Survive the daily menu

Working outside the home and, sometimes, away from it, tight schedules and rushing, the multitude of tasks that we face daily ... often cause eating to be just another headache or, worse still, that Let's not dedicate enough time to it, with the health problems that this can entail.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

• Currently, food preparation is minimized, often opting for prepared or semi-prepared dishes, or for the restaurant menu, which is becoming more and more common every day.
• In case of eating away from home every day, choosing light and digestive preparations or avoiding fatty or sugary desserts, are some of the tips that will help us to follow a proper diet.
• For a menu to be minimally balanced, the plate or plates must contain three types of food: vegetables, farinaceous and protein.

Eating as a family, less and less frequent

The whole family gathered around the table at lunchtime on any given day was, a few years ago, a completely common image. Nowadays, however, it is something from unusual to extremely rare. Whereas before a person assumed the role of worrying about the purchase, conservation and, today, hopefully, these tasks are assumed as best they can and food preparation is minimized, often opting for prepared or semi-prepared dishes. prepared, or by the increasingly common restaurant menu.

Despite the rush, stress and lack of time, we must not forget that feeding ourselves is a need that we must fulfill by respecting certain advice, otherwise it can become a source of problems, digestive, kidney, circulatory and cardiovascular, etc. If you have to eat out every day and use the restaurant menu more than you would like, here are some tips:

• Eat slowly: it is recommended to chew your food well, in a relaxed and calm environment. All this will contribute to better digestion.
• Choose fresh foods: they contain vitamins, minerals, fiber and other nutrients that are very suitable for our diet. In addition, they help us regulate intestinal transit and give us a feeling of satiety. Let us ensure that the first dish or the garnish of the second include them.
• Choose light and digestive preparations: let's opt for simple, low-fat and easy-to-digest cooking, as well as foods with the same characteristics. Preparations based on vegetables and whole grains, and cooking such as steam, iron, grill, papillote, etc. are ideal. If you don't know what makes up a dish, don't hesitate: ask.
• Attention to sauces: in general, sauces add fat and calories to the diet and should be avoided, as well as excessive dressings. Beware of seemingly harmless creams or purees (they can contain significant amounts of liquid cream, heavy cream, butter ...).
• Side dishes: in addition to the popular French fries, there are healthier alternatives and it is often possible to ask for a change in the side of the dish. Good options if we choose a vegetable first can be the baked potato or a rice flan. If we have already had rice, pasta, potato or legumes in the first one, it is more advisable that the garnish be salad or cooked vegetables (sautéed, grilled, baked instead of fried or battered).
• Do not exceed the quantities: certain menus provide us with very abundant dishes, often excessive for our energy expenditure. We must try to adjust the amount of food we order to our needs, now, if we cannot avoid those large dishes we should not feel bad about not eating everything, in the long run we will be gaining in health. On the other hand, copious and / or very fatty meals slow down digestion and if afterwards we have to return to work we will get the typical slump after eating ...
• Be careful with bread: bread is a food in itself not very caloric, despite its bad reputation. The problems with bread are mainly two: one is that it is eaten easily, especially to distract hunger before food is served, and often in abusive quantities; the second, and even worse, is that it serves to absorb a large amount of sauces and oils that we must avoid.
• Avoid fatty or sugary desserts: they should always be eaten on time and without abuse. Therefore, it is preferable to discard them from our daily menu.
• The best drink, water: we must remember that the most advisable drink is always water. It helps us to eliminate products that our body does not need and, therefore, it covers a purifying function that is always essential. It is always preferable to choose it over sugary or alcoholic drinks. It should be noted that a daily consumption of about two liters of water is recommended.

What should a menu contain?

For a menu to be minimally, the plate or plates must contain basically three types of food:

• Vegetables: either raw or cooked, in the form of salad, sautéed, barbecue, cream, etc. an important part of the meal should be vegetables.
• Farinaceous: we call this the group consisting of foods rich in carbohydrates, such as potatoes, pasta, rice, legumes and bread or cereals and flours in general.
• Proteins: meat, fish, shellfish and eggs are part of this group. Legume-based dishes combined with cereals or products such as tofu, tempeh, etc. can also be considered protein.

In addition to these three groups, we consider a meal complete when we accompany it with a dessert based on fresh fruit or a skimmed dairy.

EXAMPLE OF CHOOSING A MENU

The main problem is the menus with few possibilities of choice and poorly structured, but generally the options to choose from are sufficient. The problem, then, is whether our choice is correct or not. To make a good choice we must follow the instructions in the section "What should make up a menu?". In this way, it is about "classifying" the food groups that make up the dishes so that with the combination we choose we have the three types of food that we have mentioned: vegetables, farinaceous and protein. This could be a restaurant menu, let's see what may be the best options for a healthy adult who simply wants to eat a balanced diet.

