Although I cook and eat in part to fuel my own running and cycling, the role food plays in the lives of my children is also really important to me. This means helping them to understand where food comes from and the impact different foods have on us. I’m vegan, my wife’s vegetarian and three of my four children are vegetarian. So understanding what to buy and learning how to cook are important, as well as having a life-principles balance so we don’t have to feel like martyrs to the cause!

Kate Percy’s Go Faster Food for your Active Family show nutritional information for each of the recipes, which is great - these burgers are high in protein and low in fat (very low in saturates). But it has a really helpful key indicating healthy/sustaining, pre-exercise or recovery, as well as vegetarian and economy eats.

The first of Kate’s recipe I tried making was crunchy granola, but I was a bit cautious and made half the amount. This time round, I was gung-ho and made double! My wife was a bit concerned that we might not get through it, but she needn’t have worried!


I chose this particular burger recipe of Kate's at least partly because I love sweet potatoes. Our normal organic veg box never seems to include them (not grown in the UK?) and most of the family like them (not easy finding things everyone likes!). So I don’t need much excuse to go out and buy some, and trying out this recipe was just the reason! This was an easy recipe to follow and it’s fun to get your hands in the mix forming burger shapes that then sizzle in the pan! I made a few tweaks to Kate’s recipe along the way (sorry!):

• I never add salt to my cooking - I figure we get salt lots of ways in our modern diets and I’m conscious of ensuring we all replace salt lost during exercise.
• I used dried, rather than tinned, lentils - that's just my choice. I cooked them first and skimmed off the scummy foam bit!
• I leave the skins on all potatoes - they’re a source of vitamin C, so long as you use organic veg with no pesticides that need washing off.
  

There is one thing I would do differently next time I make these burgers - I think I needed to work harder to squeeze the moisture out of the mix, as the early burgers were still a bit squidgy!

I have to say the finished product was very tasty and so filling! I tried the burgers in wholemeal wraps or pittas, served with avocado and raw baby spinach leaves. It took less than 20 minutes from start to finish and it was handy that I could keep the mix in the fridge. My 16 year old daughter came home from school for lunch a couple of times and cooked herself one of these healthy burgers, now that's got to be good!


6 November 2017