How to Eat Healthily During the Holiday
With the arrival of the Mid-Autumn and National Day "double festival," are you ready?
With changes in modern lifestyles, holiday eating should focus on being scientific, hygienic, and healthy, moving away from the old habit of "being frugal and eating sparingly on normal days, then eating heavily during festivals."
A reasonable and healthy diet means that the variety of foods and nutrients in your daily diet should be complete, the quantity sufficient, and the proportions appropriate, achieving nutritional balance and ensuring a scientific and rational ratio of various nutrients. Here are a few healthy tips for your holiday diet.
Tip 1: Reasonable Calorie Distribution
During the holidays, many people like to sleep in, waking up at nine or ten in the morning, thus skipping breakfast and waiting for a big lunch to satisfy their appetites. This practice should be avoided. The daily calorie distribution for three meals during the festival should be reasonable. Skipping breakfast and overeating at lunch and dinner can easily lead to metabolic overload and obesity. Breakfast during the holidays should be rich in high-protein foods (a glass of milk, an egg, and congee), and you can also drink some coffee or tea to refresh your mind. Dr. Wang suggests that the most reasonable calorie distribution for three meals is: 25% for breakfast, 40% for lunch, and 35% for dinner. Additionally, for those who want to control their weight or lose weight, it is also necessary to appropriately control the total daily calorie intake, especially reducing the consumption of high-calorie foods like peanuts, walnuts, and sesame, and cutting down on snacks.
Tip 2: Supplement with High-Quality Protein
Appropriate intake of high-quality protein from meat, eggs, milk, etc., can not only enhance physical strength and energy but also, as high-quality protein is rich in tyrosine that can keep the brain awake and alert, it can also drive away "spring drowsiness." It is recommended to consume soy products in moderation, but avoid consuming a large amount of high-protein food at once during gatherings, as this can lead to nutritional excess and increase the burden on the kidneys. Gout patients should pay special attention to their intake of high-protein substances.
Tip 3: Diet Should Be Light and Mild
For cooking, use vegetable oils such as peanut oil, soybean oil, and olive oil, with a daily limit of no more than 30 grams. Use less deep-fried and pan-fried food to prevent obesity, fatty liver, hyperlipidemia, and other diseases. You can eat more fungi, such as black fungus, tremella, mushrooms, and shiitake mushrooms. Black fungus is rich in calcium, which plays a leading role in the function of human muscles, heart, and brain cells. Tremella is rich in tremella polysaccharide, which can enhance the phagocytic ability of the body's macrophages. Mushrooms contain mushroom polysaccharide, which can resist the invasion of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Spring is a time when viruses are active, and many viruses can take advantage of a weakened immune system to enter the body. Edible fungi are natural health supplements in the spring, and eating more of them can increase the body's antiviral capabilities.
Tip 4: Eat More High-Fiber and High-Mineral Foods
Choose high-fiber and high-mineral foods, increase the intake of yellow-green vegetables and seasonal fruits, which can not only supplement the body's vitamins and inorganic salts but also fully meet the liver's needs. Vegetables like shepherd's purse, rapeseed, celery, spinach, Malantou, wolfberry tips, toon, and dandelion can have effects such as clearing heat and detoxifying, cooling the blood and improving eyesight, promoting urination, and stimulating the spleen and whetting the appetite. Eating some green onions, ginger, garlic, and chives in moderation can dispel cold and dampness, has the effect of sterilizing and preventing diseases, and can reduce the incidence of colds.
Tip 5: Pay Attention to the Combination of Staple and Non-Staple Foods
During holiday gatherings, many people only eat meat dishes and not staple foods, which is neither in line with the principles of health preservation nor meets nutritional needs. Staple foods are the main source of our daily energy. Eating too much staple food with little consumption can lead to obesity, but not eating staple foods can lead to insufficient energy for normal activities, causing physical weakness and fatigue—you may lose weight but not have a healthy constitution. Therefore, ensuring an appropriate amount of staple food at each meal can guarantee sufficient energy without leading to obesity. General principle: Eat less staple food, and fill up on non-staple foods.
Tip 6: Pay Attention to the Combination of Coarse and Fine Grains
Modern people's diets are often refined and elaborate, with more fine grains and little coarse grains. In fact, although polished rice and refined flour taste good, the outer layers rich in B vitamins, calcium, zinc, iron, and dietary fiber are removed during processing, which can easily lead to deficiencies in vitamins and trace elements. However, coarse grains like millet, oats, and sorghum are rich in nutrients. Therefore, a combination of coarse and fine grains is necessary. During the festival, while enjoying the delicious meals made from fine grains, it is important to eat some coarse grains from time to time to effectively ensure adequate nutrient intake.
Tip 7: Pay Attention to the Combination of Meat and Vegetarian Foods
There should be four-legged livestock like pigs, cattle, and sheep; two-legged poultry like chickens and ducks; one-legged fungi; and legless fish. Also include soy products and fruits and vegetables with roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits. This is what constitutes a nutritious, healthy, and delicious meal. Generally speaking, a balanced diet with a meat-to-vegetable ratio of 1:4 is recommended. Among the meat, the proportions of four-legged, two-legged, one-legged, and legless foods should each account for 1/4.
Tip 8: Pay Attention to the Combination of Acidic and Alkaline Foods
As people's living standards improve, the intake of acidic foods such as meat, eggs, poultry, and fish and shrimp is increasing, which can cause the body's internal environment to become more acidic, leading to various metabolic diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the intake of alkaline foods such as seasonal vegetables (carrots, spinach, celery, cauliflower, rapeseed, lettuce, lotus root, bell peppers), fruits, beans and their products, and dairy products daily to maintain the body's acid-base balance, enhance immunity, and prevent diseases.
Tip 9: Pay Attention to the Combination of Dry and Liquid Foods
A healthy diet should include both dry and liquid foods at each meal for easy digestion. You can prepare dishes like shredded meat, minced meat, thick meat soup, or meatballs, or stew and stir-fry them with other nutritious foods, such as pig spine stewed with kelp, spinach stewed with pork liver, lettuce stir-fried with pork slices, and seaweed egg soup. Constantly eating dry food is not good for the digestive system. Depending on the situation, a combination of dry and liquid foods can not only increase the feeling of fullness but also help with human digestion and absorption.