First courses:Second coursesDessertsHomemade soupChicken escalope with friesFlanSpaghetti with tomato sauceHake Basque styleYogurtMixed vegetable saladGrilled sardines with saladIce creamHomemade croquettesMeatballs with sauceHomemade cheese cakeSweet garlic omeletteFruit of the season

To be specified:

First:

Both the soup and the spaghetti are dishes based on farinaceous. The salad is based on vegetables, although being mixed in principle it has some cold cuts. Homemade croquettes are fundamentally a protein dish.

Seconds:

They are all protein dishes, although possibly the one that contains the least protein is the omelette. What we must analyze is what accompanies the protein food: in the schnitzel we have the potatoes (farinaceous) and with the sardines we have a salad (vegetable). Basque hake usually includes asparagus (vegetables) and peas (legumes and, therefore, it is considered farinaceous). Both the meatballs and the hake have sauce so they are surely more caloric dishes, although we can also avoid overdoing it.

On the other hand, the schnitzel is battered and the potatoes are fried, so they can be chosen but taking into account that batters and fried foods should not be abused. We will try not to eat more than one or two fried dishes a week.

Combination:

To follow the scheme: Vegetable (V) + Farinaceous (F) + Protein (P), we have different possible options:

• Homemade soup (F) + Basque Hake (P and F).
• Homemade soup (F) + Grilled sardines with salad (P and V).
• Homemade soup (F) + Young garlic omelette (P and V).

If we chose the meatballs we would lack the vegetables, unless the homemade soup includes abundant vegetables. The same would happen if we choose the schnitzel.

• Spaghetti with tomato sauce (F) + Young garlic omelette (P and V)
• Spaghetti with tomato sauce (F) + Grilled sardines with salad (P and V).
• When choosing spaghetti with sauce, we avoid a second also with sauce, such as hake.

The combinations with the meatballs or the schnitzel would not have enough vegetables.

• Vegetable salad (V) + Chicken escalope with french fries (P and F).
• Vegetable salad (V) + Basque hake (P and F).
• Vegetable salad (V) + Meatballs with sauce (P) + Bread (F) (we will avoid spreading the sauce).
• Vegetable salad (V) + Young garlic omelette (P and V) + Bread (F).
• Vegetable salad (V) + Grilled sardines with salad (P and V) + Bread (F).

By not having farinaceous in the first course, it is convenient to choose seconds that do contain them or to add a little bread to the meal, as in the second block of options. Remember that bread, if spread in sauces, provides us with a large amount of calories.

What should we not choose?

It is important to avoid excessively fat and / or protein combinations as well as options that provide us with little amount of vegetables. We must also reject options with a lot of sauce, fried, battered, etc. We will just spoil it if we choose a very fatty or sugary dessert.

Eg Homemade croquettes + Escalope with French fries or Meatballs with sauce + Ice Cream or Flan or Cheesecake.

And the dessert?

The ideal dessert would be a fruit or a skimmed yogurt. The most caloric desserts such as flan, ice cream or cheesecake should be reserved for sporadic occasions, as an extra. They can be chosen more often, not on a daily basis, in case of being a young person and / or athlete, without problems of overweight or obesity or analytical alterations.

Homemade croquettes are a protein dish and also provide us with some farinaceous. As the main courses are all protein, the combination of croquettes and a second would be excessively protein. We can take them, therefore, with another first such as salad, soup or spaghetti if the amount of vegetables in the soup or spaghetti is remarkable. If we combine them with a second one, the best option would be with the tortilla since it is the one with the lowest protein content and contains vegetables that croquettes lack. Thus, more or less valid options would be:

• Vegetable salad (V) + Croquettes (P and F)
• Homemade soup (F) or Spaghetti (F) if they have enough Vegetables (V) + Croquettes (P and F)
• Croquettes (P and F) + Young garlic omelette (P and V)

COMPENSATE AT HOME WITH DINNER

Dinners should always be, as a general rule, lighter than meals. If in the meals we are more limited by the options of the restaurant or the canteen, we can ensure that dinner ends up balancing the day. The last meal of the day should also contain the food groups that we have mentioned for lunch, but in a lighter version. If at meals we eat insufficient amount of vegetables, fruit, fish ... it is time to take it. In addition, if we have exceeded ourselves, we can always opt for a light vegetable dish (salad without sauce, cream of vegetables, steamed vegetables ...) and a fruit or skimmed milk.