Best Fast Food To Lose Weight And Live More!

When it comes to food and nutrition, nothing can be compared to a well-balanced nutrient-rich diet. A plate is never complete without the necessary food colours present in it. The different food colours show the phytonutrients seen in various foods and these colours mean different things with different goals. The rainbow of phytonutrients is commonly graded into five colours –

• Green
• Orange/Yellow
• Red
• Purple/Blue
• White/Brown

These plant compounds all have beneficial impacts at promoting good health in our body. Carbohydrates and legumes are easily consumed and that is why I’m writing on fruits, particularly vegetables.

I see people struggle with eating some particular vegetables, don’t get me wrong, I was once like that. I just had to make the veggies in a way to suit my taste. This I did by cooking them in a peculiar way or by adding some side touches to confuse my senses into thinking I was eating something else. I know it sounds funny, but it helped me incorporate fruits and veggies into my daily lifestyle from the plates to the cups. You can reverse your age both in looks and well-being by fuelling your body with the recommended intake of fruits and veggies daily.

Variety is the spice of life as they say but many do not vary their feeding habits thereby depriving the body of its necessary needs. Truth be told, if you fuel your body properly, there will be little or no need of going to the ER. You can visit your GP for a regular examination but that will be only a check-up.

Food does not have to be boring to be enjoyed! In this article, I will share some of my cooking tips and tricks to enjoying nature’s goodness from your cup to your plate.

Homemade Mason Jars: Please make your own mason jars at home. Sounds too good to be true, right? When you buy that tomato pulp or sausages that come in bottles, please do not discard them but rather pop them in the dishwasher to reuse them. You are saving a few bucks by reusing them as well as saving the planet. These bottles come in different shapes and sizes, but they all come in handy later on. You can also use them to grow little herbs in your kitchen but that I will address in another article.

Regarding breakfast, you can prep your meal in a jar. This can be found in my previous article. It saves you time and guarantees the right food you’re feeding your body with. You can also juice up your fruits and veggies, pour in your mason jar and off you go. Sometimes, I focus on fruits and veggies that belong to the same family in terms of their phytonutrients and this can easily be distinguished by their colour. For instance, my juice this morning was my 2 ingredient Berryredbell juice. The recipe will be found at the end of the article.

Berryredbell Juice recipe

1 cup strawberries

1 medium-sized red bell pepper

With a juicer, juice these 2 ingredients and enjoy!

Juices or Smoothies: These are great sources to enrich the body with the necessary fibres, fruits, and vegetables. When it comes to juicing, you can invest in a juicer if you want and when I say a juicer, I mean a slow cold press juicer. This is very different from the centrifugal. I had a centrifugal but when I read about the benefits of the slow juicers, my husband gifted me with one. It has been a rewarding experience since I got one. However, if you have a centrifugal, please use it and make the most of it. My issue with centrifugal was just the waste that it made as I realised that a lot of the juices were trapped in the roughages that were supposed to be discarded or maybe not. Also, the juices were easily oxidised with the centrifugal as it got a lot of air from the motor spin. If not consumed immediately or stored away, it might start changing the colour of the juice.

For the smoothies, a blender is everything. You can combine your fruits, veggies, nuts and milk and blend away. It is usually more filling as it is filled with fibres from the fruits and the vegetables. With this, you can ensure you are eating nature’s goodness in its raw form.

If you are one that does not like beets, you can juice them raw or blend them with apples to make them more delicious! At a point in my life, I consumed a lot of red wine, especially during dinner. I decided to make a change not because red wine is bad but because I wanted to feed my body with something healthier and alcohol-free. I juiced six large raw beets and filled my mason jar with them. During dinner, I would serve myself the beet juice in a wine glass, and I tell you, nobody would know it wasn’t red wine.

Steaming: Having a veggie steamer saves a lot of hassle and makes sure you do not overcook your veggies. This is one piece of equipment I love so much. I actually got one that has 4 layers enabling me to steam spinach, fish, carrots, you name it without overcooking them. From broccoli and cauliflower to sweet potatoes, steamed veggies are yummy, and you do not lose nutrients by boiling them directly in the water.

Roasting: Another way to enjoy your veggies is by roasting them. You can roast your potatoes, pumpkin, onions, garlic, bell peppers etc. Some actually enjoy roasting as their preferred method as it does not have any contact with water, and they can top it with a sauce of their choice.

Grilling or Stove-top Roast: This stovetop roast was actually what I picked up after arriving in Portugal. On a beautiful afternoon, my mother-in-law made sardine rice (Arroz de Sardinha) and bell pepper salad (Salada de pimento). It was the best salad I had ever tasted. She roasted the bell peppers as she was grilling the sardines. After the bell peppers were toasted and wilted, she immediately put them in cold water to remove the peel of the bell peppers. She then sliced them, cut in some tomatoes, and seasoned them with salt, vinegar, and oregano. I tell you, it was an amazing lunch. You will start loving bell peppers if you try this.      

Souping: You can make your vegetables into soup and enjoy all day long. The Portuguese consume a lot of soups like chicken broth also known as canja de galinha, sopa de legumes (vegetable soup), sopa de peixe (fish soup), caldo verde (I don’t know the name in English sorry), sopa de cenoura (carrot soup) etc.

Recipe for the Carrot Soup
Ingredients

• 3 large potatoes,
• 1 medium onion,
• 3 large carrots or pumpkin,
• ½ cup leek,
• Pinch of salt

For this carrot soup, the goal here is to boil together your potatoes, onions, carrots or pumpkin, leek, and season with salt. When tender, scoop out the veggies, pour out the water into a bowl (just in case you need to lighten the soup when blending) and blend the boiled veggies in a blender. When smooth pour into your empty pot, then add some baby spinach and voila!  

Stir-fry: The art of stir-frying is very common in Asian cuisine. If you have a wok, then get to work. The use of the wok gives the food a sharp, fried, and spicy feel to it. I also think it is the quickest form of cooking as everything is tossed together and fried to perfection.

The essence is to find the cooking method that best suits your taste and vary your cuisine as much as possible.