for an easy lunch. Stir black beans or kidney beans into a chilli, or spoon lentils into a soup to make it a proper meal. A tin turns whatever else you have into something filling and real. Made for everyone The beauty of Nóstimo is that it suits almost everyone. If you are busy, it is the fastest route to a real, home-cooked meal: drain, rinse, and dinner is already halfway made, with no soaking and no planning. If you are health-conscious, it is exactly what you want to see on a label, high in fibre and plant protein, with no added salt or sugar and nothing artificial. And if you love to cook, it is a dependable, quality base for everything from a slow-simmered stew to a quick weeknight salad. It sits patiently in the pantry, keeps for ages, and is ready the moment you are. Honest food at an honest price Good food should not be expensive, and Nóstimo is deliberately affordable, with tins starting at well under two pounds and multipacks that bring the price down further. Members save more too, since our free Club unlocks lower prices across the range. For a food this nutritious, this versatile and this genuinely whole, it is about as good value as the shop has to offer. Nóstimo sits right at the heart of what we believe in: that most of your plate, most of the time, should be made of real food, and that eating this way should be easy and affordable rather than a chore. A cupboard stocked with good tinned pulses is one of the simplest ways to make that true.

There is a reason so many of us remember our grandmothers' cooking so fondly. It was not fancy, and it rarely followed a written recipe, but it was made with care from real ingredients, and it stretched a modest budget a very long way. Cooking grandma style is less about any particular dish and more about a way of thinking. The good news is that anyone can learn it, and it makes eating whole food easy, cheap and genuinely enjoyable. Here is how to bring that old kitchen wisdom back. Start with a well-stocked storecupboard Grandmother's cooking began not with a shopping list for a single recipe, but with a cupboard of dependable staples she could turn into almost anything. That is the foundation to recreate. Keep flour, oats, rice, dried pulses, tinned tomatoes, onions, eggs, a few spices, and some dried fruit, and you are never more than a few steps from a proper meal. These staples are cheap, they keep for months, and they are the building blocks of real food. A bag of oats, a shelf of pulses and beans, and some dried fruit for baking will take you a remarkably long way. Cook from scratch, and keep it simple The heart of grandma-style cooking is making things yourself from raw ingredients. This sounds harder than it is. Most traditional home cooking is simple by design: a pot of soup, a stew left to tick away on the hob, a tray of roasted vegetables, a crumble thrown together from fruit and a rubbed-in topping. None of it requires skill or special equipment, just a pan, an oven and a little patience. Start with one or two dishes and cook them until they feel like second nature. A good vegetable and lentil soup, a simple stew, a basic loaf or a fruit crumble are all you need to begin. Once a few dishes are in your hands, you stop needing recipes at all, which is exactly how your grandmother cooked. Waste nothing Older generations cooked through leaner times, and wasting food was unthinkable. That habit is worth reviving, because it saves money and teaches you to cook. Vegetable peelings and a chicken carcass become stock. Stale bread becomes breadcrumbs, bread pudding or the base of a soup. Yesterday's leftovers become today's lunch, or the filling for a pie. Cooking with an eye to using everything up is one of the most satisfying and economical habits you can build. Cook with the seasons Grandmother cooked what was available and what was cheap, which usually meant what was in season. Seasonal produce is fresher, tastes better and costs less, because it is plentiful. Root vegetables in winter, greens and berries in summer, apples in autumn. Letting the season guide your cooking brings variety naturally through the year and keeps the shopping bill down, without any need to plan. Make one big pot The one-pot meal was a cornerstone of traditional kitchens for good reason. Stews, soups, casseroles, curries and dals can all be made in a single large pan, feed a family cheaply, and often taste even better the next day. Batch cooking like this saves time, money and washing up. Make a big pot at the weekend, eat some, and keep the rest in the fridge or freezer for busy evenings when you might otherwise reach for something processed. Bake your own There is nothing quite like the smell of home baking, and it is far easier and cheaper than most people assume. A simple loaf of bread needs only flour, water, salt and yeast. Flapjacks, scones, fruit cakes and biscuits are forgiving and quick. Baking your own means you know exactly what is in it, with none of the emulsifiers and preservatives found in shop-bought equivalents. It is grandma-style cooking at its most rewarding. Preserve When there was an oversupply of fruit or vegetables, nothing went to waste. Jam, marmalade, chutney and pickles were how our grandparents captured a summer harvest to enjoy through the winter. Making a batch of jam or a jar of chutney is a lovely, old-fashioned skill that is easier than it looks, and it turns a cheap seasonal surplus into something you will enjoy for months. A gentle way to begin You do not need to master all of this at once. Cooking grandma style grows one dish and one habit at a time, exactly as it always did. Pick a soup or a stew, learn it properly, and build from there. Before long, you will find yourself cooking without recipes, wasting almost nothing, and filling most of your plate with real, honest food. This is the spirit of the Whole Plate, our movement to bring real cooking back to British kitchens. If you would like a nudge to get started, our free 30-day Whole Plate Pledge shares one simple swap, idea or recipe a day, the kind of everyday cooking your grandmother would recognise in an instant.

