David Lawson

Food Swaps – Eat Clean Without Sacrificing Your Favourite Food

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Our power burger range is the ultimate eat clean ‘superfood’ burger, created with fitness enthusiasts and nutrition conscious people in mind. We created the range with the aim of breaking the stigma of the ‘unhealthy’ burger and provide our customers with a food that is both rich in nutrients and high in protein.

Swapping a regular fast food burger, or high fat supermarket burger for one of our Power Burgers is a positive step towards a healthier and cleaner lifestyle… but what else could you be doing on your healthier lifestyle journey? We list some of our favourite food swaps to get you started: 

Swap Your Burger Bun
All’s fair and well if you’re swapping your high fat burger for a low-fat, high protein power burger, but if you’re having it in a regular ol’ bun then you’re still consuming unnecessary empty calories. Instead, sandwich your burger in an English muffin.
Swap Your White Bread & Pasta
Talking of empty calories, white bread & pasta is full of the troublesome little mites due to the high white flour content. Swapping to whole meal/brown bread & pasta reduces that significantly and provides you with added fiber – perfect for keeping you fuller, for longer.
Swap Your Salt
Most foods already have salt, whether natural or added. Although our body naturally needs a bit of salt, too much can raise your blood pressure and encourage fluid retention, which puts strain on your kidneys, arteries, heart and brain. If you’re looking for a flavour enhancer try adding herbs and spices to meals. You’ll be surprised at just how great these can be!
Swap Your Rice
Steer clear of white rice and swap for a baked potato. Potatoes have three times more fiber, keeping you fuller for longer, and possibly preventing you reaching for a calorific snack! If you want to go one step further, go for sweet potatoes, which are not only high in fiber, but packed full of vitamin C and E.
Swap Food Prep  
The way you prepare your food can make a huge difference. Instead of frying your meat, use a George Foreman or grill, this will vastly reduce the amount of fat that your meat retains. When cooking veg – try steaming instead of boiling, doing so will increase the amount of nutrients that your veg retains.
Do you have a favourite healthy food swap? Let us know in the comments section below: 

8 Ways to Eat Black Pudding

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One of our favourite products… the mighty black pudding! The meaty flavoured delight sometimes comes with an infamous reputation, but any Scots foodie enthusiast knows that this succulent sausage has quite a few tricks up its sleeve. We share eight of our web favourites right here:

With a traditional breakfast 

Start the day on a full stomach with bacon, eggs, mushrooms, black pudding and pork sausage. Click here for our favourite New Yorker’s perspective. 


Pan-fried with king scallops 
One of our own, this scallops and cardamon syrup recipe gives black pudding a mouth watering tangy twist. 
In a roll with scrambled egg, & a hot drink on the side
Nothing beats a good breakfast roll and a hot drink – coffee, tea? You name it. Black pudding is the token ingredient here, complemented perfectly with some scrambled eggs. Delicious! 

 

With roasted apples & sage 
You know what they say about an apple a day. This Good Food Channel recipe does just the trick combining black pudding with soft roast apples.

Stuffed in piquillo peppers 
Black pudding made into tapas? The thick rich taste of black pudding goes perfectly stuffed in hot and tangy piquillo peppers.

Grilled with white pudding 
Black pudding grilled with their sister pud… black and white pudding makes a delicious duo! Serve up with toast & tomato ketchup. 

With potato pancakes & poached eggs 
You can’t get more traditional than a creative version of potatoes, accompanied with black pudding. Add in a poached egg and your meal is complete. This Irish recipe for potato pancakes is sublime. 

With ‘mashed tatties’
Quick and easy… grill or fry your black pudding, boil and mash your potatoes and you have a simple yet delicious combination! Sprinkle with parsley for an extra tasty kick!

Do you have a favourite accompaniment to black pudding? Let us know in the comments section below: 

Why are sausages called bangers? – A brief history

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From the Cumberland, to the Chorizo or the Bratwurst, we have a bit of an obsession with the sausage in the UK. There are hundreds and hundreds of different sausage flavours available in Britain but when did we first start eating them, and why on earth do we call them bangers?

Sausages are much older than even the ancient Greeks. Around 5,000 years ago the Romans used to mix fresh pork with things like cumin seeds, pepper and pine nuts. 

Much to our horror, the consumption of the sausage was also once banned because of their association with pagan festivals. Thankfully this was back in 320 AD, and the ban has since been lifted, otherwise we’d not have the dish we know and love today.
So why do we call it the sausage? The Oxford Dictionary says that the first reference to the food’s name came during the 15th century where the words ‘sawsage’ and ‘salcicia’ first appeared in the British vocabulary.
Why on earth did the sausage become the ‘banger’? Well, this started shortly after the First World War, when products like fresh meat were put on ration. Pork and beef were in very short supply, and so instead of the meaty loveliness that we know and love today, sausages were packed out with cereals, water and scraps. When these sausages were fried they had a tendency to pop, hiss, explode and burst…hence the name ‘banger’ was borne.
It’s important to mention that you can assess quality by the number of pops and hisses your banger releases when cooking. If it’s a noisy sausage, it’s a bad sausage. If it’s a silent sausage, it’s of high meat content and full of goodness.

We really could go on about sausages all day, but we did say brief history…so it’s time to stop. Got any good facts or good recipes for sausages? We’d love to hear them.

BREAKING NEWS: Famed Haggis Hunter in Snow Drift Struggle!

