Healthy recipe introduction

「"Whole food-based, adapted to the individual" - it must not only meet the general standards of "less processing, balanced macronutrients, and sufficient trace elements", but also match your age, metabolic level, dietary preferences, and history of underlying diseases. Only the ones that can be adhered to for a long time are effective.

I have been doing nutritional consulting for 6 years, and the most common request I have encountered is "Can you just give me a recipe and I will follow it?" To be honest, I rarely send templates directly. Last week, a 28-year-old Internet operation girl came over and said that she had been following the popular "7-Day Fat Loss All-Purpose Meal" for half a month, but her aunt postponed it for 10 days and lost a handful of her hair. I looked at her physical examination report and found that her body fat rate was only 21%, and her basal metabolism was lower than that of ordinary girls. A boiled vegetable recipe with less than 100g of carbohydrates per day was no different to her than a diet. Later, the plan was changed to one punch of whole grains, one palm of lean meat, two punches of green leafy vegetables for each meal, and about 10g of almonds in the afternoon. After three weeks, her aunt returned to normal, and she also lost two pounds. She said she no longer had to eat tasteless chicken breasts every time.

There are actually many popular healthy recipe systems on the market now, each with its own applicable scenarios and controversy. You can choose according to your needs. The most reliable one is definitely the recommended framework of our country’s dietary guidelines for residents: 250-400g of cereals and potatoes, 300-500g of vegetables, 200-350g of fruits, and 120-200 grams of livestock, poultry, fish and eggs every day g. 300-500g of milk and milk products. I generally recommend it to ordinary healthy people with no underlying diseases. Start with this framework first. The fault tolerance rate is extremely high. Even if you are greedy for hot pot and barbecue occasionally, there will be no big problem.

There are also many people who recommend low-carb ketogenic recipes, but I don’t think this is an IQ tax. I used to have a polycystic patient with severe insulin resistance. His blood sugar would soar to 10 even after eating a bowl of white rice. I followed the doctor's advice and tried a modified low-carbohydrate diet. In three months, my insulin resistance improved a lot and my menstruation became regular. But the premise is that it must be adjusted under the supervision of professionals. Ordinary people try it blindly on their own. Long-term high ketone bodies can easily damage kidney function and increase blood lipids, which is not worth the gain.

There is also the Mediterranean diet, which currently has the most evidence-based medical evidence. Its core is more whole grains, more deep-sea fish, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and less refined sugar, which is particularly friendly to cardiovascular disease. But many people around me gave up after copying it for two days, saying that they couldn’t get used to eating cold cuts and vegetables mixed with olive oil every day. In fact, it can be completely improved, by replacing the olive oil with flaxseed oil and tea seed oil that we often eat, replacing cold dishes with boiled or stir-fried green leafy vegetables, and eating steamed fish twice a week instead of braised pork ribs. The effect is not much different, and you can still eat it.

Many people have misunderstandings about healthy recipes. They think that they have to be cooked in water without touching any oil or salt. This is really not the case. My dad has high blood pressure and he used to be unable to live without pickled radish. I asked him to stop eating it completely at first, but he argued with me for several days. Later, I took a step back and allowed him to eat a small plate (about 10g) of pickled radish that had been soaked in water every morning. At other times, he used low sodium salt in cooking, less soy sauce and oyster sauce, more steamed fish and stir-fried celery, and cooked millet porridge with cold fungus in the evening. After three months of eating, his blood pressure dropped steadily to 130/85, and he said he felt much better than before when he was in a panic after eating.

I have actually seen people who are very serious. They use a food scale to weigh every meal to the gram, and count the calories when eating a strawberry. In the end, they become anxious when it comes to eating, and instead develop eating disorders. It’s really not necessary. If you are busy, you don’t have to do it so complicated. Just measure it with your hands: one fist of staple food (grain, rice, corn will all count), one palm of protein (lean meat, fish, shrimp, tofu, eggs will all work), two fists of vegetables (half of dark color is best), a small handful of fruits, a small handful of nuts, you can easily estimate the approximate number, and there is no need to buy a scale to weigh it every day.

Oh, by the way, there is also the very controversial question "Is vegetarianism healthy?" In fact, both opinions are correct. If paired well, eating enough soy products, whole grains, dark green vegetables every day, and supplementing with additional B12, vegan recipes can also meet nutritional needs, and are suitable for people who do not like to eat meat or have religious beliefs. But if you eat blindly, like white rice with pickles, you will definitely be prone to iron and protein deficiency. Anemia and reduced immunity are common. There is no need to blindly follow the trend of vegetarianism, and don’t think that eating meat is unhealthy.

After all, healthy recipes are never an exquisite template for posting on social media, nor are they a strict curse that tells you not to eat this or that. If you eat it for a while and feel better, your bowel movements are smoother, and your physical examination indicators are gradually returning to normal, then this recipe is the best for you. If you feel greedy after eating it for a few days and feel nauseous when you look at the food, then stop immediately, even if it is recommended by a Nobel Prize winner, and don’t make things difficult for yourself.