Wednesday 23 October 2013

Simple Tools to Help Keep your Kitchen Healthy

This is actually an article I had written a while back and thought it would be perfect with Diwali around the corner and all the ghee laden sweets, fried savory snacks, and eating out while shopping is happening! ;) 

Simple Tools to Help Keep your Kitchen Healthy

They say the way to a man’s heart (or anyone’s for that matter) is through his stomach which in essence makes your kitchen the heart of your home. Everyone wants a healthy heart (read as healthy kitchen). Put away the old aluminum pots, stop boiling vegetables until you are left with nothing of nutritional value but fiber, and avoid investing heavily in high end kitchen utensils which you saw on TV infomercials. Here a few very simple and basic kitchen tools which are both light on your wallet, digestive system, and heart!
Steamer
When food comes in contact with large amounts of water, a large amount of the nutritional content of the food is lost in the water. Therefore it is best to steam foods which prevents any contact with water and keeps the nutritional content of foods intact. Steam foods until they turn brighter in color, for example, dark green raw broccoli should become bright grass green in color and cauliflower should go from off white to vivid white in color. Steam vegetables for a maximum of two to three minutes to ensure nutritional value remains at its highest.
Steamers can be as simple as two compartment pots, the bottom pot which holds the small amount of water that comes to boil and the top colander-like pot with lid which holds the food, or more high tech ones such as those that are built in to rice cookers.
Oil Spritzer/Mister
Fat (oil, margarine, nuts, seeds) has 9 calories per gram versus protein (lentils, beans, lean meat) and carbohydrates (rice, roti, bread, fruits) which both have four calories per gram. With the bottom line being total caloric intake to ensure weight maintenance, use of oil should be monitored when cooking.
Oil spritzers/misters help to reduce the amount of oil in cooking by spraying a small, controlled amount of oil evenly in your cookware. Sprizters can be empty ones into which you may fill the oil of your choice (remember to change your oil every month, so you may get an even distribution of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, both heart healthy fats, in your diet) or ready-to-use ones which come in a wide variety of oils from olive oil which is great for quick stir-fry items or saut̩ing vegetables to margarine or butter Рgreat for lining baking pans when making fresh, homemade multigrain bread!



Measuring cups and spoons
Second to total calorie intake in order of importance in weight management is portion control. Measuring cups and spoons take the guessing out of portion sizes and help in understanding total calorie intake without all the numbers!
For example, ¾ cup of dry cereal (wheat flakes, corn flakes) is equal to one serving of starch; one cup raw salad is one serving of vegetables. The general rule is 2 teaspoons of oil per person per day. If there are 5 people in your home, it is best to remove 10 teaspoons of oil in the morning and put this in a container on the side of the stove and use only that container for the entire day’s cooking. That is if you are not using an oil mister for cooking.
Nonstick Cookware
With the total intake of oil being controlled, the best way to ensure foods are cooked well in a minimum amount of oil is by using nonstick cookware. The durable inner coating of nonstick cookware allows foods to cook quickly and evenly while maintaining the nutritional value of foods. Nonstick cookware is more expensive than your regular steel or aluminium pots and pans so you may want to start with just a few basics such as a good nonstick pan and wok or deep pot for vegetables.
Ensure you are using wooden or plastic utensils while stirring or mixing foods made in nonstick cookware as steel or metal utensils may scratch the nonstick surface rendering it less effective and potential harmful as the inner lining of the nonstick surface is made from chemicals which are not be ingested. Also avoid cleaning your nonstick cookware with woolen steel scrubs or abrasive sponges which could also scratch the surface.
Iron tawa
With a large percentage of the Indian population still pure vegetarian, intake of iron, along with several other vitamins and minerals, is lower in this group. Dosas and chillas made on iron tawas leech iron from the tawa and thus become good sources of iron.
One simple helpful tip – rub a raw onion on your hot tawa for approximately 30 seconds. This helps to keep the dosas and chillas from sticking to the tawa and makes the dosas crisp.
Egg white separator
High protein, low carbohydrates diets are still the craze making egg sales go up! Since eggs are the perfect protein, containing all essential amino acids (the building blocks of protein), they make for a healthy and economic protein option. However with the increased incidence of heart disease which entails high cholesterol levels, whole eggs have been substituted with egg whites.
Avoid the messy separation of egg whites from the cholesterol-filled yolks with a simple egg white separator. Simply break your egg into the separator and watch it catch the yolk and let the entire white fall through two holes on the side into a bowl below.
FYI - If you have cardiovascular disease, diabetes or a high low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad") blood cholesterol level, you should limit your dietary cholesterol to less than 200 mg a day. One whole egg has about 186 mg of cholesterol — all of which is in the yolk.

Juicer
Although I am not a big advocate of juicing as you lose large amounts of fiber while juicing fruits and vegetables, I do believe in having detoxifying juices from time to time to cleanse your system. Fruits and vegetables are a great source of many vitamins and minerals which help boost your immune system and give you glowing skin, lustrous hair, and strong nails. Juices are best had in the morning on an empty stomach and freshly made.
Electric juicers from most of the large kitchen appliance brand names are available. Simple manual juicers for oranges, sweet limes, and lemons are also economical and just as effective.
Healthy Hint: Add the fiber back in to your juice with unflavoured physillium husk (available at most chemists). Get an extra boost of immunity by adding a shot of fresh wheat grass or wheat grass powder to your juice.


