It’s not just what you eat that makes your diet healthy – how you cook or serve things, or the other foods you combine them with, can power up things even further.
Try these 10 ideas.
Combine Avocado toast with a glass of carrot juice
Not only will the contrasting colours look pretty, avocado helps convert more of the beta carotene in orange foods like carrots into vitamin A – in fact you’ll make 12 times more than normal. Exactly why isn’t known, but the fats in avocado seem to be the prime suspect, says Professor Steven Schwartz from Ohio State University. You need at least half an avocado to get results.
Combine turmeric with black pepper
Turmeric has made headlines for its anti-inflammatory properties, but it’s even more powerful if you combine it with black pepper.
“The active ingredient curcumin is rapidly metabolised out of the body by the liver, but an ingredient called piperine in black pepper helps the body absorb nutrients,” says Melbourne-based naturopath Karina Francois.
“Even a pinch can boost curcumin levels.”
Serve a raw vegetable at each meal
Hearing yourself eat something crunchy makes you more aware of what you’re consuming and cuts your appetite by about a quarter; experts call this the ‘crunch effect’. Boost it by eliminating background noise.
“When you mask the sound of consumption – like when you watch TV while eating – it may cause you to eat more than you would normally,” says Dr Ryan Elder from Brigham Young University.
Cook steak as little as you can
Not only does this reduce the formation of cancer-causing compounds within the meat, but a rare steak provides 12 per cent fewer kilojoules than a well-done one. It’s all related to the kilojoules you burn up eating it. Our body uses more energy breaking down the harder collagen bonds in a rare steak than the softer ones in a well-done one.
Combine hot chips with vinegar
Potatoes have a high glycaemic index, meaning they quickly raise levels of blood glucose in your system, but adding vinegar to a meal decreases this response. It’s believed that vinegar slows down the rate at which food empties from the stomach and enters the small intestine, so you’ll feel full for longer. The same effect will occur if you dab bread in vinegar before eating.
Serve chocolate dishes in orange crockery
They taste better when you do, so you’ll be satisfied with smaller portions, find researchers at Oxford University. And that’s not the only perfect colour combination – Professor Charles Spence from Oxford also says drinks are more thirst-quenching from blue glasses and that you should eat from a red plate if you want to curb your appetite.
Cook your broth with lemon
Adding a splash of something acidic like lemon or vinegar, or some acidic vegetables like tomatoes, while cooking a homemade bone broth will increase the amount of calcium within it. But be prepared – you need to boil the bones for 24 hours to get the highest calcium levels.
Cook Peas by boiling, and tomatoes by roasting
Different healthy substances in vegetables need different temperatures to release them. Peas, zucchini and cauliflower prefer steaming to boiling. Tomatoes particularly like long, slow cooking methods like roasting – cooking them for 30 minutes significantly increases the release of the antioxidant lycopene. Carrots are best eaten cooked, as this increases the release of carotenoids. Cooking them with a little oil boosts levels by 39 per cent. Some veges are less fussy, however: artichokes, green beans and beetroot all keep high levels of antioxidants however they’re cooked.
Combine broccoli and mustard
Three to five servings of broccoli a week may protect against cancer. But if you’re using frozen broccoli, be sure to eat it with a dab of mustard. Frozen broccoli is first blanched to keep it green, but this process destroys a substance called myrosinase. Myrosinase is needed to produce sulphoraphane, a cancer-preventing compound found in broccoli. Mustard, however, contains myrosinase and supplies what you need. And if you’re cooking fresh broccoli – steam it. Myrosinase survives steaming.
Words: Helen Foster
