How to eat hot pot healthily in winter.

Introduction: Winter is the season for hot pot. Although hot pot is steamy, eating it in winter also has great health benefits. But how can you make your hot pot meal healthy? Let's find out together with the editor.

Ensure a variety of ingredients

In daily life, customers at hot pot restaurants often focus on meats like lamb and fatty beef, as well as processed meat products like fish balls and crab sticks, while treating vegetables and bean products as optional. This is particularly prominent in buffet-style hot pot restaurants.

Spicy Hot Pot

Due to this tendency, people tend to consume a very limited variety of foods when eating hot pot, which is not conducive to a balanced intake of nutrients and may lead to excessive intake of lipids. Therefore, when eating hot pot, one should pay attention to the diversity of ingredient pairings. In addition to meat, it's also important to pair it with staple foods, vegetables, and bean products. Eating vegetables can counteract the greasiness from meat, provide the body with rich vitamin C, and have the effects of cooling, detoxifying, and reducing internal heat. For those who avoid meat products, bean products can be consumed in moderation. They contain various trace elements, and the gypsum in tofu also has effects of clearing heat and purging fire.

Yuan Yang Hot Pot (Two-Flavor Hot Pot)

Choose your dishes carefully

First, consume foods high in purines in moderation. Seafood, animal organs, and mushrooms contain large amounts of purine substances, which are metabolized by the liver into uric acid. This can lead to decreased kidney function, affect the excretion of harmful substances, and induce or aggravate gout. Furthermore, animal organs have high cholesterol content and more residual metabolic waste, so they should be eaten even less.

Second, eat more foods rich in dietary fiber. Ingredients like potatoes and sweet potatoes have high dietary fiber content, which can not only help lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood, but their "high-potassium, low-sodium" characteristic is also beneficial for controlling blood pressure.

Kimchi Hot Pot

Third, choose light and tasty sauces. The nutritional value and calories of sauces are often overlooked. Nutritionist Wang Tengyue explains that hot pot sauces are very high in calories; one large tablespoon can contain 100 kcal. Therefore, people who are overweight should pay special attention to their sauce intake. Condiments like chili and sesame oil can irritate the digestive system, so those with sensitive stomachs should consume them in moderation. At the same time, condiments often contain large amounts of fat, salt, and additives. Excessive intake not only affects the taste but can also cause symptoms like "internal heat" (上火).

Finally, choose appropriate beverages. When eating hot pot, yogurt, juice, and tea are all good choices to accompany the meal. Yogurt has a protective and regulatory effect on the gastrointestinal tract; the phospholipids it contains can form a thick, hydrophobic layer on the surface of the gastric mucosa, resisting damage from harmful factors like alcohol and protecting the stomach lining. Juice and tea can help reduce internal heat. Beer, however, should be consumed in moderation, as alcohol can easily transport uric acid to joints or soft tissues, leading to gout.

Pork Cutlet Hot Pot

Eat in a reasonable order

Eating hot pot is a relaxing activity for many people, but it's this casualness that often leads to overlooking many health details, such as the order in which ingredients are consumed. The correct order of eating can allow us to enjoy the delicious food while minimizing its harm to the body.

Experts suggest that the correct order for eating hot pot should be: green leafy vegetables, mushrooms, seafood, and then meat products. This allows for a more rational use of nutrients. Since leafy vegetables easily absorb oil, once the pot contains a lot of lipids, the vegetables become high in fat after being boiled, thus no longer qualifying as "vegetables." Therefore, they should be eaten before meat products. Mushroom foods share the same characteristic, so they should also be eaten first.

Porridge Hot Pot

So, if you like to drink the soup, when should you drink it? It is recommended to drink the soup about ten minutes after the pot starts boiling, and avoid drinking the old broth. The old broth contains higher levels of harmful substances such as nitrites, saturated fatty acids, sodium, and purines, so it's best to avoid it. As for staple foods and root or seaweed-based vegetables, you can enjoy them anytime according to your personal preference.

Kids' Hot Pot