COLUMN: Holiday treats can be both delicious and healthy

The vacation season is right here and it can be onerous to handle a well-balanced eating regimen.

The excellent news is, opposite to common perception, there aren’t any meals you must really feel unhealthy about consuming in the course of the holidays — there may be room for all meals in a healthy, balanced eating regimen. Instead of being restrictive and limiting your self, make a couple of tweaks to your favorite recipes to deliver a healthy steadiness to the vacation meals and treats you like. Below are a few of my favorite vacation recipe tweaks.

Dips

The tweak: Dips can assist add additional flavour to a few of our favorite meals whereas additionally including further vitamins. For instance, Greek yogurt-based dips are excessive in protein, calcium and probiotics. The beauty of Greek yogurt is it can be used as a dip for both fruits and veggies, so it’s a win-win.

If Greek yogurt isn’t your factor, give hummus a strive. This chickpea-based unfold is an effective way to spice up the fibre and plant-based protein in your vacation snacks. You can additionally mix different flavours into your hummus like basil pesto or cocoa powder.

Pasta and casseroles

The tweak: Pasta and casseroles are vacation staples and the proper place to give attention to including a couple of components to spice up the dietary worth. A easy technique to tweak this recipe is by lowering the saturated fats. Opt for low-fat cheeses with two per cent milk fats or much less. In phrases of the noodles, go for entire grain or white pasta with fibre added. This will assist to extend the fibre in your dish. You can additionally enhance fibre and vitamins by throwing in some veggies like steamed broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, peas, mushrooms, zucchini, or carrots.

Alcoholic drinks and mocktails

The tweak: There are a couple of tweaks you can take into account to assist get pleasure from alcohol carefully this vacation season.

Use freshly squeezed juices corresponding to lime or lemon as a substitute of flavoured syrups to scale back the sugar content material of your cocktails or mocktails. Freshly squeezed juices additionally provide the added advantage of nutritional vitamins and fibre — in case you maintain the pulp. Kombucha — a probiotic drink — additionally makes an awesome tart-tasting addition to your favorite drink, whereas additionally including a nutritious enhance to your intestine well being.

To assist get pleasure from alcohol carefully this vacation season, strive exercising portioning. For drinks which can be initially in massive cans or bottles, pour it right into a small glass.

If you wish to chat extra a couple of balanced and reasonable method to the vacations, I’m right here to assist. As your native Bradford registered dietitian at Zehrs, I present a spread of companies, corresponding to digital or in-store one-on-one consultations, retailer excursions, and balanced recipe concepts for the vacations. To study extra, e-book a 15-minute discovery name with me at dietitianservices.ca.

Berry kombucha “fauxito” mocktail

Ingredients:

3 every recent blackberries and raspberries, plus further for garnish

10 recent mint leaves

2 tsp packed demerara sugar
- For a more healthy twist, take away the refined sugar from the recipe or add a contact of honey

2 tsp recent lime juice (1 oz)

1/4 cup PC Organics 100% Coconut Water Not From Concentrate (2 oz)

1/2 cup PC Organics Raspberry Hibiscus Kombucha (4 oz)

1 cup ice cubes

1 sprig recent mint, for garnish

Instructions:

Place blackberries and raspberries in highball glass. Add 5 mint leaves and the sugar; muddle with muddler or deal with of picket spoon till mint is bruised and aromatic and berries are mashed.