Eating a Mediterranean diet rich in fish, olive oil, legumes, fruit and vegetables may strengthen the heart but the cost strains the wallet and may deter healthy eating, according to Spanish researchers.

They’re not kidding! While a healthy Mediterranean diet has more carbs than a low-carb diet, try doing low-carb on a tight budget!

Don’t you love how doctors with six-figure incomes can sit there and pontificate about what we should and should not be eating. They haven’t a clue or any advice about how some people are going to afford to do so.

Consider a loaf of bread, often the whiter the cheaper, at say $2.50. Add to that some cheap toppings. The bread and the toppings most likely can last several days for lunches. So say $7 for all that. I’m dealing in Australian dollars, but would equally apply anywhere.

Consider a large bowl of salad. The lettuce alone would be $2-$3. The whole salad could easily cost $15-$20. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, parsley, witlof, bell peppers, pea sprouts and more. No root vegetables. Or I could make a high-carb potato salad for a few dollars.

Add to that meat, chicken or fish, and you’ve got a very expensive meal. Multiply that for other meals in a week and you’ve got a healthy diet that is definitely too expensive.

If you’re on a pension or are a low-wage earner, trying to feed a family, it’s totally impossible.

Instead, it’s fine for governments and medical insurers to fork out millions in trying to fix the problem instead of being proactive and preventing it in the first place. Not sure what the answer is, but food production somehow needs to be subsidised. It’s getting far too expensive to eat well.

Not to worry, we can atone for our eating sins (amongst others) at Yom Kippur, just 10 days later, with a 24 hour fast.

It’s also no secret, however, that I’m a bit of an atheist, despite my background, my involvement with my local Jewish community (on the board), and my very sentimental tie to my cultural if not religious heritage.

Rosh Hashanah is traditionally accompanied by lots of sweet food, so you’ll have a sweet year. That’s the theory, or close to it. It’s nice to have an apple dipped in honey, and challah (bread, sweet at this time of year), also dipped in honey, and carrots drowning in honey, or kugel with a double dose of sugar and honey.

Almost everything you eat on Rosh Hashanah is ether dipped in or drowned in something sweet. Just a bit of overkill. Seriously folks, did the Rabbis not ever consider people with diabetes? It’s all just not the same with Splenda!

My mouth waters just thinking of the food that will be laid out tonight in a community event for Rosh Hashanah, that expects around 150 people. I had a hand in preparing some of it today and will continue tomorrow afternoon. Not sure my aching legs can take any more but there’s no way I’m not going back to that kitchen!

Oh what a hypocrit I must be – a Jewish Athiest who cooks for and partakes in traditional Jewish Holiday meals? You know what? I don’t care! Call me names but I love it all! I love the craziness around this time. I love seeing people I might not have seen all year. I love the spirit of community and the happy flavour (excuse the pun) of the holiday. I especially love it when the Israelis all start to sing, much to the delight of the rest of us who are too shy to get into such merriment.

Weighing up options is a fact of life with diabetes. I can let my BLGs go to hell in a handbasket, (insulin pump or not – there’s no way I can account for every last carb) or I can sit there like Miss Goody-Two-Shoes and pick a piece of dry chicken and some nutrient-free lettuce and maybe a tomato.

Maybe I don’t have to do all-or-nothing. Maybe I can have it all, in very tiny portions?  My carb-load will probably still go to blazes but it’ll be slightly easier to manage. Missing out totally is a very poor alternative.

What would you do?

Gorgeous food! Seafood and vegetarian. Clean, fresh food, generous portions, Asian influence, spicy.

Recommend: Calamari – either tempura or grilled

Outside tables on a slant – can be bothersome (lost one point in the rating for this)

Rating: 9/10

This category is about food I love, restaurant reviews, recipes, interesting food links and more. I have been cooking since my early 20s. Always willing to learn and experiment, my style is mostly European and Middle Eastern. No vegetarian or tofu for me thanks!

Favourite dishes include:

Veal Schnitzel with Bratkartoffel (fired potatoes & onions)
BBQ Lamb in olive oil, rosemary, lemon or lime rind, sea salt, cracked black pepper

I will, however, make a comment that in nearly 10 years in Byron Bay, I’ve yet to find a restaurant that is awesome, reasonably priced, has good service and is somewhere that gives me mouth-watering thoughts when I plan on going there. Pity.

Yes, a few restaurants here have won awards, but as a general lower-carb eater with European tastes, the chili and corriander that pervade so much of what is offered, along with the carb stodge, leaves me searching the menus with a magnifying glass.