10 Tips For A Healthy Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is right at our doorsteps. For the Chinese around the world, it is the time of the year when you find good company, reunion of relatives and friends and delicious meals, cakes and delicacies. Amid the festivities and feasting, it is easy to let down our hair and indulge in whatever is presented to us.

Here are 10 tips on enjoying the festive season without comprising on your health:

 1. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables

Many vegetables are used in Chinese New Year dishes that have symbolic meaning and you can eat more of;

• Fatt Choy ( black hair moss) – Meaning prosperity. Although it has no nutritional value, but it provides fiber 
• Spring onion – Symbolize everything is smooth sailing. 
• Yu Sheng – Chinese New Year salad that is toss high above to symbolize rising above you 
• Mandarin oranges – Symbolize gold nuggets and good fortune. 
• Lettuce wrap – For the Cantonese, it sound like rising fortune. 

Most of these vegetables dishes are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals and help in digestion.

2. Do not visit on an empty stomach

 When you are hungry, you tend to overeat without thinking. Have a light meal or healthy snack of apple, banana or nuts before visiting or in between visits.

3. Be selective

Limit your intake of meat such as pork, chicken and seafood, especially when they are deep-fried. They are high in saturated fat. Choose nuts and seeds over sugary pineapple tarts and bak kwa (barbecued pork).

4. Drink plenty of water

 Water keeps you from being dehydrated when you do home visits and helps to flush off the toxins accumulated from the feasting. Choose plain water over the sugary drinks and alcohol. 

5. Use a small plate

 Big plate encourages you to pile on a bigger quantity of food.

6. Have some room

 Eat up to 70% of fullness and eat slowly. Eating slowly will give the brain time to register that you are full, so you will not overeat.

7. Ration yourself 

If you are moving from one house to another and eating everything that is offered in each house, you will definitely overeat. Ration yourself the amount you should eat per household. You should aim to eat a total of not more than 2000 calories in a day. 

Below are examples of the calories of the common food you will find:
Bak Kwa – 1 piece, 37g, 228 kcal
Mandarin orange, 1 fruit, 116g, 37 kcal
Nian gao, 1 portion, 423g, 977 kcal
Pineapple tarts, 1 piece, 5g, 23 kcal.

8. Stay active

 Do not forget your exercise regimens. The holiday season is no excuse to slack. Don’t forget that you will be eating more calories and if you do not burn them off with exercise, they will be stored as fat.

9. Provide healthier choice for your guests

If you are hosting, offer a variety of healthy nuts, salads and fruits in addition to the rich cakes and pastries. Make a jug of healthy ice lemon tea rather than serving the sugary drinks.

10. Put them altogether

You can apply all the 8 tips together and achieve a multi-prong approach to achieving healthy eating. There is always a possibility to succumb to temptation, but when applying all these tips together, each can reinforce the other and prevent you from overeating and yet allowing you to enjoy your holiday.

Do you have other ways to maintain healthy eating in the Chinese New Year period? Do share with us in the comment box below.



Article originally published on http://lookgoodfeelgreatalways.com

Bak Kwa Recipe & Nutritional Content

Calories in 1 sheet Bak Kwa – 45g
Energy: 176 calories
Protein: 12 g
Carbs: 18 g
Fat: 6 g

Does that suprise you? That BBQ pork contains more carbohydrates than protein? That’s because it’s loaded with sugar during cooking!

From Wikipedia:

Bak Kwa, or rougan is a Chinese salty-sweet dried meat product similar to jerky, made in the form of flat thin sheets. It is normally made from pork. Bakkwa is believed to have originated from a meat preservation and preparation technique used in ancient China that is still practiced in places with Hokkien influence.

In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines bakkwa or ba gua is the most widely used name. Cantonese speakers use the term yuhk gn’, Anglicised version long yok, while in China and Taiwan the product is more commonly known as rougan. Commercially available versions are sometimes labeled as “barbecued pork,” “dried pork,” or “pork jerky.” Bakkwa is particularly popular as a snack in Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and the Philippines. In Beidou, Taiwan, it is regarded as one of the three pork delicacies. 