One of the biggest myths about eating well is that real food is a luxury. It is easy to believe when a shiny "healthy" ready meal costs more than a takeaway, and when the cheapest calories in the shop are usually the most processed. But the truth is that some of the most nourishing whole foods are also among the cheapest things you can buy. Eating whole on a budget is not only possible, it can genuinely cost less than living on ultra-processed food. Here is how to do it. The cheapest foods are often the wholest Start with a reassuring fact. Pound for pound, the best value foods in any shop tend to be simple, unprocessed staples. Oats, rice, dried beans, lentils, chickpeas and other pulses cost very little, keep for a long time, and are full of fibre, protein and slow-release energy. Plant proteins like beans and lentils are far cheaper than meat, so building more meals around them is one of the fastest ways to bring your food bill down while eating better. A bag of Organic Jumbo Oats makes weeks of breakfasts for pennies a bowl. A cupboard of pulses and beans turns into soups, stews, dals and curries that cost a fraction of a ready meal. Grains like millet and rice stretch any meal further. These are the foundations of a whole plate, and they are cheap by nature. Cook from scratch, and let leftovers work for you The single habit that saves the most money is cooking simple food from raw ingredients. Processed and ready-made products almost always cost more per portion than making the same thing yourself, because you are paying for the manufacturing, packaging and marketing as well as the food. You do not need to be a skilled cook. A pot of lentil soup, a tray of roasted vegetables, a big batch of chilli or dal, these are cheap, forgiving and easy. Batch cooking multiplies the saving. Make a large pot, eat some now, and freeze or fridge the rest for meals later in the week. Using up what you have and wasting less is money straight back in your pocket, since food thrown away is money thrown away. Buy in bulk, and pay by weight Once you are cooking around a handful of staples, buying them in bigger quantities is the obvious next saving. Larger bags almost always work out cheaper per kilogram than small packs, because you are paying for less packaging per portion. The trick is to compare the price per kilo, not the price on the front of the pack, since that is where the real difference shows. Store bulk buys sensibly and they last: keep everything in airtight containers somewhere cool and dark, pop oily foods like nuts and seeds in the freezer, and decant a big bag into smaller amounts so nothing is wasted. A well-stocked cupboard of bulk staples is the backbone of affordable whole eating. Join the WFE Club and pay our lowest prices Here is where the savings really stack up. The easiest way to get cheaper whole foods with us is to join the Whole Food Earth Club. It is completely free, with no membership fee and no subscription, and it unlocks lower, member-only prices across our whole range. You simply create a free account, log in, and the member prices appear as you shop. The Club is how we pass those true, direct prices on to our members. Combine free Club pricing with buying your staples in bulk, and you save twice over on exactly the foods that should fill most of your plate. What a cheap whole plate looks like Put it together and the meals almost design themselves. Porridge with a handful of seeds and some frozen or dried fruit for breakfast. A lentil or bean soup with wholemeal bread for lunch. A vegetable and chickpea curry over rice, or a big tray bake of roasted roots and grains, for dinner. Snacks of oats, nuts and dried fruit rather than packets. None of it is expensive, all of it is real food, and it leaves the ultra-processed aisle behind without leaving you hungry or out of pocket. Eating whole on a budget is really the heart of the Whole Plate idea: most of your plate, most of the time, made of food that was grown rather than manufactured. It does not take a bigger budget, just a shift towards simple staples, a bit of cooking, and prices that are actually fair. If you would like a gentle way to start, our free 30-day Whole Plate Pledge sends one small swap or idea a day, and most of them will save you money as well as help you eat better.

