How To Make Filipino Foods Healthier

How To Make Filipino Foods Healthier

In a Filipino home, the kitchen is the heart. There is little a assembly that doesn’t miss eating – and we all know you really can’t perform no. With obligatory and voluntary consumption of delicious ensaymada, puto, and ube rolls, my intestines is happy but my waistline is not.
Lately my renew has been recourse me if I could make some of his favorite Filipino dishes healthier. My first thought was, how can you make crispy pata healthy? As a registered dietitian and professionally trained chef, I’m constantly at cold war with myself when I cook and eat Filipino food. I want it to be healthy, but no matter what it must be masarap or it won’t get eaten.
With a space ahead of me full of celebrations and weekday dinners, I want my family to know and enjoy Filipino cuisine, but I don’t want this to impact our long - term health. Much of the customary Pinoy diet is comprised of meat, fried foods, weighty starches and sometimes sugars and sodium. Lob it all together with American portion sizes and you’re at risk for heart disease and diabetes – just by rendering the recipes.
I’ve risen to the challenge of arbitration ways to tweak commonplace recipes and staple foods to shave off calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar but not skimp on salt.
Here’s a squint at a few of the healthy changes we’ve made in our cave:
The rice knops was a sticky location. Telling any Asian they should eat brown rice will most often come with a peak of resistance. I’ll admit – there’s annihilation entirely consonant bloodless, fluffy rice that slightly sticks together when you push it onto your scoop. At first it’s best to meet this challenge half way, mixing both brown and stainless rice to get half your grains whole. It’s not entirely the duplicate but it’s not as drastic a doorknob as movement to all brown rice.
After doing that for a while, we took the plunge to get our fiber intake up and keep our cholesterol in good standing by only eating brown rice at home – erase when we have arroz caldo.
Depending on what meat your lola’s recipe used, a few changes can make this a healthier dish. If making pork adobo, choose a lean cut of pork relating pork loin; if it’s chicken make unambiguous it’s skinless. No matter what the meat is make it lean. Handle the soy sauce to a low sodium apologue to help keep hypertension at bay. These little switches can be made in many of the stewed recipes from calderata to bulalo for a healthier profile.
When it comes to afternoon snacks, we try to keep it light and easy, pilotage away from baked goods and sweets. This is an easy opportunity to increase our fruit and vegetable intake for the day and we’ll often have just fresh produce for our merienda. Making this nickels keeps the calories in check and helps us increase our vitamin and fiber intake. If it’s a balmy summer day, we might make a mango shake ( see recipe ).
Spice it up
With family from the Bicol region, we’re not afraid to spice up our dishes. Research suggests that eating hot peppers may help raise metabolism ( every little bit counts ). We get our fix with a side of suka at sili with our meals.
These are just a few of the alterations we’ve incorporated for a healthier Filipino meal. I haven’t organize a way to alter the crispy pata just yet, but with our other small changes and inference we’re able to fit it in!
Mango Shake Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup of Sof๚l Mango ( you can find this is the yogurt section of your local Asian retailer )
3 halves ripe fresh mango or frozen mango
1 cup skim milk
ฝ cup hurt ice
2 Tbsp whipped topping ( optional )
Directions:
Place all ingredients in a blender. Beat on high speed until compound is smooth. Precipitate into a glass, top with whipped topping and enjoy!
Makes 2 servings.
Nutrition breakdown per cogent:
Calories: 173 calories