Spice up that boring diet!
Note: Hi 👋🙂! First of all I hope you will excuse any spelling mistakes, the truth is that I am just learning English, and it is helping me a lot to make the effort to translate my articles from Spanish to English. I am 50 years old and although I have been told that "Loro viejo no aprende a hablar" / You can't teach an old dog new tricks! I am determined to learn on my own and Read-Cash is helping me a lot. That is why I ask you, please, to make any spelling and style corrections that you think are necessary to improve my English writing. Thank you in advance! 😉 Now let's get started!
Following that eating plan that we have proposed to carry out can be very healthy, without a doubt, but it also often ends up being almost a kind of penance in which we are forced to eat food only in order to preserve our health. It is almost as if eating healthy in itself was only eating raw things, mostly green, tasteless, without much smell, or texture ... in short, nothing that can seduce our taste buds! The truth is that if you are really interested in achieving success in this new eating plan you should try to put your heart into it and let your inventiveness and creativity take over your kitchen.
Sometimes it is the time that does not allow us to get creative, or simply laziness that does not help us in inventing the ideal menu. It is obvious that starting a new eating plan requires all our effort to avoid eating all those foods that hurt us, but which we miss mainly for their flavors, aromas, textures...
I know from my own experience that adapting to a new nutritional plan in which we must leave behind all our bad eating habits is not easy, however, I can tell you that it is not impossible to achieve it and that success is guaranteed when you learn to enjoy all those new foods that until now you had only seen with a bad face.
In my opinion, I believe that culturally we have built a world in favor of all those sweet or salty foods, with crunchy, spongy, soft, greasy textures...and a long etc.
Many times the problem is not that evil vegetable that wants to keep you away from your beloved pizzas, hamburgers, pastas.... Anyway! everything that you usually dream about obsessively just when you follow that new diet plan that after a certain time seems like a heavy cross to carry!
In the end, when you follow a diet just because it is fashionable, or because someone recommended it to you but you know deep down that you are not enjoying it, you can already get the idea that crucifixion is waiting for you and, if you do not put the brakes on it and turn around, you will be stuck there as one more martyr in that endless list of "famous diets".
A new eating plan, as I like to refer to it, is exactly that, a plan to eat healthily, which obviously cannot be related to deprivation or restrictions, on the contrary, it should be related to new foods to incorporate, new textures, flavors, colors, in short, a new taste, aromatic and visual palette at our disposal.
DESIGN A NEW HEALTHY EATING PLAN WITHOUT GIVING UP YOUR TASTES.
For me, it is very difficult for anyone to completely strip themselves of their culture. In this sense, the different gastronomies are cultural assets, so how can we pretend to exclude them, or eliminate them completely from our lives!
In my case, despite the diagnosis of prediabetes that makes me be cautious with some foods such as yellow corn flour, which has a glycemic index of about 70, I must say that I am Venezuelan and as a good Venezuelan I still eat my arepas for breakfast! Only they are no longer corn flour, now I have a wide range of options among which are: Arepas of green plantain, sweet potato, or as it is known in other countries of the region: sweet potato, yam, yucca, pumpkin, yautia, beet, spinach, oats ... and you stop counting! -By the way, I invite you to leave in the comments how the tubers and vegetables I have mentioned above are called in your country, just to expand our mutual culinary knowledge!
I can tell you that now more than ever I greatly enjoy eating these "pseudoarepas" that are no longer more of the same and for me have become new gastronomic experiences! The flavors I manage to create in each one of them are so varied that I never get bored.
So in order to succeed in a new eating plan it is necessary to find a way to bring those flavors, colors, aromas, textures ... that we are culturally accustomed to consume and adapt them to the foods that make up our new diet.
Because assuming a new diet does not mean that we have to eat with sadness and reluctance a grilled chicken breast and steamed vegetables; or tuna fish with a lettuce, tomato and cucumber salad. It is precisely this lack of creativity that will lead you to routine and finally to boredom that will inevitably make you succumb to that hamburger or pizza that you keep silently longing for!
And I ask you, who told you that you can't have that pizza, or that hamburger?...while trying to make the best healthy version of what you crave!