Picture your grandmother's kitchen table. Now picture the contents of a typical shopping trolley today. In the space of a few generations, the British plate has changed almost beyond recognition, and not entirely for the better. It is worth looking closely at what was on that older plate, what is on ours now, and what happened in between, because the comparison points quietly towards a better way to eat. What was on grandmother's plate The everyday British diet of the early and mid twentieth century was, by modern standards, modest and repetitive. It was also almost entirely made of real food. Bread was flour, water, salt and yeast. Potatoes appeared daily. There were root vegetables that stored through winter, onions, carrots, cabbage and turnips, along with dried peas and lentils. Eggs, a bit of local cheese, stewed meat when it could be afforded, fish where the coast was near, apples in autumn and jam made from summer fruit. Tea, taken strong. It was not a glamorous way to eat, and nobody should pretend it was. But it had one quiet virtue: almost all of it was food you could recognise, prepared from raw ingredients in a home kitchen. What people ate was shaped by the season and by what the local shop could keep. The vast industry of branded products, manufactured flavours and year-round everything simply did not exist yet. What is on today's plate Now turn over a few packets from a modern shop and read the backs. The muesli has emulsifiers. The bread carries a list of dough conditioners. The yoghurt is held together with thickeners, stabilisers and modified starches. The "natural" smoothie has thirty ingredients. The "wholegrain" cereal can contain more sugar per bowl than a biscuit. Even savoury snacks arrive fortified with added vitamins, protein and fibre they never contained in the first place. This is not a fringe problem. The analyses of the NHS suggest that around two thirds of the calories the average British adult eats now come from ultra-processed food, and the figure is higher still for teenagers and young children. In plain terms, most of what most of us eat is no longer the kind of food your grandmother would have called food. How the plate changed None of this happened by choice, and there are no real villains in the story. It was the result of a food system built up decade by decade, mostly without anyone noticing. Wartime rationing left a generation hungry for variety and convenience. The supermarkets arrived to meet that hunger, growing from a handful of stores in the fifties to thousands within twenty years. Other shifts came at the same time. More women entered the workforce, so there was less time for cooking. Fridges became normal. Commercial television arrived in the 1950s, bringing branded food advertising with it. Frozen meals, instant mash, tinned everything and single-wrapped slices of cheese each solved a small daily problem for a tired household. Added together over thirty years, they changed what a British plate looked like, until ultra-processed food became the default rather than the exception. What we gained, and what we lost It would be dishonest to be purely nostalgic. The modern food system gave us real things: variety, convenience, safety, and freedom from the monotony and scarcity our grandparents often endured. Very few of us would actually want rationing back, or a winter of nothing but root vegetables. But we lost something too. We lost a certain amount of health, as diet-related conditions have climbed. We lost food culture, the everyday knowledge of how to turn cheap raw ingredients into good meals. And we lost a clear sense of what is actually in our food, buried now under labels that promise "natural" and "wholesome" with no agreed meaning behind the words. The point of looking back is not to romanticise hardship. It is to notice the one genuinely good thing about the older plate, that it was made of real ingredients, and to bring that part forward. Bringing the good part back The encouraging thing is that you do not need to cook like it is 1935 to eat better. You do not have to give up your supermarket, throw out your cupboards, or count anything. The idea is simply to tilt the balance back: most of your plate, most of the time, made of food that was grown rather than manufactured. In practice that means leaning on the same honest staples grandmother's kitchen relied on, oats, pulses, grains, root vegetables, eggs and simple bread, and cooking them without much fuss. A pot of lentil soup, a tray of roasted vegetables, a bowl of porridge with fruit. None of it is expensive, difficult or joyless. It is just real food, cooked simply, which is exactly what the plate used to be. That is the whole idea behind the Whole Plate, our movement to bring real food back to British kitchens, one small swap at a time. If you would like a gentle way to start, our free 30-day Whole Plate Pledge sends one simple idea a day. Thirty days later, your plate looks a little more like the one your grandmother would recognise, and a lot more like food again.

