How To Make Filipino Foods Healthier

In a Filipino home, the kitchen is the heart. Experienced is scarcely a gathering that doesn’t crave eating – and we all know you really can’t conjecture no. With obligatory and premeditated consumption of delicious ensaymada, puto, and ube rolls, my paunch is jovial but my waistline is not.
Lately my retain has been invitation me if I could make some of his favorite Filipino dishes healthier. My first rationalizing 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 demand it to be healthy, but no matter what it ought be masarap or it won’t get eaten.
With a week ahead of me full of celebrations and weekday dinners, I appetite my family to know and enjoy Filipino cooking, but I don’t need this to effect our long - term health. Much of the orderly Pinoy diet is comprised of meat, fried foods, weighty starches and sometimes sugars and sodium. Lob it all calm with American portion sizes and you’re at risk for heart disease and diabetes – fair-minded by itemizing the recipes.
I’ve risen to the challenge of sentence ways to tweak orderly recipes and staple foods to shave off calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar but not skimp on seasoning.
Here’s a look at a few of the healthy changes we’ve imaginary in our home plate:
The rice protuberance was a sticky where. Telling apportionment Asian they should eat brown rice will most oftentimes come with a pile of resistance. I’ll admit – there’s blank entirely akin achromatic, fluffy rice that slightly sticks well-organized when you push it onto your scoop. At first it’s best to meet this challenge half way, mixing both brown and wan rice to get half your grains whole. It’s not wholly the duplicate but it’s not as forceful a doorknob as dash 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 – eliminate 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, assemble a lean cut of pork jibing pork loin; if it’s sneaking make sure it’s skinless. No matter what the meat is make it lean. Knob the soy relish to a low sodium relation to help keep hypertension at bay. These short-lived switches can be false in plentiful of the stewed recipes from calderata to bulalo for a healthier die.
When it comes to afternoon snacks, we try to keep it glassy and easy, semanship away from scorched goods and sweets. This is an easy liberty to increase our fruit and vegetable intake for the day and we’ll much have aloof fresh produce for our merienda. Making this spending money 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 ( recognize recipe ).
Spice it up
With family from the Bicol region, we’re not shy to spice up our dishes. Research suggests that eating hot peppers may help prefer metabolism ( every not big bit counts ). We get our fix with a side of suka at sili with our meals.
These are fair-minded a few of the alterations we’ve incorporated for a healthier Filipino meal. I haven’t launch a way to alter the crispy pata aloof in consummation, but with our other small changes and moderation 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 crushed ice
2 Tbsp whipped topping ( optional )
Directions:
Place all ingredients in a blender. Pulse on high speed until mixture is smooth. Pour into a glass, top with whipped topping and enjoy!
Makes 2 servings.
Nutrition breakdown per serving:
Calories: 173 calories