Explore Our Holiday Eating Guide
It’s challenging to make healthy food choices during the holiday season!
As temperatures begin dropping during the Fall, our bodies naturally start holding in more heat. Your appetite increases and you begin craving for sweet, warm, grounding and comforting foods. This change exponentially increases between Halloween and Christmas. We begin with craving bucket of candies to holiday beverages loaded with cream and sugar. Snacks such as cookies, cakes, and pies, along with heavy sides like mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and casseroles, the list of unhealthy food is endless. Add to that the challenges that come with the current pandemic, making mindful eating choices is challenging!
Explore Mindful Eating Practices
Let us be more mindful as we make food choices this holiday season. Mindfulness is the practice of being physically and mentally aware in the present moment. Here are 5 simple tips for mindful eating:
Sit down and eat
Take a deep breath before you put food on your plate. Settle into the present moment and check in with your emotions. Are you bored? Stressed? Anxious? Or are you truly hungry? Pay attention to the hunger cues your body sends you before you fill your plate up!
Pick a small plate
Portion your food by selecting an appropriately sized plate. It feels silly, but when a small plate is full with food, your mind feels more content than when you have a large plate that’s barely full
Minimize distractions while you eat
Put your electronic devices away! Turn off your tv, cell phone, tablet, and even lengthy discussions with your loved ones. Focus on the food in front of you and truly savor it! Enjoy the color, texture, flavor, aroma of the food.
Surround yourself with people who make mindful choices
The company your are with tends to influence your emotions, behaviors, and ultimately choices you make. Surround yourself with positive, lively, and caring people who make you feel like you can be yourself. You’ll be surprised with how comfortable you’ll feel making mindful eating choices!
Listen to your body
Lastly but most importantly, listen to your body! Be mindful of the hunger and fullness cues. Try to avoid munching on food once you are full. Take your time eating slowly and paying attention to the clues your body send you.
Let’s look at some healthier alternatives to traditional holiday recipes!
Eggnog
Traditionally a recipe for eggnog calls for mixing of egg yolks, sugar, milk, cream, and rum (or a similar type of alcohol). According to Ayurveda each food has an inherent combination of qualities, tastes, and energies. Combining foods with different energies can overwhelm the digestive system (agni) and cause digestive toxins (ama). Milk is cooling and egg yolks are heating, so mixing those together is called as incompatible food combination. The drink is served chilled with a lot cream, and sugar so it becomes even more challenging to the digestive system. The unhealthy combination may create indigestion, gas, bloating, or discomfort.
Alternatively, drink homemade hot chocolate or apple cider instead! I understand it may be a difficult choice, but it’s best to limit consumption of egg nog.
Hot Chocolate
The traditional hot cocoa recipe typically consists of coca powder, white sugar, a pinch of salt, cow’s milk, vanilla extract, and half and half. As per Ayurveda, cow’s milk and salt do not combine well, and the resulting combination can be overwhelming to the digestive system.
Let us look at an easier to digest hot chocolate recipe:
Modified Spiced Hot Chocolate Recipe: Take 1 cup unsweetened rice, almond, or oat milk, add ½ teaspoon cocoa powder, 2 pinches cinnamon powder and let it boil for 5-8 minutes on a low flame on the stove. When it cools off a little bit add a teaspoon of raw honey or organic maple syrup to taste.
Apple Cider
Store bought apple cider can be full of added sugars and preservatives! It can spike up your blood sugar inconsistently. It’s best to make fresh apple cider at home.
Here is a healthier apple cider recipe:
Grab 4-5 organic, local apples and a couple of organic oranges and cut them up into quarters. Remove the peel on the oranges and add both the apple quarters and orange quarters into a medium-sized pot full of hot water on medium flame. Add warming spices such as a couple of sticks of cinnamon, 4-5 cloves, or a teaspoon of allspice. Cook until tender and strain out the cinnamon sticks and cloves. Let it cool of a little and blend it in a blender or VitaMix. You may add a dash of maple syrup to sweeten the cider and enjoy when it is warm!
Making healthy food choices during the holidays is challenging! We hope these tips and simple recipes helps you in the process of making mindful choices.