We already know that ultra-processed foods are linked to problems like weight gain and heart disease. Now a large study has added the brain to that list, connecting a diet high in ultra-processed food with a greater risk of stroke and of memory and thinking problems. It is worth understanding what the research actually found, what it does and does not prove, and what it means for the way we eat. What the study found Published in the journal Neurology in May 2024, the study drew on data from a long-running project called REGARDS, which followed more than 34,000 adults in the United States aged 45 and over. Researchers looked at thousands of participants over time, tracking their diets alongside their brain health. The headline findings were striking. A 10 percent increase in the proportion of ultra-processed food in someone's diet was associated with a 16 percent higher risk of cognitive impairment, meaning problems with memory and thinking, and an 8 percent higher risk of stroke. Encouragingly, the reverse was also true: a 10 percent increase in unprocessed or minimally processed foods was linked to a 12 percent lower risk of cognitive impairment and a 9 percent lower risk of stroke. An important word of caution Before anyone panics, this kind of study shows an association, not proof of cause and effect. It cannot say for certain that ultra-processed food directly causes stroke or cognitive decline, only that the two tend to go together in the data. People who eat a lot of ultra-processed food may differ in other ways too, and researchers do their best to account for that, but observational studies always come with this limit. The findings are a strong signal worth taking seriously, not a reason to fear a single biscuit. What counts as ultra-processed food? Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations made largely from substances extracted from foods, along with additives, colours, flavourings and preservatives, rather than whole ingredients you would recognise in a kitchen. Typical examples include fizzy drinks, mass-produced snacks and crisps, packaged biscuits and cakes, sweetened breakfast cereals, instant noodles and many ready meals. The defining feature is not just that they are processed, but that they are heavily reformulated and often designed to be very easy to overeat. Why might these foods affect the brain? The study did not set out to prove exactly how ultra-processed food might harm the brain, but scientists have several reasonable ideas. Diets high in these foods tend to be high in salt, sugar and unhealthy fats, all of which can affect blood pressure and blood vessels, and healthy blood flow matters enormously for both stroke risk and brain health. Some research also points to inflammation and effects on the gut. And there is a simpler factor at work too: the more room ultra-processed food takes up on your plate, the less room there is for the nutritious whole foods that support the brain. These are plausible explanations rather than settled conclusions, but they fit with what we know about diet and health more broadly. The hopeful part: whole foods pushed the other way Perhaps the most useful takeaway is the positive one. In the same study, eating more unprocessed and minimally processed foods was associated with a lower risk. That is genuinely encouraging, because it suggests the goal is not simply to fear certain foods but to make room for better ones. Shifting the balance of your plate towards whole ingredients appears to be a change worth making. Simple ways to shift the balance You do not need a perfect diet to move in the right direction. The aim is to gradually crowd out ultra-processed items with simple, minimally processed foods you can build meals around. Wholegrains such as oats are an easy starting point, so a bowl of porridge made from our Organic Jumbo Oats is a far cry from a sugary packet cereal. Nuts and seeds make a brilliant swap for packaged snacks, and a handful of nuts or a spoonful of seeds adds healthy fats and fibre without a long ingredients list. Pulses, wholegrains, fruit, vegetables and simple cupboard staples all belong in the same camp: recognisable foods, minimally messed with. None of this means never enjoying a treat. It means making whole, minimally processed foods the everyday default and treating heavily processed items as the exception. Small, steady swaps add up, and this research is a timely reminder that what is good for your heart is very likely good for your brain too. This article is for general information and is not medical advice. If you have concerns about stroke risk, memory or your diet, particularly if you have an existing health condition, it is worth speaking to a doctor or a registered dietitian.

