Thursday, December 19, 2013

How to make healthy food taste good

If your husband or kids, most of the time waste the healthy food that you make or want to avoid your nutritious food by giving any reason (mom I am going to hotel with my friends, honey I have a get together party at office ) every now and then, you might feel bad.
You will think that every time I can't make tasty food by pouring more oil and putting more masala.

How can I make them eat healthy food?

Here is the answer:

1) Always serve the food hot.
2) You can make them eat healthy food by making correct combinations.

Combinations:

Sambar--all fries (ladys finger, potato etc), poricha koottu
Vetha kuzhambu--all coconut veggies (cabbage, beans, snake guard, banana stem etc )
Morkuzhambu- all parupussli,
Rasam--all fries and all coconut veggies
Thogayal-all coconut veggies (Banana stem)
Podi- all pachadis
Milagu kuzhambu--Paruppu thogayal

3) When you make any healthy food like salad, raita or sundal, try adding one more favorite recipe to menu. Try making sambar, potato fry and Gooseberry salad together for lunch.

4) Cooked food should not be refrigerated for more than a day. Refrigerating and reheating will lead to nutrition loss from the food. There is no use eating the food when there is no nutrition in it.
Salads and raita (pachadi) needs to be consumed immediately after preparing them. Make them in small quantity and finish it. 

5) If you have taken polished rice for lunch, try making any tasty recipe with whole grains like Brown rice, broken wheat or ragi for dinner, like broken wheat upma, Sweet Dalia pongal or ragi dosa etc.

6) In case your loved ones are going for a tour, then don't prepare spicy or oily dish to eat before the tour. Try adding more sprouts, fruits and veggies the day before the tour, and when they come back, try making pathiya sapadu like (kandathippili rasam, inji thogayal, jeera rice etc). These foods will help their tummy to be in a good condition.

7) Make it a habit to include nuts as a part of their diet. Grind them and add to milk with sugar and give them once a week. This will be a tasty and healthy drink.

8) We have forgotten many tasty and healthy foods that our grandma would have eaten like woodapple (vilambazham) pachadi, thenai mavu with honey, narthangai pachadi,vazhappu parupussli. Try exploring the traditional recipe and forgotten grains. This will give a nice variation in your cooking.

9) Try exploring the various healthy recipes from other regional cuisines.
You can try them at your home, if your kids love it then you can continue cooking them.
Pesarattu from Andhra, Bisibelebath from Karnataka, Avial from Kerala etc.

10) Once in a week, try eating food in banana leaf instead of plates. Eating food in banana leaf is hygienic as well as healthy.

11) Cook in mud pot at least once a week, to give a special taste to your recipes.

12)Limit the Quantity of junk foods (Spicy, oily and any sweet dish) that you prepare. Don't prepare them in excess just because your kids love them. They should be eaten only for taste. For example, you are preparing poori for dinner make maximum of 4 each and finish off. Give them a glass of warm milk or any fruit before going to bed. This will make them a habit to enjoy their tasty food in limited quantity.

13) All junk foods are only for taste and they don't give any nutrition. So when you give them, try adding fruit, veggies, sprouts or nuts with junk foods. By adding lots of veggies to noodles that you make.

14) Millets provide lots of nutrients, try exploring millets and make tasty dishes. Check my millets recipes like Thinai rava upma, Multigrain laddoos etc. 

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