Just a list of quick things you can keep in mind while you spend time shopping for vegetables and spend time dishing up delicacies in your kitchen – you want solid good health packed into those pretty-looking, great-tasting dishes. That’s the trick I think, instead of trying to pass off a sad-tasting thing as healthy.
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When you go shopping for your food:
– Buy vegetables in different colours – mix up a healthy number of greens (both dark and light) with a good number of reds, browns, maroons, yellows, oranges. Colour has a big bearing on nutrients and you want to make sure you have all of them packed into your food. Besides, it also adds some colour to your cooking.
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– DO NOT buy vegetables and fruits from supermarkets- Make that necessary trip to the local market – things are cheaper there, fresher, and you know for sure that nothing is coming out after a month of hibernating in the cold storage. Storage vegetables are dead and let me give you a litmus test – potatoes. Potatoes from these stores, you will notice are black on the inside – happens when they have been in the cold for long.
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– Do not ever buy pre-cut vegetables – once a vegetable is cut open, it is exposed to the atmosphere – this triggers the process of oxidation and any anti-oxidants you were hoping to consume, will have evaporated by then. The same goes for fruits.
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– When you shop from street vendors for veggies, you will notice a lot of them selling small cabbages, small bhindi, small cauliflowers – pick those. The big, bloated ones are artificially inflated and lack taste, colour and life and are often riddled with worms. The smalls ones are fresher, not tampered with and closer to natural. Remember, this does not mean that you should go looking for small, shrivelled stuff – keep your eyes open for small and fresh and colourful.
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– This is an obvious one – buy seasonal vegetables – carrots and leafies in winter in higher amounts, for instance. The same goes for fruits. Your body needs them in that season, which is why nature is allowing them for harvest at that precise time.
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– Buy vegetables you have not eaten or seen before – this will help you experiment, try new things, and add more variety to your cooking. Pick up a whole grain, a whole meal, a new nut, a new fruit even. Your body will love you for it.
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– For packaged things, ALWAYS check the expiry date. ALWAYS.
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– If there is a fresh, whole alternative for something, choose that over packaged, processed and stabilized, preserved- Like mangoes instead of a mango jam. You get the picture. Iam not saying jams are bad – I am just saying, make sure you are picking up more naturals than…er…’unnaturals’.
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– This one comes last but is possibly the most important of them all – buy yourself a couple of cloth bags and carry them with you when you go shopping – keep one bag folded inside your purse for those times when you go out, not intending to shop, but stumble upon something you were hunting for. Avoid plastic like the plague – this is good for you AND the planet. Also, do another thing – when a shop keeper starts giving you a plastic bag, look really offended, declare loudly how he should not give out plastic and brandish the cloth bag at him – you will not only feel great about yourself, you will also end up educating a couple of unsuspecting fellow shoppers
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Reema Prasanna is a baking coach, cook, travel & food Writer, blogger, ex-Googler, bathroom singer and wife to the most amazing man. More about her here http://about.me/reema.prasanna
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