During the Monsoon, Eat healthy

It's that time of the year you've been eagerly waiting for - the monsoons. Be it the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops or the lashing fury of the rain gods, the monsoon is a time of hangout, music, and magic. The smell of the rain-soaked earth, children getting wet in the rain, guzzling hot cups of tea and pakoras or even enjoying a rain dance can gladden many a heart and recharge your batteries. But beware, the rain also brings with its dirt, disease, and disarray. Yes, believe it or not, the monsoon does have an impact on your health. Watch out for these health hazards. 

It's your cleanliness (both personal as well as environmental) and eating habits that are the two main factors you need to keep in mind. Be careful, malaria is one of the biggest fallouts of the monsoon. Also, you need to pay closer attention to your eating habits. Keep in mind the following tips:

Fish and Shellfish

'Don’t count your calories when you eat fish'. This is a fairly accurate statement as fish is naturally low in calories and fats. Some fish are excellent sources of fatty acids. 

But beware of the cholesterol levels in squid, lobster, and shrimp as these are higher as compared to other fish such as salmon or trout, which can be safely included in your diet once or twice a week.

Purchasing tips:

• Buy the whole fish: The best quality fish should be purchased whole, and in the case of shellfish, should preferably be purchased live, in quantities which are consumed within a day.
• Buy properly stored fish: Like poultry and meat, fish should be bought only from places where there are the proper storage and freezing facilities. Fish needs to be kept well-chilled till just before use. It is best stored in chipped ice.

Tips on Meat and Poultry

Your chicken curry won’t taste half as good if you haven’t chosen the right portions or prepared it the right way. Nor will your koftas be succulent if you haven’t got the right cut of mutton. Here’s a ready reckoner to help you buy as well as cook your meat to your stomach’s delight.

Purchasing tips:

On portions to buy: The best cuts of lamb are usually the leg, shoulder, and loin. If buying chicken or duck, make sure the breast is well-trimmed. With pork, go for the tenderloin, loin and fresh, center-cut of ham. In-game birds-quail, partridge or grouse- the breast meat is ideal and should be well-trimmed.

On temperature: While purchasing poultry and meat you must ensure that the retailer has kept them at the right temperature (40F). Never purchase meat stored at room temperature.

Water and Alcohol

Water constitutes 60 percent of your body. It is present in your skin, hair and even in your teeth and bones. Water acts as a universal solvent that dissolves minerals and other compounds and carries them throughout your body. Water carries nutrients and other necessary building materials to each cell in the body, besides being an integral part of the cells themselves. Water is critical to the body's chemical reactions and also removes impurities from the bloodstream and vital organs.

Water acts as an ideal cushion between joints, organs and sensitive tissues. It maintains pressure on the optic nerves enabling vision, helps to stabilize blood pressure and regulate body temperature. It also cools the body by getting converted into water vapor due to body heat.

Did you know that your body loses about 1,000 ml of water daily through sweating and bypassing urine? This amount needs to be replenished daily by drinking

Honey is Healthy

Healthy eating is quite simple – eat more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. It’s all about making the right food choices but doesn’t it at times feel hard, too boring and just no fun. You know fresh fruit is what you should eat, but what you crave for is that packet of  Pure Magic or that bar of golden brown chocolate. But eating right doesn’t have to be boring if you add a dash of honey to your diet. 

The great flavor and natural sweetness of honey not only satisfy your sweet tooth but also adds that something important to foods – nutrition. It contains small amounts of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, and even antioxidants.

In ancient days, honey was the only sweetener known to man. Often described as the elixir of life and the food of the gods, honey is an important part of religious ceremonies. Besides being a sweetener, honey is also valued for its therapeutic effect and forms the base of many ayurvedic medicines.

Salts in Food

Salt is the most basic seasoning used in your kitchen. In earlier days, it was used as a preservative when refrigeration was unknown. Most people are under the false impression that food would be tasteless without salt. The major function of salt is to enhance the flavor of food. 

In each meal, you should try a balance of flavors -- some subtle, some more pronounced and yet others that are background flavors. The best way to achieve a good mix of flavors is to select a variety of foods, especially some having their own natural salts. Excess salt is harmful and table salt, being highly processed is the most harmful of them. So remember to use salt in moderation.

When herbs, spices, and sauces are poorly chosen or used in excess, they can spoil the natural taste of the main ingredient. Similarly, an excess of salt can, over a period of time, kill the sensitivity of one's taste buds.

Glorious Garlic

Isn’t it hard to imagine cooking without garlic? A clove of garlic does wonders to your food, igniting and exciting your palate as no other herb can do. In fact, garlic is liberally used in western cuisine too. But did you know that besides its culinary properties, garlic is also a medicinal herb?

