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Celebrity square meals: The low-carb burger by Iwan Thomas MBE, the British 400m record holder

Makes two burgers

Saturday 21 May 2005 00:00 BST
Comments

I first found out that there was such a thing as a low-carb burger while I was training in America a few years ago. You could say that I quite like burgers, and the guys out there started to take the mickey, and told me I should try the low-carbohydrate version.

So I did. And I liked it. It's basically a burger without a bun, held instead inside lettuce. Some fast-food places do them over here, but they're much harder to come by than they are in the States, so here's how to make your own.

It's healthy, perfect for me - athletes need lots of protein but not carbohydrates - we only really eat a lot of carbs the day before a race.

It's good to have simple recipes to hand if you're into sport. After training, I try to eat within half an hour. Which should be about enough time to follow this recipe.

200g quality beef, coarsely minced (get the low-fat stuff to be extra healthy)
Half a small onion, chopped as finely as you can
1tsp chilli powder
1 egg
1tsp mustard
1 iceberg lettuce

Remove outer leaves and cut the lettuce in two. Cut out a whole chunk of the centre leaves (you could make a salad with those) so that you end up with two chunks of lettuce that will work as pouches.

Mix the other ingredients in a bowl, making sure the egg is well mixed through to bind it together. Then shape the mixture into two rounds and grill them (much healthier than frying). Serve them in the lettuce pouches.

Iwan Thomas appears in 'Celebrity Wrestling', tomorrow morning at 9.55am on ITV1

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