Irina Eduardovna, what is the optimal list of healthy foods for the festive table?
Irina Borodina: First of all, I advise you to make a list of products included in salads, hot dishes, desserts, and replace them with fruits. It is important to include more vegetables in the menu that can be served fresh, stewed, in the form of casseroles. Also, give up alcohol, fatty foods, prepare light analogues of salads, use sour cream dressings instead of mayonnaise.
Going to the store before the New Year is a temptation. What positions is better to avoid?
Irina Borodina: First of all, we must determine the basic food basket. In the first place is fiber: fresh vegetables and fruits, their freezing. This is the perfect accompaniment to your daily diet. Number two in staple foods are cereals: buckwheat, rice, pasta, bulgur, peas, lentils. Next are dairy products. We choose cottage cheese, kefir, fermented baked milk, milk, if there is no intolerance to milk protein and lactose. The next step is protein products. Ideal for the amino acid content are eggs, cottage cheese, chicken breast, turkey, fish and meat. The candy and confectionery departments are definitely worth avoiding. They are not included in the basics. If you really want cakes and pastries, it is better to bake them at home. Healthier and tastier.
What foods is better not to combine with alcohol?
Irina Borodina: Alcohol-containing drinks themselves are very high in calories and greatly increase appetite. Therefore, snacking on alcoholic beverages with fatty meats, salty cheese, sausages gives additional calories, gradually increasing body weight. It is better to eat before drinking alcohol, so as not to drink it on an empty stomach. As snacks, there can be low-fat dishes and vegetables, fiber will help get rid of the remains of alcoholic substances.
Irina Borodina: Biting alcohol with fatty meats, salty cheese gives extra calories. Photo: Personal archive of Irina Borodina
What do you recommend to collect sweet gifts for children?
Irina Borodina: Traditionally these are sweets and cookies. Healthiest homemade cakes from oatmeal, buckwheat. From the fruits, put tangerines, bananas. Suitable jam containing pectin. Dried fruit treats, chips – an analogue of chips that are cooked without frying.
Many eat in the following days what they have prepared for the New Year’s table. They argue like this: what will the salad do in the refrigerator? Is it worth the risk?
Irina Borodina: As a rule, the shelf life of salads without dressing with sauce is 18 hours, and dressed – 12 hours. It is better to make the salads the same day, dress and put on the table. It is advisable to eat all dishes fresh and not eat too much in the following days.
How not to gain weight during the New Year holidays?
Irina Borodina: The recommendations are as follows: more physical activity during the winter holidays. Dress for the weather and walk with your family in the fresh air, go skating, skiing.
Listen to your body. Eat more vegetables and fruits. Observe the drinking regime. More fiber and less fatty foods. Then there is a chance that all the calories obtained at the New Year’s table will easily disappear.
