Lovely medium raw fillet steak on a bed of spicy veg. Looks like a massive plate. I had no trouble finishing it off.

I feel a little bit guilty, we just discussed this week at work what a burden to environment beef is. Our company has nothing to with food unfortunately, but the topic came up as Barry who looks after our environmental agenda presented some numbers and suggested that we stop serving beef in our canteen. Not entirely unexpectedly to anyone apart from maybe Barry his proposal didn't go down well with the audience mainly consisting of middle-aged Yorkshire men who recognise three food groups: pork, beef and gravy. (I know I'm being prejudiced and unfair, I actually know a vegetarian Yorkshire man, young Adam from work and it is entirely possible there are others.) In the debate I supported Barry perhaps slightly hypocritically considering my secret steak habit and the fact that I don't eat in the canteen because I'm based in our Southern office. But opposition was fierce. The main reason for this tended to be "I like beef". Fair enough.

But stats are very much supporting poor heckled Barry, I hope it's safe for him to return to work soon. According to him 26% of all greenhouse gases come from food production, and about half of that from beef. If you disagree with the numbers talk to Barry, but I had a quick look and although there are lots of estimates out there, whatever numbers you go by the fact remains, beef is quite a culprit.

So I am going to improve my ways and do some vegetarian cooking tomorrow. I am planning to do some chickpea and hummus patties for which I prepared this nice light hummus already.

But I did pop into Waitrose and got two venison steaks so as not to make this move too cold turkey-like. I think deer are less farty than cows, just by looking at their physique you can kind of make this conclusion, so they probably burden the environment less than their more flatulent domesticated cousins. And one can't very well be expected to eat chickpea burgers all the time, can one?

Gorgeous Scottish venison with broccoli, asparagus and a salad.

My Friday night dinner date with Jamie Oliver - unfortunately we disagreed about mackerel.

So today I made this lovely light hummus. This (and the steaks) are all part of my convoluted new lifestyle which aims to invigorate  my sad middle-aged metabolism and get rid of some excess belly blubber. Included is a menu of lots of protein, complex carbs, fibre, controlled amounts of fat and thus sadly very little cheese, apart from cottage cheese which is not really cheese.

And combined with my new HIIT exercise regime I can already see a little change and scales confirm a loss of about 4.5 pounds or 2 kilos. And I can do a set of shitty commando planks without wanting to strangle Emi Wong, one of my youtube trainers.

And back to the hummus. Even compared to my best ever silky-smooth hummus with lots of tahini this lower fat version is really tasty. For this version I didn't peel the chickpeas because I thought this way it probably has more fibre in it. I have no evidence of this. But I have first hand evidence and can testify in court that peeling them is boring as hell. I used good quality chickpeas (a glass jar = good quality in my world), so the hummus was still really smooth and velvety. I didn't add any oil at all and only one not too heaped tablespoon of tahini. One day when I am industrious enough I will do them both and taste test them side by side.

But I can recommend this on it's own. And I will tell you how it works in the hummus and chickpea burgers once I get to them.

Best ever low calorie hummus

Calories in the entire pot 360 kCal, fat 15g

200g of drained chickpeas and some of the liquid
1 level tbsp of tahini
1/2 clove of garlic
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp cumin
Salt

Grate the garlic and add all ingredients in the mixer. Mix well, check the taste and add more salt or lemon if necessary.