When you've been on a diet for several months as I have, there comes a time when you find yourself eating the same things over and over again just because they're easy to prepare. After the initial flurry of enthusiasm doing wonderful things with okra and bean sprouts, real life takes over, and trying to dream up new low fat recipes becomes tedious. I found myself eating smoked salmon and tomatoes or steak and tomatoes or anything and tomatoes most of the time.
Then somebody suggested that I take a break from cooking and get my meals delivered. I had never really considered it before. The only takeaways I've ever tried have been from Chinese and Indian restaurants and they certainly wouldn't fit in with my new low-fat life.
It turns out that there are companies that specialise in delivering healthy food to your doorstep, which is how I found myself sitting in the offices of a nutritionist in a white coat staring in horror at one kilogram of wobbly rubber "fat" mounted on a plinth. Trust me, it's not a pretty sight. If I ever consider wavering from my diet, all I need to do is conjure up the memory of this blubbery mass and remember that I used to carry around eight more of them. I definitely think they should market them as an aid to slimmers.
Nathalie Hadid, a 30 year old with a Master's degree in nutrition and dietetics from McGill University, set up Right Bite (@email:www.right-bite.com) because she could see there was a demand for it in Dubai, where the sedentary lifestyle makes people pile on the pounds.
"A lot of people want to eat healthily but are limited by availability or access to healthy meals. They think that a diet means they should only eat grilled fish or chicken and salad. We decided to give them what they want to eat but prepared in a healthy way and with sensible portions. We don't use anything artificial and we try to focus on what makes people break their diet. A lot of time it's cravings, so we try to give people their fix of chocolate or whatever for the day."
Sensibly, Hadid insists that her clients come in for a consultation during which they are weighed, measured and have their blood pressure taken. She also uses a body composition analysis machine and in my case suggested that I should lose another 4kg of fat from the abdominal area, which is related to higher risk factors such as cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.
It's a little more than I was thinking of losing, as I have already shed 8kg but hey, I'm on a roll if you will excuse the analogy. I might as well carry on for a little longer.
Because I'm active and exercise quite a bit, she decided to allow me 1,300 calories a day. If I eat too few calories, she warned, I will lose muscle and that's not good.
We went through some menus together and I was surprised at the variety of dishes on offer and that are constantly being refreshed. I found myself choosing muffins with jam, sugar glazed banana bagels, egg sandwiches or glazed apricot almond scones with jam and low fat cream cheese.
For lunch there's prawns and vegetables with noodles, okra stew with tomatoes and meat or beef lasagne, and dinner could be chicken pizza, steamed lemon grass and ginger chicken or pink pepper steak with sautéed spinach. And that's not all. There are snacks, side dishes and even cake for that mid-afternoon energy slump. A Right Bite club sandwich contains only 325 calories, compared to a regular club sandwich at 720 calories, and their chocolate mouse is a 100 calorie treat compared with the normal 275.
It all arrives at whatever time you want, either at your home or your office, neatly packed in a green cooler bag, your tailor made menu typed out with your name on top. I was amazed at how much food I was expected to eat in one day and wondered if the calculations were correct. The other thing I noticed was the size of the portions, just enough to satisfy my hunger but not huge and clearly carefully cooked. The food is very tasty, although I find the bagels hard work as I haven't been eating much bread recently.
A team of chefs works through the night at Right Bite's kitchens in Al Quoz creating meals for people all over the city before the start of the day.
The food is then blast chilled and delivered in refrigerated vans. Every week you choose the following week's menus and you get reminder phone calls if you forget. If you are away they will cancel your delivery, credit you and start again when you get back. The service has been such a success that they are considering starting up in Abu Dhabi.
It's hard to give an exact cost as every package is different, but it's not all that much more than a weekly shop at the supermarket and there's no waste. It's perfect for very busy or very lazy people or people like me who just fancy a change.
pkennedy@thenational.ae
Voices: How A Great Singer Can Change Your Life
Nick Coleman
Jonathan Cape
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Company%20profile
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SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
On sale: Now
How to get there
Emirates (www.emirates.com) flies directly to Hanoi, Vietnam, with fares starting from around Dh2,725 return, while Etihad (www.etihad.com) fares cost about Dh2,213 return with a stop. Chuong is 25 kilometres south of Hanoi.
CHATGPT%20ENTERPRISE%20FEATURES
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The specs
Engine: 1.6-litre 4-cyl turbo and dual electric motors
Power: 300hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 520Nm at 1,500-3,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.0L/100km
Price: from Dh199,900
On sale: now
MIDWAY
Produced: Lionsgate Films, Shanghai Ryui Entertainment, Street Light Entertainment
Directed: Roland Emmerich
Cast: Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, Luke Evans, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Darren Criss
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Napoleon
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20Ridley%20Scott%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20Joaquin%20Phoenix%2C%20Vanessa%20Kirby%2C%20Tahar%20Rahim%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%202%2F5%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
The Beach Bum
Director: Harmony Korine
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Isla Fisher, Snoop Dogg
Two stars
SERIES INFO
Cricket World Cup League Two
Nepal, Oman, United States tri-series
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu
Fixtures
Wednesday February 5, Oman v Nepal
Thursday, February 6, Oman v United States
Saturday, February 8, United States v Nepal
Sunday, February 9, Oman v Nepal
Tuesday, February 11, Oman v United States
Wednesday, February 12, United States v Nepal
Table
The top three sides advance to the 2022 World Cup Qualifier.
The bottom four sides are relegated to the 2022 World Cup playoff
1 United States 8 6 2 0 0 12 0.412
2 Scotland 8 4 3 0 1 9 0.139
3 Namibia 7 4 3 0 0 8 0.008
4 Oman 6 4 2 0 0 8 -0.139
5 UAE 7 3 3 0 1 7 -0.004
6 Nepal 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 PNG 8 0 8 0 0 0 -0.458
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Zayed Sustainability Prize
The five pillars of Islam