NO EXCUSES GET STARTED IN HEALTHY COOKING
Many people say they are too lazy to cook, or they don't have time. If that's how they're going to exercise, they'd better not start and save their strength for picking up the phone and dialing delivery. Please, it's about the success you want to achieve in improving not only your physical appearance, but, most importantly, your health.
So stop being lazy, get organized and find a way to create an irresistibly appetizing, colorful and tasty menu! You will see that sitting at the table will no longer be a torture, but a feast for the palate.
For now I'm going to share with you a little piece of my beautiful land Venezuela, with these colorful and delicious "pseudoarepitas" that make me love my breakfast every day.
I hope you make them and enjoy them as much as I do!
GREEN PLANTAIN AND PUMPKIN AREPA RECIPE (2 Servings)
3 small Green plantain. If you can find the so-called Topocho it would be great - I particularly love its texture and flavor - it can also be green banana, but it must be very green, so they have less sugars and more fiber!
50 g of Pumpkin (If the pumpkin has a shell that is not so hard, it is much more nutritious when used whole with shell and all. I usually use it and it gives more firmness to the arepas, besides it will provide extra fiber and many nutrients, always what is usually discarded from fruits and vegetables ends up having many vitamins and minerals!
For the preparation I usually grate both the pumpkin with its shell and everything, as well as the plantain -I don't leave the shell on this one, because I wouldn't want it to be a gorilla!
I prefer to grate rather than boil the vegetables because it seems to me that by boiling them they lose a lot of nutrients, since they will be cooked twice first during the cooking process in the water and then cooked again during the process of roasting the arepas. So I don't like to waste time in the kitchen and I know that this way they are done faster and the vegetables will keep all their nutrients.
Ok, continuing with the recipe, just add a spoonful of oat flour, flaxseed flour, coconut flour, lentil flour...the flour that best suits your nutritional needs, whatever works best for you.
In this case I put corn flour because it is only a spoon and it is useful to put a little bit in the dough so that it amalgamates better with the plantain and the pumpkin- Obviously the flour I am using is the Venezuelan flour: Harina-PAN, which is the birthmark of us Venezuelans and our arepas.
I knead and form the two arepas. Then I sprinkle half a spoonful of corn flour on the surface of the arepa, this will prevent the arepa from sticking to the pan or griddle.
Knead the mixture and make your two arepas to place them in a griddle, or pan where you can grill them and that's it.
The only thing left to do is to fill them and that's up to you, because the limit is your imagination. So let's get creative!
Before I finish I leave you some tips if you have no idea where to start and how to organize your daily meals.
TIPS TO ORGANIZE AND PREPARE YOUR NEW HEALTHY EATING PLAN
The first thing I invite you to do is to identify those foods that are torture for you to stop eating. Then, focus on finding a way to make a light version of that dish you like so much.
On the internet there is all kinds of information to make light versions of everything that crosses your mind. From famous and extra sugary candies like Snickers, Ferrero Rochers, the traditional Oreos, through all kinds of vegan sausages, to a wide range of options to replace meals full of sugars and refined flours.
Another important point to take into account is the use of spices to season your new culinary creations. Remember that most processed foods are seasoned with artificial seasonings composed for example of dangerous monosodium glutamate and other commercial derivatives used to enhance flavor in large-scale food manufacturing. The taste of these foods is like a deception to the palate with which in the end you fall into the trap of eating any commercially seasoned "junk".
If you are one of those who in your life has only cooked with "Maggie Cube" and other known commercial mixtures, it is time for you to learn that there are endless wonderful spices that will give a gourmet touch to your dishes and, in addition, will provide a series of minerals and micronutrients so beneficial to your health.
If you want to know more about the wonderful range of spices that you can use in your kitchen then let me know in the comments so I know if there is good feed back with this topic and I will start writing : ''Tasty in Spices: Basic Guide to Healthier and Flavorful Dishes''. The truth as I still don't have many followers...and I hope this will change soon :)))) I already get the idea that I am talking to many and ask for their opinions regarding the next article topics :))))) you know think and materialize! Well for the moment I say goodbye sending you a big hug online from Venezuela 🙂✌️🇻🇪 . I hope with all my heart that the information shared has helped you in one way or another!
...and remember, before anything else just love yourself!
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