Healthy Christmas - Healthy Eating

Healthy Christmas eating is more straightforward if you follow a few basic rules and include festive food that is wholesome and natural, and minimize how much unhealthy food you consume.

Believe it or not, the traditional roast turkey dinner is good for you and packed with wholesome goodness, vitamins and anti-oxidants; it’s what you put with it that piles on those extra pounds.

Healthy Christmas Turkey and Vegetables

For a healthy Christmas you must cut down on your fat, sugar and salt intake and control the amount of calories you consume.

So does striving for a healthy Christmas mean you have to give up all your festive treats?

Absolutely not, if you drastically downsize the amount of unhealthy food you consume and significantly increase your portions of healthy fruit, vegetables, nuts and lean meat then you will sail through your Christmas holiday without gaining weight or feeling deprived and hungry.

This article contains tips and suggestions for a healthy Christmas together with a Gordon Ramsay Christmas Recipe video showing you how to use festive spices to make your own Christmas Mulled Wine and Spicy Toasted Nuts.

Healthy Christmas Dinner

The traditional Christmas dinner of white turkey meat is in fact low in fat, high in protein, high in B vitamins, and it is lower in fat and calories than the dark turkey meat, which makes it exactly the type of meat you should be eating to keep you healthy.

In reality, many of the foods we consume at Christmastime are actually good for us when prepared with minimal added fat, sugar and salt, and eaten in moderation. As always, everything in moderation is the key to not over indulging, or ruining your health or putting on weight.

Turkey, for instance, is a good source of protein and if you eat it without the skin, it is actually low in fat. This is because the skin on a turkey, or any other roasted poultry, is where most of the fat is and if you remove the skin you can cut around 40 calories per portion. Also the light turkey meat has slightly fewer calories than the dark meat, so always choose turkey breast instead of leg or thigh. In addition to this turkey meat provides important B vitamins, which your body needs for producing energy.

Healthy Christmas Turkey Breast Sliced

If you prick the skin of the turkey before you cook it you will allow a lot of the fat to drain out and if you also cook it on a rack or trivet you can prevent it from sitting in fat.

Chestnuts are low in fat and a good source of potassium, which we need for healthy kidneys. Many people like chestnuts in the stuffing or cooked with sprouts. For the stuffing choose a chestnut or fruit-based stuffing instead of the more traditional sausage meat and you will cut out more calories.

Potatoes are a good source of carbohydrate and are almost fat free (until they're roasted in oil or fat). If you are seriously looking for a healthy alternative or counting calories then baked potatoes are just as tasty but much better for you. If you really can’t do without your roast potatoes then only have two or three small ones.

You can make a low-fat gravy by pouring the juices from the turkey into a jug and then waiting for the fat to rise to the surface. Carefully pour or spoon off the fat and then use the fat-free juices to make your own gravy.

Instant gravy granules or similar can be high in salt and too much salt may increase your blood pressure so if you have instant gravy, do no add more salt to your Christmas dinner.

Brussels sprouts are a good source of folate (a B vitamin) and vitamin C, which may help to protect against heart disease and cancer. Sprouts are also high in vitamin K which helps with bone formation and blood clotting. And because they are fibrous sprouts help to keep your digestive system healthy.

Always serve plenty of vegetables because they are low in both calories and fat, so the more healthy vegetables you eat the less room you will have to eat unhealthy food.

Healthy Christmas Pudding

Christmas pudding on it's own is actually fairly low in fat and high in carbohydrate so make sure the one you choose contains lots of fruit and maybe nuts too. Christmas pudding provides some fibre (from the fruit), B vitamins, potassium, iron and calcium.

Although many are high in sugar one small portion after Christmas dinner is fine especially if you had plenty of vegetables with your main course because you should be too full to eat a bigger portion anyway.

If you like to have cream with your Christmas pudding this might not be the best option because:

Healthy Christmas Pudding is low in fat

Single cream contains 297 calories and 28.7 grams of fat in every 150 grams.

Double cream is even worse and comes in at a whopping 674 calories and 72 grams of fat for the same sized portion.

Brandy Butter is the worst of all and has 820 calories and 57.3 grams of fat in 150 grams and also contains 66.3 grams of sugar.

You can drastically cut down on calories if you have brandy sauce or a low fat custard.

Birds Brandy Sauce is a better option and each 100ml serving contains just 97 calories and 1.5 grams of fat.

Ambrosia Low Fat Devon Custard is almost the same with each 100 gram serving containing 93 calories and 1.8 grams of fat.

So by just swapping brandy butter for Birds brandy sauce you can effectively cut more than 500 calories just from your Christmas pudding.

Healthy Christmas Vegetables

Broccoli is low in calories, fat-free, and high in vitamins A and C.

Green beans are low in calories, fat-free, high in vitamins C and K, and high in fiber.

Green peas are fat-free, high in vitamin K and high in fiber.

Sprouts are low in calories, fat-free, high in vitamins C and K, and high in fiber.

Sweet potatoes, pumpkin and carrots are fat-free, cholesterol-free, and high in vitamins A and C, and fibre.

Other Healthy Christmas Foods

Cranberries are low in calories, fat-free, cholesterol free, high in fiber, and high in vitamins A and C.

Red wine is fat-free and high in heart-healthy antioxidants, but the recommended allowance is one alcoholic beverage per day for women and two per day for men.

Dark chocolate is high in antioxidants.

Cinnamon is a festive spice associated with Christmas and used in Mulled Wine, research has found that it can help to lower blood sugar, improve diabetes and aid in bacterial infections.

Healthy Christmas Video Recipe

Gordon Ramsay Christmas Recipes: Mulled Wine with Toasted Spiced Nuts

Tip: If you are cutting down on salt then leave out the salt from the toasted nuts recipe.

Healthy Christmas Eating Tips

Christmas morning can be hectic so make sure you start your day with a satisfying breakfast. Choose a wholegrain cereal such as granola or muesli; you can add fresh blueberries or sliced banana to make it more interesting.

Sitting down to a proper breakfast will set you up for the day and stop you feeling peckish while you’re preparing food or waiting for food to be served and you won’t be so tempted to snack on unhealthy tit-bits.

Don't clean up by finishing off others left-overs, this especially applies if you have small children who are fussy eaters. If food is left uneaten on a plate, throw it away. This might seen like sacrilege to you if you hate waste but your health is more important.

Help yourself to fresh fruit and mixed nuts.

Avoid eating too many sausage rolls, mince pies and vol-au-vents and go easy on the Christmas cake instead you can occupy your hands by peeling satsuma oranges or cracking nuts.

Keep your hands off the kid’s selection boxes in the evening.

Move about more and keep active to burn off the calories you do eat, don’t be tempted to sit on the couch all day in front of the television eating unhealthy snacks and drinking sugary drinks. Go out for a walk either on your own, with a family member or just the dog, to get your circulation moving and keep your heart healthy.

Drink plenty of water because alcohol is very dehydrating, dehydration actually contributes to the sensation of feeling drunk so drinking plenty of water will stop your body from dehydrating. Water not only helps to flush out any salt and toxins, it also helps to reduce bloating, increases your energy levels and keeps annoying cravings at bay.

Just remember... a little of what you fancy does you good so all things in moderation and nothing to excess and you should enjoy a very healthy Christmas.

Share | |

To share this site with a friend click here.