In Winter, Break These 6 Bad Habits of Eating Hot Pot
On a cold winter day, there's nothing more enjoyable than gathering around a table for hot pot. A bubbling pot not only allows you to savor delicious food but also invigorates blood circulation and drives away the cold, making it a favorite for many. However, some bad habits that often go unnoticed when eating hot pot can silently rob you of the health benefits. Do you have any of these 6 bad habits of eating hot pot?
1. Liking "Fresh" and Eating "Raw" Can Lead to Illness
Meat dishes like lamb, fatty beef, and fish are often the "main courses" people order when eating hot pot. In the cold winter, feasting on these delicious meats can indeed increase calories and is very satisfying.
However, many people love their meat tender and undercooked, failing to master the heat. They often toss raw meat slices and raw fish into the pot and immediately scoop them out to eat. Lu Tong, a nutritionist from the Nutrition Department of Tongren Hospital, reminds everyone that raw meat and seafood can easily be contaminated by pathogenic microorganisms and parasite eggs. Therefore, they must be thoroughly cooked in boiling broth to kill these germs and parasites before consumption, to prevent or reduce the occurrence of digestive tract inflammation and intestinal parasitic diseases.
Generally speaking, thin meat slices should be simmered in boiling water for about 1 minute, changing from bright red to grayish-white, before they are safe to eat. For shellfish like clams and river shrimp with thicker flesh, they should be boiled in the pot for more than 5 minutes.
2. Mixing Raw and Cooked Food Leads to Contamination
When eating hot pot, chopsticks often serve two purposes: handling raw food to be put into the pot and lifting cooked food out. Some people even use the same pair of chopsticks to pick up raw meat from the hot pot and then use them to serve food from their bowl, which can easily transfer bacteria from the raw food to the mouth and even contaminate the entire dish.
Experts point out that if the utensils for eating hot pot are not distinguished for different uses, it can also lead to illness. Utensils used to handle and serve raw food should be kept separate from those for direct consumption to avoid cross-contamination and germs entering the body through food.
At the same time, to avoid cross-contamination, it's best to use serving chopsticks.
3. Extreme Temperature Contrast Harms the Digestive Tract
When eating hot pot, especially spicy hot pot, the combination of heat and spiciness can make people sweat profusely even in winter. Some like to drink iced beer or beverages with hot pot, thinking it can relieve the spiciness and heat. However, experts warn that this sharp contrast in temperature can easily cause indigestion, leading to diarrhea and constipation. Nutritionist Lu Tong explains that drinking cold beverages can cause the blood vessels in the stomach to constrict, slow down gastrointestinal motility, and reduce digestive secretions. At the same time, the drop in temperature reduces the activity of digestive enzymes, which is not conducive to digestion. Don't be too impatient when eating hot pot and avoid eating food that is too hot. Additionally, you can choose some room-temperature vegetable juices, dairy products, or plant-based protein drinks to better aid digestion.
4. Heavy on Spiciness and Oil Can Cause "Heatiness"
On very cold days, red oil hot pot and spicy hot pot are more popular. The thick layer of red oil enveloping the food is indeed delicious, but it turns even originally healthy vegetables into unhealthy "harmful" items. Nutritionist Lu Tong also reminds that red oil contains a large amount of irritating foods (like green onions, ginger, chili peppers), which can cause swelling and congestion in the digestive tract and irritate the gastrointestinal mucosa, making it unsuitable for patients with gastric ulcers and ulcerative colitis. When picking up food from the hot pot, some red oil is also brought into the mouth, significantly increasing fat intake. Moreover, winters in northern regions are relatively dry, and spicy food can cause the body to lose a lot of water and easily lead to "heatiness." It's best to pair it with cooling and neutral vegetables that have a sweet and mild nature, which can have a cooling, detoxifying, and heat-reducing effect. Examples include winter melon, loofah, rapeseed, spinach, cabbage, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, lotus root, water bamboo, bamboo shoots, and bok choy.
5. Eating and Chatting Easily Leads to Overeating
Unlike stir-fried dishes, hot pot keeps the food warm. As long as broth is continuously added, the hot pot continues to emit warm steam, causing people to eat and chat unconsciously and lose track of time. In fact, sitting for a long time to eat hot pot greatly increases the burden on the digestive system.
Experts suggest that because the stomach continuously receives food, overeating at once causes digestive juices like gastric acid, bile, and pancreatic juice to secrete non-stop, easily leading to gastrointestinal dysfunction with symptoms like abdominal pain and diarrhea. Binge eating can also trigger acute pancreatitis. You can choose to eat vegetables and starchy foods first, and meat last. Eating until you are 80% full can help reduce calorie intake.
6. Long-boiled Broth Can Induce Gout
Everyone should be reminded that the purine content in hot pot broth is very high and is not suitable for patients with hyperuricemia and gout. Secondly, the nitrite content in long-boiled hot pot broth increases. If you plan to drink the hot pot broth, you should skim off the surface oil and consume it within 20 minutes after it comes to a boil. Furthermore, patients with high blood lipids, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and coronary heart disease should eat hot pot in moderation.