Bak Kwa – Chinese Barbecued Pork – Recipe (Makes 8 pieces)

• 300gr pork mince 
• 90gr caster sugar 
• 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce 
• 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce 
• Pinch of bicarb of soda 
• 1/2 ts light soy 
• 1 tablespoon rice wine 

Method

• Mix all the ingredients and leave in the fridge overnight. 
• Cut a sheet of greaseproof paper to fit in a standard (35cm-ish wide) baking tray then place the pork on top, patting out well with your hands. Lay a sheet of clingfilm on top then roll the pork out with a rolling pin until it is maybe 5mm thick, at which point it should pretty much cover the paper. 
• Slide the paper onto the baking tray and dry the pork in an 80C fan-oven for 45 minutes. 
• Remove, cut the pork into 8 and then place on the rack of a grill pan, so air can circulate around it for the final cooking. 
• Turn the oven up to 200C and cook the pork for 10 – 12 minutes, turning once, until is reddish-brown and starting to char around the edges. 
• Leave to cool for a few minutes then demolish in its entirety in 5 minutes flat.

Chinese New Year feasting?

The Chinese New Year (CNY) celebrations typically last for a full 15 days. Just as you think you survived the first few days of CNY holidays and your stomach is taking a break from the endless flow of pastries, nuts and soft drinks, the weekend is here and the same house visit ritual begins again!

Not to mention, your colleagues have brought some of the goodies to the work place and the temptation cycle begins. So how do you keep your holiday spirit high but your waistline low? It is not too late to follow the below tips:

Nutritional Content of Popular Goodies

• Bak Kwa (1 piece, 57g)- contains 229kcal, 8g fat, 24g sugar with 15g protein
• Pineapple tarts (2 pieces, 40g) - 163kcal, 7g fat & 12g sugar
• Love Letter (4 rolls, 52g) - 224kcal , 6g fat & 19g sugar
• Shrimp Roll (10 pieces, 15g) - 46kcal ,4g fat & 0g sugar
• Kueh bangkit (6 pieces, 36g) - 137kcal,4 fat & 8g sugar
• Beehive cookie/ kueh ros - 149kcal, 7g fat & 8g sugar
• Nian gao (1/4 portion, 106g) - 245kcal, 0.5g fat & 37g sugar

Thus, let's have a look at the accumulative intake of a typical variety of goodies that may happen during each house visit!

2 pineapple tarts + 10 shrimp rolls + 1 Bak Kwa + 6 Kueh bangkit + 4 love letters
= 799kcal, 29g fat & 63g sugar

This is actually comparable to a plate of chicken rice that contains 700kcal & 26g fat!

Tips

• Avoid making a visit on an empty stomach, instead, fill yourself up on the healthier and lower calorie containing foods/drinks

When you are hungry, you may tend to eat without self-control and the festive goodies, such as those above, and are typically calorie-dense made with lots of oils/cream/butter/sugar. You can try to avoid this lack of self-control by first filling up on healthy fiber-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole-grains or healthy calcium-rich low fat milk before making a house visit or hitting off to the goodies-filled table.

• Know your trigger food, ration them out or avoid them totally

Some crave sugar while others crave salty foods. There must be some or at least 1 specific food(s) that you crave and once you start, you just cannot seem to stop. You might want to try out rationing first. By eating small portions, you are less likely to overeat.

However, if you really find your trigger foods too hard to resist, it is then advisable to avoid them because they can potentially spark overeating. If you know that you will have difficulty eating just 3-4 pineapple tarts for example, you may want to choose to eliminate them altogether to avoid overeating.

• Practice eating and drinking consciously, slowly and wisely

It is the unconscious nibbling and sipping that can really add up to your calorie intake. It is easy to lose track of how many goodies and glasses of alcohol/soft drink/sweet beverage/cordial you are consuming at a house visit. It is always helpful to stay aware of what, when and why you are eating/drinking. Before you reach for another goodie on the table, ask yourself, "Am I hungry or am I eating because the food is just in front of me?"

Chewing your food and eating slowly allows you to savour your food. It also allows your stomach the time it needs to digest and for you to feel full, hence preventing overeating.

Too much alcohol can also give you a burning headache the next morning. Do you also know that alcohol only provides empty calories that can contribute significantly to your calorie intake? Soft drinks, sweet beverages and cordials also provide empty calories. You can wisely reduce the calorie damage by choosing water (zero calories; filling up on water also fills up your stomach and prevents overeating), "light" beers, diet soft drinks and "no sugar added" or "less sugar" beverages or add extra ice to limit volume intake whilst diluting them down.

This article is originally published in Yahoo Singapore Fit To Post Health Blog.