Pancakes are fatty, heavy, deep-fried foods. Is it worth somehow preparing for a hearty feast?
Elena Kiseleva: A holiday is a holiday, and traditions are its decoration. From the point of view of the principles of proper nutrition, pancakes, to put it mildly, are not the most dietary dish. But it is in our power to arrange a meal in such a way that it does not harm health. Here are some simple tips on how to prepare for the party.
1. You should not starve before a festive meal, you do not need to arrange fasting days “in advance”; otherwise, it will be easy to let loose and overeat. Nutrition should be ordinary, preferably fractional and consist of light low-fat dishes: cereals, vegetables, sour milk.
2. In order not to lose control during the feast and to moderate your appetite, you can arrange a small snack two hours before sitting down to the table; for example, drink a glass of kefir with a couple of tablespoons of bran. So you muffle the feeling of hunger, in addition, the fiber contained in the bran will slow down the absorption of light carbohydrates and alcohol.
3. Don’t forget to drink water. This is important both before and after the party.
4. To moderate the appetite, tincture of corn stigmas helps. You can also chew on some cumin seeds or lemon or orange zest.
Who should abstain from carnival food in its traditional form?
Elena Kiseleva: First of all, these are people with diseases of the digestive tract: chronic gastritis and esophagitis, peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum, chronic pancreatitis, cholecystitis. Fried and fatty foods, especially with alcohol, can provoke an exacerbation. Also, abundant food is harmful for people who have problems with the liver and are overweight, with diabetes, with gluten intolerance (in this case, you should use gluten-free flour for pancakes).
What to do if you still overeat pancakes?
Elena Kiseleva: You need to drink digestive enzymes, drink more water and arrange a fasting day.
Which pancakes are less harmful – with a sweet filling (jam, chocolate paste) or proteins, cheese, fish, mushrooms?
Elena Kiseleva: Preference should be given to low-fat protein fillings: low-fat cottage cheese, cheese (mozzarella, for example), lightly salted low-fat fish. Oily fish and caviar are “heavy” fillings; these foods can provoke exacerbations of chronic diseases of the liver, gallbladder and pancreas. Sweet fillings are also not the best option, they contain a lot of fast carbohydrates, and as a result, these pancakes generate too much glycemic load. It is harmful even for a healthy body, especially for diabetics.
To make the pancakes less “heavy”, you can bake them from more useful buckwheat flour, add rice or amaranth flour to the dough. This type of flour is richer in protein, vegetable fiber. Making dough on milk or kefir – there is not much difference. Caloric intake can be slightly reduced by reducing the amount of oil added, or fry in a non-stick Teflon pan, which can be left ungreased. You can also reduce the amount of sugar when cooking or replace with a sweetener (stevia, erythritol).
As for oil for frying, it is better to use vegetable, refined, choose varieties with a maximum “smoke point”: mustard, coconut, avocado oil.