This herb was first used in ancient times by the Egyptians to treat wounds, infections, tumors, and intestinal parasites. No wonder they called it the great protector. Modern scientific research confirms these ancient uses of garlic, including its ability to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. It is the sulfur-containing compounds of garlic that lend the herb its spicy aroma and are responsible for many of its healing properties. These compounds lower cholesterol by stimulating the release of bile by the gall bladder and by decreasing the production of cholesterol in the liver. In addition, garlic compounds gently lower blood pressure by slowing the production of hormones related to blood pressure.

Tips for Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates provide your body with fuel so that it runs smoothly. A diet which is rich in carbohydrates should include a variety of lentils, bread, and vegetarian dishes. Refined sugar, which is also high in carbohydrates should be consumed in moderation, as it is contained only starch and adds to your body’s fat content.

Here are some tips to minimize the consumption of refined sugar in cooked food:

• Use only the minimum amount of sugar, syrups or other sweeteners in the recipe. 
• Use sweet spices like allspice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla, and herbs to flavor a dish, and then decide on the amount of additional sugar needed. 
• Add ripe fruit, and nuts for their natural sweetness and flavor, wherever possible. 

Tips for Reducing Fat

Your food can be both nutritious and delicious if you reduce the fat content in your food. This is not difficult, nor will it make your food taste bland, as is commonly perceived. Grilling, roasting, smoking, steaming, poaching, baking, and microwave cooking are excellent ways of cooking if one wants to reduce one's fat intake. Thus by slightly altering your cooking style, you will discover new and easy ways of reducing the fat content in your diet.

To moderate the amount of fat used in the kitchen, you have to realize the purpose it serves in a particular dish. It could be used to impart flavor to a dish, or to give it a rich sheen, or to prevent food from burning or to act as an emulsifying agent or preservative. Whatever the purpose, fat can be easily minimized from your diet.

The first step to reducing your fat intake is by trimming and discarding surface fat from meat. The skin of most poultry can be left in place for grilling, roasting, or sauteeing, but it is best removed just before serving because a lot of the saturated fat is concentrated in the skin. Another way to cut down on the usage of fat is while cooking. Let us see how one can cook food with

Five Tips for Healthy Eating

Eat to live and not live to eat. That, in a nutshell, should sum up your attitude to food and eating. Do you grab a bite whenever you have the urge to eat or forget to eat when you are too busy? Then it would be a good idea to think through these food rules to get the best out of your meals.

1. Eat regularly throughout the day including three main meals and at least two snacks. This will maintain your blood sugar levels at an optimum level throughout the day. If you miss meals, you will get low blood sugar at some stage. To make up for the missed meals if you go an eating spree that will raise your blood sugar levels. This will lead to a skewed up eating pattern. So eat little and often. Eating sporadically will also affect your metabolism. When you miss meals, your metabolism has a tendency to slow down. This happens because you're sending it messages that food is scarce, so it will attempt to get more from the food you do give it. A pattern of eating where you don't eat much during the day and then hog a lot at night will do just that. Excessive eating in one go will overload your digestive system, putting it in overdrive.

Feast on Fiber

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Are you one of those who stuff yourself silly with Popcorn and then feel guilty? Well, after reading this you can have all the popcorn that you want. Besides being the most wholesome cereal, popcorn is also non-fattening and high in fiber.

Fiber, also known as roughage, fiber is a component of food that is more or less indigestible and can be found in all fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Fibers can be either insoluble (the less digestible bran fiber) or soluble (cellulose fibers from fruits and vegetables). For good health, you need both types of fibers in your diet.

Fiber is important to your body because it helps with the proper functioning of the intestinal tract as it speeds the elimination of waste products. It is a natural laxative and alleviates constipation. Those suffering from constipation should have a rich fiber diet. In addition, a rich fiber diet prevents colon cancer as there is less exposure to cancer-causing agents to the intestinal tract.

Energy Balance

When you eat, you are taking in energy and when you work you are burning energy. When you burn exactly what you take in, you are in a state of energy balance. Energy balance is simply when energy intake is equal to energy expenditure. 

But do you eat more than you burn? Or burn more than you can consume? Then your energy balance leaves much to be desired. When your energy intake is equal to the needs of your body, bodyweight is maintained at a fairly constant level. This constant body weight is an index of energy balance in healthy adults.

However, when intake is consistently inadequate and is unable to meet the body’s need for energy, the fat reserves in the body make up for this deficit leading to a loss of weight. An underweight person has reduced the capacity for work, low vitality and low resistance to disease.

Food Exchange

Did you know that one medium size bannock (Chapati) is equal to one slice of bread, four Indian Marie biscuits and two tablespoons of cooked rice?

What it means is that all these four items have the same number of calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fat and in terms of nutrient composition can be substituted with each other. For instance, you can substitute a bannock for biscuits or rice. That would increase the number of calories. This is the food exchange system wherein foods in any one group can be substituted by a different food within the same group, differing in only the portion size. However, foods in one group cannot be exchanged for foods in other groups.