You are what you eat so do you want to be a deep-fat fryer or heavy duty, powerful iron tawa? More than half your results for weight management will come from nutrition alone. Learn fact from fiction and dispel some of the old methods of cooking when calorie intake needed to be high to sustain laborious work and active lifestyles. Keep homemade meals light and nutritious. Clean out your kitchen today to make it a better place with these affordable and easy tools. Happy cooking and healthy eating!

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Radhika's Nutrition 101

A few very simple nutrition tips which should help with inch loss, better energy levels, digestion, and immunity. Please note, the tips are simple and for more information and/or a personalized meal plan, please write in to me and/or post your comments. 

Radhika’s Balanced Body’s Nutrition 101
·       Don’t skip meals. Ensure you eat every 2 to 3 hours.

·       Eat before the hunger pangs start. Don’t wait till you are hungry. If you wait until you are hungry you will eat double the recommended amount.

·       Eat until your stomach is half full.

·       Take at least a minimum of 20 minutes to eat your meal.

·       Drink enough water to where your urine is pale yellow in color.

·       Ensure you eat a meal within 45 mins of exercising.

·       If you’re a pure vegetarian, it is highly recommended you take a multi vitamin and mineral complex tablet.

Have a great weekend,
Radhika


Tuesday 2 July 2013

My Mom the super chef!!

This blog is dedicated to my mom, Shaila Karle, who has supported my father, sisters, and me through thick and thin… most of which we would like to be believe has been thin (and fit – my elder, Sang, who turn 40 next year, still looks fabulous)!! ;)

Every day after school till we went off to boarding school, my mom would have baked some amazing snack for us at home. Snickerdoddle cookies, dream bars, brownies, carrot cake, profiteroles, and my favourite – banana bread!

It was this constant snacking (besides the baked goods, my mom would do sandwiches, sabudana khichadi, upma/sanza, and chicken rolls) that got us through the tennis, swimming, dance classes, and long days at school – out the door at 7:45 am and back home by 4:30/5 pm depending on the traffic from Breach Candy to Parle East! Traffic was still not that bad in the 80’s though. J
So today when my young moms come to me for consults and end with questions about their kid’s nutrition, I always look to my mom, now a grandmother of 3, Maya the triathlete (9), Varun the ice hockey player (7), and Ahilya the foodie (2.5), for suggestions. And the best advice my mom gives me is:

1.      1. Keep it simple. A lot of young mothers go back to work after maternity leave. Instant upma is fine – add an extra ½ cup of cooked (steamed) color veggies to pack an extra punch of vitamins and minerals – broccoli, zucchini, red and yellow bell peppers.

2.      2. Make your own restaurant favorites but a little healthier – fish and chips – grill basa fillets (easy to eat fish for kids as it does not have a strong fishy odor) with baked potato wedges. Pressure cook the potatoes till they are half cooked and then bake in pre heated oven on open baking dish. Spray with butter flavored cooking spray and season with salt.

3.      3. Every kid needs a little sweetness in life! Homemade baked goods are the best – preservative free and you can even avoid the butter!

Here is the recipe for my all time favorite snack – BANANA BREAD! Great snack 30 minutes before any practice (football, basketball, swimming, jazz ballet) and it even freezes well so make several loaves and freeze a few for later.

Thanks Mom for everything…I am one lucky kid and I hope that when I grown up, I will be able to do half as much as what you did for Tai, Madh, and me!! xoxo

BANANA BREAD (adapted from www.allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup mashed bananas
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)


DIRECTIONS:
1.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Spray one 9x5 inch loaf pan with non-stick spray coating.
2.
Blend together the eggs, buttermilk, oil and bananas.
3.
Sift together the sugar, flour, baking soda and salt. Add to banana mixture and stir in pecans. Mix well.
4.
Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake 1 hour and 20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Sunday 23 June 2013

Back to blogging!!

After a verrrrrry long break, I am back to writing my blog!! :) Will sincerely try to add one once a week...so stay posted and keep reading.

So I decided to take some time off from Mumbai and travel with the beautiful Sonam Kapoor to Benares, Delhi, and Jaipur for the shooting of Raanjanaah (in theatres now) and the untitled YRF movie (still being shot in a few locations in Mumbai).

I come back with a sincere respect for the entire film industry...the time, long hours, harsh weather conditions (Benares was a steamy 40+ degrees and Delhi -3 degrees in December during 3 a.m. night shoots), and  remote locations we are taken to (small gulleys in Benares and sides of highways in Jaipur)!!

I watch movies now thinking, "how did they set up a vanity van there??" or "how did they light up that location??" Lol...makes it difficult to focus on the movie at times! But still enjoyed watching it all come alive on the big screen...Raanjanaah was simply beautiful.

It was worth living off fruit, sandwiches, protein shakes and bars, fiber bars, cereal, dahi, and large amounts of water!! I do hope you all enjoy watching Raanjanaah as much as I loved traveling with the crew...despite the craziness.

I am back to the Maximum City, Mumbai meri jaan!! Back to seeing clients at my new Parle East studio. Please do come visit us. For more information, call 022-26138589, see www.balancedbody.in.

Have a happy and healthy day,
Radhika :)