Golf or Simnel Cake on Easter Sunday?

HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT.

First I must explain what simnel cake is - it's a rich fruit cake (like Christmas Cake) with a layer of marzipan in the middle, marzipan on top and 11 balls of marzipan depicting the 11 faithful disciples. Judas was horrible and betrayed Jesus so he is not thought fit to decorate a simnel cake! It is only made at Easter but not many people bother with it these days; maderia cake with lots of fattening icing seems more popular.

I'm a nutritional therapist as well as a good cook so I can tell you that this cake is medium G.I. and therefore a good snack to sustain you whilst playing a round of golf. So the answer to the title is both. Are you familiar with the G.I. rankings of carbohydrate foods? If no please see my blog on 'Good Nutrition Gives Energy Enabling You To Exercise'.



Basically low and medium G.I. foods do not release too much sugar into the bloodstream in one hit so you get a slow release of energy from the glucose (sugar turns into this energy form in the body). High G.I. foods e.g. chocolate cake act like rocket fuel giving a short-term buzz. So what makes fruit cake good - the presence of the fruit (sultanas G.I. 55) and wholemeal flour and the fact that this type of cake contains carbohydrate, fat and protein. Foods with a balance of nutrients tend to have a low G.I. number. A good way of losing weight is to follow the G.I. diet, see the author for more details.


So did I enjoy the golf and cake - very much so. Got up early and had time to bake the cake and go to golf. By the way, again for the larger readers among you, 18 holes burns up 1001 calories, 9 holes - 429 assuming you walk, so if you need to lose weight a round of golf would be ideal. At the end of the day it is pleasing that I got 2 pars, baked a lovely cake and calories in equaled calories out including eating some Easter egg.