Healthy Recipe Pairing Tips

The core logic of healthy recipe matching is never to copy Internet celebrity menus and punish yourself to give up all your favorite foods, but to achieve "a reasonable proportion of macronutrients, no obvious gaps in micronutrients, and as low a degree of processing of ingredients as possible" on the basis of adapting to personal tastes, physical conditions, and daily activities. There is no need to pursue 100% perfection. Meeting the standards 80% of the time is enough to support long-term health.

To be honest, I have helped hundreds of clients adjust their diet plans, and the biggest pitfall I have seen is copying other people's fat-reducing meals and health-preserving meals, regardless of whether you can accept them or not. I once had a back-end programmer client who followed the trend and ate carbon-free vegetables for half a month in order to lower blood lipids. As a result, he worked overtime until ten o'clock one day and showed off two buckets of instant noodles and a grilled sausage at the company. Not only was all his previous efforts in vain, but he also gained three kilograms in weight. Later, when I adjusted him, I directly changed his afternoon snack to the skinless braised duck wings he loved to eat, and replaced the white rice in the evening with 1/3 brown rice, and added a plate of his favorite stir-fried kale. This did not stop him from completely giving up on his favorite braised food, and his index gradually came down. He persisted for more than three months without complaining about bitterness.

Speaking of different matching ideas, there are actually two mainstream directions in the industry now. There is no absolute right or wrong, it just depends on whether it suits you. One is a balanced mix that follows the dietary guidelines for residents. Carbohydrates account for 50%-65% of total calories, protein is 10%-20%, and fat is 20%-30%. It is suitable for most ordinary people, especially those who have to go to work, have a lot of mental work, and do not have special diseases. There will be no problems if you stick to it steadily. The other group is the low-carb or even very low-carb diet that has become very popular in recent years, such as the ketogenic and Atkins diets, which reduce the proportion of carbohydrates to 20% or even less than 10% and rely on fat for energy. This type of plan does have a certain auxiliary effect on people with polycystic cysts and severe insulin resistance, but it must be carried out under the full guidance of a doctor or a registered dietitian. Ordinary people who follow the trend are prone to hair loss, aunt disorder, and decreased attention. The gains outweigh the losses.

Another topic that everyone has been arguing about for many years is whether refined carbohydrates can be eaten. Those who oppose it believe that white rice and white noodles raise blood sugar quickly, are easy to gain weight, and increase the risk of chronic diseases. Those who support it believe that as long as the total calories are not exceeded, there is no problem in eating anything. In fact, both statements are reasonable, and it all depends on the situation: If you have to run a half-marathon that day, or drive for four or five hours in a row, it will consume your brain. Eating white steamed buns and white rice before a race or meeting is more useful than eating brown rice. It can raise blood sugar quickly and provide enough energy, which can help you stabilize your condition. ； But if you sit in an office for a long time and can't walk 5,000 steps a day, it's enough to replace 1/3 to 1/2 of your refined carbohydrates with whole grains such as oats, brown rice, and sweet potatoes. There is no need to give up completely. After all, no one can replace the joy of white rice with home-cooked meals. If you really hold back, you will easily eat milk tea cakes, and consume more added sugar.

As for the specific operation, there is really no need to buy a food scale to weigh everything in grams. The "manual measurement method" commonly used in our industry is enough for ordinary people to use: the carbohydrates of a meal are about the size of one's fist, the protein is the size of the palm of the hand and about the same thickness as the palm, the amount of vegetables is two fists, and the amount of cooking oil or extra fats such as nuts can be controlled to the amount of one thumb. For example, office workers bring rice, a fist-sized multigrain rice, a palm-sized pan-fried chicken breast or braised beef, two fists of stir-fried spinach and broccoli, and finally a small spoonful of chopped peanuts. Even if you work overtime until nine o'clock and don't want to cook, you can cook a fist-sized frozen corn, add two hard-boiled eggs, and blanch a handful of green vegetables. It can be done in 10 minutes, which is much healthier than ordering a takeaway that is high in oil and salt.

Oh, yes, there is also the "food conflict" that has been passed down for decades, which is also a hurdle that many people cannot avoid when making recipes. The elders always say that spinach cannot be eaten with tofu, as it will cause stones, and shrimp cannot be eaten with vitamin C, as it will cause poisoning. In fact, these claims have long been falsified by nutrition: 80% of the oxalic acid in spinach can be removed by blanching it in just one minute. When eaten with tofu, the impact of oxalic acid can be basically ignored. On the contrary, the combination of the calcium in tofu and the dietary fiber in spinach is more conducive to nutrient absorption. ； As for the theory that eating shrimp and vitamin C together will produce arsenic, you would have to eat hundreds of kilograms of shrimp contaminated with heavy metals at one time to reach a toxic dose. This amount cannot be encountered with normal meals. Of course, if you really feel uncomfortable after eating certain two foods, then it is most likely due to food allergies or a bad gastrointestinal condition, which has nothing to do with "incompatibility".

Some people may be offended when it comes to this, but who around me eats barbecue and drinks milk tea every day and never gets sick? Yes, individual differences already exist. Some people have good metabolism and enough daily exercise, and it is perfectly fine to do something occasionally. However, the data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also there: people who eat a long-term diet high in oil, salt, and sugar are 3-4 times more likely to suffer from hyperlipidemia and high uric acid than people who eat a balanced diet. This is a result of statistics from a large sample and cannot be deceived.

In fact, there are really not so many rules and regulations for healthy recipes. The core is that you feel comfortable after eating, have enough energy when you wake up the next day, and have normal physical examination indicators every year. It is better than anything else. Having to worry about whether you can eat a certain kind of food and how many of them you must eat every day will put a burden on yourself and defeat the original intention of healthy eating.