The Christmas table
The most festive and atmospheric period of the year is, without a doubt, the Christmas and New Year holidays. This season is for all of us an opportunity to escape from everyday life and spend quality time with our loved ones. At the same time, when we are with our own people in outings and home gatherings, it is impossible to resist the delicacies offered to us at the festive table.
How to manage our plate
It is important, when there is a buffet with a variety of dishes, to fill our plate once and for all at the beginning, and not to fill many times. The reason is that, when we fill the plate many times, we are not so well aware of the amount we consume in total.
First, we give ourselves time. By coming into contact with all the dishes on the table, we need to get a good picture of the options available. When we want to fill our plate, we prefer variety in food groups and healthy options. So, we start by filling half the plate with salad.
We divide the other half in half again, in one half we choose foods rich in protein, i.e. meat, chicken, fish, cheese, egg, preferably low-fat. An excellent choice for mainly protein at Christmas is turkey, or alternatively pork, after removing the visible fat, In the second half we fill with carbohydrates, ie pasta, rice, bread, potatoes.
While consuming our meal, we take the time it takes to finish our food, as the signal of satiety needs at least 20-30 minutes to reach the brain.
Dessert time
We choose a type of dessert to try. At Christmas there are many typical sweets that are popular, such as melomakaroni, kourabiedes, diples, vasilopites. Nevertheless, they need a lot of attention as they contain a lot of calories:
- melomakarono (35 g): 190 calories
- kourabiedes (40 g): 240 calories
- diples (45 g): 289 calories
- vasilopita (100 g): 350 calories.
Of course, if you like it, you can also try healthy versions of these desserts by making recipes yourself at home, replacing the traditional ingredients with lighter alternatives, for example, in the kourabies, put stevia powder instead of powdered sugar, thus saving several calories.