Ultra-processed food is everywhere in the headlines, and plenty of us have decided we would like to eat less of it. There is just one problem: when it comes to actually pointing at a product and saying whether it counts, most people are stumped. A recent UK study put this into sharp focus, and the findings are surprisingly reassuring. If you are not quite sure what ultra-processed food really is, you are in very good company, and there is a simple way to cut through the confusion. What the study found Researchers writing in the journal BMC Global and Public Health interviewed 30 UK adults who do the food shopping and cooking for their households. Almost everyone saw ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, as artificial and probably unhealthy. Yet when asked to sort real foods into categories, they struggled. The technical system used to define UPFs made little sense to them, and the line between an ordinary processed food and an ultra-processed one felt blurry and hard to pin down. This fits a wider pattern. Earlier research has found that while around 73 percent of UK adults recognise the term ultra-processed food, only about 13 percent can correctly identify which products actually fall into the category. That is a striking gap, especially now that ultra-processed foods make up more than half of the average person's daily calories in the UK. Why it is so confusing Part of the trouble is that the official definition was designed for scientists, not shoppers. It sorts food by how much it has been industrially processed and reformulated, which is useful for researchers but hard to apply in a supermarket aisle. The obvious culprits are easy enough. Most people happily identify fizzy drinks, crisps and packaged biscuits as ultra-processed. It is the borderline cases that trip everyone up. In the study, foods like yogurt and plant-based meat alternatives caused real head-scratching, because they can be simple or heavily reformulated depending on the brand. Clever marketing does not help either. A product can be covered in words like natural, high protein or plant-based and still be ultra-processed. Labels are designed to sell, not to help you classify what you are buying. A simple test that actually works Here is the good news. You do not need to memorise a scientific system to eat well. Interestingly, the people in the study had already hit on a sensible shortcut of their own: they looked at the ingredients list. That instinct is a genuinely useful tool, and you can lean on it too. Turn the packet over and read the ingredients. Ask yourself two simple questions. First, is the list long? Second, is it full of things you would never find in a home kitchen? Ingredients like emulsifiers, stabilisers, artificial flavourings, colourings, sweeteners, protein isolates and hydrogenated or interesterified fats are all signs of heavy industrial processing. If a product reads like a chemistry set, it is very likely ultra-processed. If it reads like a recipe you could recreate at home, from a handful of recognisable ingredients, it is almost certainly not. This is not a perfect scientific test, but it is a practical one that gets you most of the way there, and it works far better than trying to guess from the front of the pack. What clearly is, and clearly isn't To make it concrete, foods that are almost always ultra-processed include fizzy and energy drinks, mass-produced sliced bread, packaged cakes, biscuits and crisps, sweetened breakfast cereals, instant noodles and most ready meals. At the other end sit whole and minimally processed foods: plain oats, dried beans and lentils, nuts and seeds, plain natural yogurt, tinned tomatoes, fresh fruit and vegetables, and simple storecupboard staples. Something like a bag of Organic Jumbo Oats, with one ingredient on the label, is about as far from ultra-processed as food gets. Knowing is only half the battle The study made one more important point worth being honest about. Even people who could spot ultra-processed food did not always avoid it, and the reasons were completely understandable: cost, convenience, taste and family habits. The researchers concluded that awareness alone is unlikely to change much if healthier, less processed options remain more expensive or harder to reach. In other words, this is not simply a matter of willpower or ignorance. That is exactly why building meals around affordable whole-food staples matters so much. Basics like oats, pulses, rice, nuts and seeds are cheap, filling and about as minimally processed as it gets, especially when bought in larger, better-value quantities. Making those the foundation of your shopping is one of the most practical ways to eat less ultra-processed food without spending more. So if you have felt confused about what counts as ultra-processed, you are far from alone, and you do not need a science degree to make good choices. Read the ingredients, favour short and recognisable lists, and build your meals around simple whole foods you could imagine cooking from scratch. That single habit will do more than any amount of memorising ever could. This article is for general information and is not medical or dietary advice. If you have specific health concerns, it is worth speaking to a doctor or registered dietitian.