The time has come to prepare your meal of the week. If you are going to eat almost the same thing every day, it better be healthy, no? And if what we want is a varied diet, too. Maintaining a balanced and healthy diet is not at odds with taking the tupper anywhere. Today we are going to see it.
EVERYTHING about fruit, do you get fatter at night, do you have to take it between meals?
The ‘structure’ of a healthy ‘tupperware’
The first point to take into account when designing our food is the proportion. We have discussed a lot about healthy habits, balanced eating, etc. According to nutrition experts from the Harvard School of Public Health, if we are in front of a “tupper” (or a plate) we can follow some basic rules to fill it.
Visually, we can say that our healthy “tupperware” should contain:
1/2 of fruits and vegetables. In variety is the taste, so here there are no limits to be set. An important note, potatoes and starchy foods (like sweet potatoes) do not count as vegetables.
1/4 whole grains, intact, such as whole wheat, barley, wheat grains, quinoa, oats, brown rice.
1/4 healthy protein, which can come from animal products, such as fish, chicken, eggs … or the most recommended legumes: beans, lentils, chickpeas. Also nuts, unsalted, roasted or natural, can be a good source of protein.
With these basic notions we can think about how to structure our healthy and tasty recipes, without “sinning” to cook badly. But of course, only with this structure, although it is important, we will not have enough.
Organization and planning, the secret
Taking this into account, the next step is to organize our week. Pausing for a few minutes to decide what we are going to eat and how we are going to do it is the best ally in this process. So we can choose a varied diet, which allows us adherence. In addition, it will allow us to prepare food in advance, and buy the best ingredients for our dishes.
Usually, planning is one of the biggest secrets, and best allies, of healthy food. But it is not easy to find those ten minutes to manage our dishes. A good trick is to use breaks between tasks. Another idea is to do it on Sundays, or days off, thinking about a whole week. Another good trick is to reuse the plannings from other weeks.
Choose the dressings well and change your desserts
If you take your food away from home, bringing dressings is a bad idea. First of all, for food safety. Second, because it is cumbersome. And third, because you don’t know how the story will end. You probably put a number of calories between your chest and back with little nutritional value.
It is better to do without the dressings, and if you use them, that they are high quality vegetable oils. And few, if possible. Another option is to bring some healthy options or use spices to add flavor, if you increase the caloric content of the food.
On the other hand, something similar happens with desserts. What dessert is of good quality and hardly spoils when we transport it? Fruit. Unless they give it significant heat strokes, fruit, for those with a sweet tooth, is a good option: dates, apple, grape …
Another option for dessert, and also accompanies the protein ratio of your tupperThey are unsalted nuts, which can give a different and healthy touch at the end of the meal. In addition, they provide a large amount of fiber, do not spoil and are easily transportable.
Be careful what you keep in the ‘tupper’
Not everything goes, as we said. First of all, we are on complex terrain. The foods that last the longest are ultra-processed. But they are also the least healthy of all. Conversely, the healthiest foods, many of them, are the most perishable, like fresh fruit and vegetables.
To fill a tupper With healthy food, it is imperative to maintain some basic food safety rules:
- Do not keep food at room temperature once cooked
- Cook them properly, reaching 65ºC for more than a minute
- Avoid breaking the cold chain, if they were frozen
- Do not mix older foods with newer ones
- Avoid cross contamination when handling
Returning to the topic of ultra-processed foods, if we want a healthy diet, we will have to move away from products already prepared in advance, which tend to have a large number of unhealthy ingredients: fats, free sugar and other unnecessary components in our diet.
No matter how little time we have, and how lazy it gives us, cooking is essential to maintain a healthy diet, whether it is from tupper as if not, but especially if we are going to eat out, taking the food with us.
Finally, our colleague, Gabriela Gottau, prepared a weekly menu for us to take away in our tupper In a simple way. Here we leave it to you, to make it much easier to make a good daily plan.