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LIVE REPORTING:
By Speyside Specialities (live on scene)

Welcome to Speyside Specialities live updates of our famed haggis hunter Hairy McGreevey, who is stuck head first in a snow drift, feet facing the skies, after diving for a haggis. 
8:12: Hairy McGreevey’s wife arrives on scene, showing signs of mild distress and exclaiming 
that if Hairy is not rescued from his predicament, soon his ears will freeze.
9:01: UPDATE. Weather in Scottish highlands worsens.

9:05: What can only be described as colourful language, can be heard coming from Hairy. We currently have our specialist ‘stuck in snowdrift’ language experts deciphering the speech. 

9:15: Hairy is still making a din from under his snowdrift. As far as we can make out, he is saying… he wishes he had worn his wooly pants that his grandmother had knitted him for Christmas as the strong icy winds are freezing his bottom.
9:16: Hairy’s wife can be heard shouting, “Hairy, you shouldn’t have worn your kilt either!”
9:52: Experts are called on scene and explain in an exclusive interview with Speyside Specialities, that apparently Hairy had been sipping on some of Scotland’s finest home made nectar all morning which has helped him keep warm. 
10:03: All efforts so far to free Hairy have failed, not to mention the fact that the sight of his bare legs and nobly knees are not helping the situation.
12:14: A severe snow storm has hampered Hairy McGreevey’s rescue over the last few hours. It would seem that his headfirst position in the snow drift with his feet stuck in the air has resulted in his upturned kilt filling with snow and making him extra heavy to heave out. 
12:31: After much digging and tugging Hairy has eventually been freed.
12:33: As far as we can gather from the scene, it has reminded us about the children’s story of the farmer and his giant turnip, which is quite apt due to Haggis being served with neeps (mashed turnip) and tatties!
12:35: A freed Hairy has taken off down the hill at an extreme rate of knots heading to the warmth of the bothy. What a sight! His long frozen beard is stuck to his chest, his kilt flying asunder and disappearing into the blizzard. 
12:51: Apparently all is well and Hairy is now wrapped up warm in front of the fire with a large tumbler full of Scotch whiskey. As for today’s Haggis hunt… it has been quite poor! 
Everyone at Speyside Specialities is glad to hear that Hairy is okay and recovering well from his ordeal. We hope to see him back up the hills tomorrow for a successful day of haggis hunting! 
Please send your best wishes to Hairy as he is feeling a little embarrassed and some cheering up from around the world would be much appreciated! Maybe tomorrow we can get a few words from him about his misfortune. Stay tuned!

Shhh…..LEAKED DOCUMENT! Haggis Hunting – An Insiders Guide

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Speyside Specialities
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Speyside Specialities Employee,
Haggis are particularly illusive creatures who are rarely seen and often misunderstood. Having roamed the remote Scottish Highlands for centuries, they are amongst the world’s oldest animal species. Very skittish, quick and known for their stealth-like qualities, haggis can be very hard to catch. This is why most humans never get to see haggis in their natural habitat.

As one of the UK’s largest supermarket suppliers of haggis, Speyside Specialities employs only highly trained haggis hunters. This confidential document unveils the secret top tips for successful haggis hunting – ensuring our customers enjoy our national dish on Burns Night along with their neeps and tatties.
After cracking the code to release the hunting ground coordinates from our company safe, ensure you adhere to the following:
1.    Haggis are known to have one set of legs longer than the other to climb hills with ease. Females are known to have longer legs on the right, whilst males have longer legs on the left. This occurs so that males and females are more likely to meet whilst roaming the hills. Catching haggis out with trip wires has proved successful.
2.    Haggis are very smart and are able to deceive hunters. It is because of this that you must emulate the call of the haggis – only used when haggis are happy and safe in the knowledge they are in no immediate danger. To adopt this calling technique, simply cup your hands around your mouth and emulate the drone of a small set of bagpipes. 
3.    Haggis have a great sense of smell – especially when it comes to the scent of a human being. In order to hunt a haggis you must ensure that you do not smell ‘human’. The best method of masking your smell is to rub all clothing and exposed skin with a mixture of whisky and left over mashed tattie. N.B: Only genuine Scotch whisky will work.
4.    There are two species of the haggis – the lowland and the highland. Their distinctive markings – grey stripes on the lowland and grey spots on the highland – are easily observed. The lowland also tends to have a much broader accent, while the highland has a much thicker coat – naturally evolved due to the harsh environments presented in the highlands.
Happy Haggis Hunting – and remember, the British public are relying on you.
Yours Sincerely,
David Lawson

Managing Director

New Year Resolutions – The Facts!

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“Cheers to New Year and another chance for us to get it right!” – Oprah Winfrey


It’s 2015… and many of us have already vowed to change one of our bad habits or start a good one. For the majority of us this is getting fit and getting healthy. But how likely are we to stick to these plans? We’ve compiled a few wee facts about New Year resolutions: 

The most popular resolution for Brits is unsurprisingly to lose weight. Last year (2013) around 29% of British adults made the News Year’s Resolution to beat the bulge – that is 14.5 million people!
An estimated 7 out of 10 people join a gym in January… now that’s motivation.
According to research conducted by the Guardian 38% of us who take up DIY end up with an injury… oops!
Believe it or not there is a particular day in which you are most likely to break your resolution. This day is called ‘Fail Friday’ and usually lands on the last Friday of January. Make it past this day and your success rate is looking pretty good.
Even if you do break on Fail Friday, don’t feel too bad as you could always be within the 2% of resolution makers that don’t even make it past New Year’s Day!
All in all, it is estimated that 8% of people achieve their New Year resolutions – at least some of us reach the finish line eh?

Do you have a New Years resolution? If so, how do you plan to stick to it?