Healthy Recipe Pairing Tips

First match your physical condition and life rhythm, then give priority to ingredients with high nutrient density, and finally leave yourself 10% "room for indulgence". I have been a family nutritionist for 6 years, and I have seen too many people stick to the standard answers and give up halfway. Instead, they ruined their stomachs and made them anxious about eating. Today I will clarify the useful techniques and pitfalls that have been encountered.

To be honest, there are a lot of controversies about healthy eating nowadays. Just "should we strictly follow the pagoda diet of Chinese residents?" can cause two groups to argue. The public nutrition community favors standardization. It is recommended that ordinary people try to get enough of the recommended amounts of four categories: cereals and potatoes, vegetables and fruits, livestock, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, and soybeans and nuts. After all, the conclusions are based on large-scale population data and are the most universal. ； However, most clinical nutritionists prefer individual adjustments - if you are a gout patient, the amount of soy products and high-purine seafood must be reduced; if you are lactose intolerant, don't just drink milk in exchange for yogurt and Shuhua milk; if you are a 996 office worker, it is simply unrealistic to ask you to get up 40 minutes early every day to cook whole grain porridge and make fancy breakfasts, and the strict requirement will make you give up directly.

Last year, I provided nutrition consultation for employees of an Internet company. At the beginning, I followed the one-week recipe provided by the meal pagoda, which required whole grains, high-quality protein, and vegetables and fruits for breakfast every day. After a week, the statistical implementation rate was only 17%. Many people said, "It's too late to sleep for 10 minutes more in the morning. How can I wash strawberries and cut purple potatoes?" Later, we changed the plan to be more down-to-earth: for breakfast, you can directly choose tea eggs + sugar-free soy milk + multi-grain steamed buns from the convenience store. If you get hungry after three o'clock in the afternoon, add a handful of original nuts or a small apple. After these changes, the implementation rate directly increased to 62%. Many people reported that "it turns out that eating healthily does not have to be so troublesome."

Many people’s misunderstanding about healthy eating is that they need to eat salads and eat grass. In fact, this is not the case at all. Nutritional density is the core. What's the meaning? Food that can provide you with more vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and other nutrients under the same calories is called high nutrient density. If you eat a salad with only lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and a lot of salad dressing, the calories may be about the same as a bowl of multigrain porridge with vegetables, eggs, and minced beef, but the latter has a much higher nutrient density and is more filling, so you won't feel hungry all afternoon. There are also different schools of thought here: people in the fitness circle like the combination of "high protein and low carbs", and it is indeed efficient to build muscles and control body fat. ； However, experts in the field of chronic disease prevention and control recommend a combination of "whole grains accounting for 1/3 of the staple food", which is more friendly to blood sugar and blood lipids. In fact, there is no absolute right or wrong, it just depends on your current needs - if you are preparing for a competition recently, choose a high-protein diet. If you have an elderly person at home with high blood sugar, add more whole grains and adjust flexibly.

Many people have told me, "It's past seven o'clock when I get home from get off work every day, and I only have half an hour to cook. How can I make it healthy?" ”There is no complicated operation involved. When I am working late on a project, I always have three things in the refrigerator: frozen mixed vegetables (corn, green beans, carrots), pre-marinated chicken breasts or frozen shrimps, and vacuum-packed brown rice balls. When you get home, put the brown rice in the steamer and heat it up. Heat oil in a pan and stir-fry mixed vegetables and meat for 10 minutes. Then use the remaining water from cooking the noodles to blanch a small rapeseed. It takes less than 20 minutes to add up. It has all the carbohydrates, protein, and dietary fiber. It is much healthier than ordering takeout that is heavy in oil and salt, and it also saves time. Oh, by the way, there is no need to deliberately pursue how many ingredients to eat every day. You forgot to eat fruit today. You can also supplement vitamins by nibbling a small tomato or cucumber. There is no need to buy expensive imported berries to make up for it. We ordinary people have to consider cost-effectiveness when eating, right?

Finally, don’t be too harsh on yourself. I have seen too many people make healthy eating a burden. They don’t dare to eat this or touch that. Instead, they become anxious about eating. A little girl came to me for a fat loss consultation before. In order to lose weight, she did not touch any added sugar or oil for three months. In the end, her aunt postponed the weight loss for more than half a month, and then she even ate cakes in revenge. She lost 8 pounds in three months, but gained 10 pounds in less than a month. In fact, the World Health Organization recommends that the energy supply ratio of added sugar should not exceed 10%, preferably less than 5%, which is about 25g per day. A cup of milk tea with normal sugar is only about 30g of sugar. If you drink it once a week, if you drink it evenly, you will meet the standard every day, and you will not feel guilty at all. Of course, there are extreme fat-reducing people who say that they should completely quit adding sugar, but for ordinary people, it is really not necessary. You have to know that eating habits that can be adhered to for a lifetime are good habits. If you set aside one or two "indulgent meals" for yourself a week, eat hot pot and drink a cup of milk tea, not only will it not affect your health, but it will help you stick to it for a long time.

In fact, after all is said and done, is there any standard answer to healthy recipes? After eating, your stomach will feel comfortable, you will have enough energy during the day, and you won’t have to worry about eating. If you can stick to it, it is the best combination. Don’t be bound by the “must eat” and “can’t eat” rules on the Internet. After all, eating well is the first step to living a good life.