Bullivant: Enjoy holiday dishes without gluttony

Dec 7, 2016

By Claire Bullivant

Sadly, this is going to be my last article for InMaricopa. Bead & Berry is closing its Maricopa location and hopefully doing something new elsewhere in the near future. In the meantime, I wanted to leave you with a quick guide to staying healthy over the holidays.

Christmas has become synonymous with overeating and drinking – an almost compulsory homage to gluttony that begins months earlier than is reasonable (‘Bah humbug!’). But is it possible to avoid binging and yet still enjoy the holiday?

Here are a few tips:

1) Eat a hearty protein-packed breakfast on Christmas morning, so you’ll be less tempted to overeat at lunch.

2) Plan ahead. Offer to bring a salad or healthy side to the festivities. This way, you’ll know there will be at least one nutritious dish you can munch on.

3) Fill up on the healthiest, low calorie foods first. Indulge in the richer foods once you’re less hungry and put just a small amount on your plate to satiate the palate.

4) As Christmas is no longer a one-day event, avoid getting suck(er)ed into the Christmas ‘feel good’ aisle in supermarkets. Just because those unneeded calories are dressed up in candy-stick red and white doesn’t mean they need to go home with you.

5) To enjoy the run up to the season, make your own favorite cookie recipes healthier by using these substitutes:

• Opt for superfood coconut oil to replace margarine and refined oils.

• Sweeten with unrefined brown sugar or stevia, honey, molasses, maple syrup or bananas instead of refined white sugar.

• Instead of eggs, use ground flax and/or chia seeds with water – the health benefits of these two super-seeds (ahem) supersede eggs on a myriad of fronts.

• Replace about half the white flour in the recipe with whole grain flour.

With that, I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

This column appears in the December issue of InMaricopa.