Nourish Your Family Meals This Nutrition Week (1st to 7th Sept, 2011)
This September, try and improvise the way your family eats. Encourage more nutrition wise shopping and see the difference in self and your family’s stamina as well as endurance levels.
These suggestions from our diet experts will innovate the way you cook and look, health guaranteed:
Incorporate Whole Grains: There is broad spectrum of whole grains that you can choose from; brown rice, whole wheat, oats, bulgar, rye, couscous, dalia (broken wheat) and bran. Besides fiber, your palette will provide you more Vitamin B, zinc and selenium.
Ensure a Colorful Palette: Bright richly colored fruits and vegetables contain more nutrients and antioxidants. Brightly colored produce like tomatoes, carrots, papayas, mangoes, red cabbage and beetroots are a good source of carotenoids, a form of vitamin A that may help prevent vision troubles, heart disease and even cancers.
Avoid Packaged and Processed Foods: Besides added salt and preservatives, you are not benefitting from any ready-to-eat meals. You are exposing your family to health barriers like hypertension, bad digestion, excess calories and malnourishment.
Cook Fresh: Fresh is best. Freshly cooked meals are the healthiest in terms of vitamin and nutrient content. Cook with seasonal, farm fresh, preferably organic produce. Frozen, canned vegetables, although still healthy, should be a last choice because many of the C and B vitamins are destroyed in the cooking process.
Don’t Throw Away the Water: All experts enforce the concept that most benefit is attained from your fruits and veggies if you eat them raw. If you cook them, choose steaming rather than boiling, so you don’t lose the vitamins in the cooking water. Diet experts are particular about reusing vegetable cooking water. Water that remains from steaming or boiling, you can retain some of the vitamins that were lost. Do not throw away water after boiling rice or potatoes/vegetables, instead use it water when making gravy/dals.
- Make breakfast cereal healthy with sliced bananas or almonds.
- Blend some fresh fruit, yogurt, and honey for a wholesome breakfast smoothie.
- Cook a healthy egg by whipping chopped vegetables like spinach, mushrooms, and green peppers to an omelet.
- Enjoy a piece of fresh fruits with your lunch or as a snack.
- Add a green salad to your evening meal. Simple additions like yellow peppers,tomato, or olives can make it more interesting.
- Use loads of vegetables as a topping for easy meals like pizza or pasta. Eat some dried fruit handy as an energy-rich snack.
Learn to cook healthy for your family with a wide choice of healthy recipes from DesiDieter.
Tina Khanna
