Eat To Your Health: New Year's Eve Interview With A Nutritionist About The Holiday Table And More

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 23:16

Eat to your health: New Year's Eve interview with a nutritionist about the holiday table and more

Why does a healthy person need to know their nutritional status, is there any point in separate nutrition, can delicious food be useful, and what to cook for New Year's dinner, an expert of the League of Nation's Health, head of the CDC "Healthy and Sports Nutrition" ", Nutritionist, Ph. D. Ekaterina Burlyaeva.

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Why does a healthy person need to know their nutritional status, is there any point in separate nutrition, can delicious food be useful, and what to cook for New Year's dinner, an expert of the League of Nation's Health, head of the CDC "Healthy and Sports Nutrition" ", Nutritionist, Ph. D. Ekaterina Burlyaeva.

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Ekaterina Aleksandrovna, at the upcoming Forum "Health of the Nation - the Basis of Prosperity of Russia" you will present the Cabinet of "Healthy and Sports Nutrition". Who would benefit from visiting it? And why ?

- All the many years of experience of scientists in the field of nutrition is embodied in the work of the Cabinet of Healthy and Sports Nutrition. We use the latest technology to screen a person, including to determine his nutritional status. The concept of nutritional status unites not only anthropometric indicators (height, weight, waist and hip circumference, age, gender, body composition), but also body functions that have developed under the influence of quantitative and qualitative nutritional characteristics (chronic diseases, dietary habits, including genetically due to human characteristics). In our Cabinet you can get individual nutritional advice.

What is such a survey?

- First, a detailed history is collected, including a dietary one, the data of which are entered into a computer program developed by the Federal Research Center for Nutrition and Biotechnology. This program gives us a complete picture: what is the level of physical activity of a person on weekends and working days, how much he eats (with specification for calories, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, trace elements and vitamins).

The next stage is functional diagnostics. A study called bioimpedansometry shows how much fat and muscle mass a person has, what is the mineralization of bone tissue, whether there is an excess of fluid in the body.

Another study is to determine the level of energy expenditure at rest: how much energy our body spends on breathing, the work of the heart, and other organs. All this is needed in order to understand what a person's metabolic rate is, and how much protein, fat, carbohydrates he needs. vitamins and minerals per day. The full examination lasts an hour and a half.

In addition, in the Office of "Healthy and Sports Nutrition" you can accurately determine the patient's level of bone density and assess the risk of osteoporosis and osteopenia. This study is carried out using ultrasound densitometry, which provides recommendations on how to maintain or improve health with the help of nutrition.

How expensive is it?

- Visitors to the forum "Health of the Nation - the Basis of Russia's Prosperity", which will be held on May 29-31, 2019 in Moscow, at the Gostiny Dvor exhibition complex, will have the opportunity to complete all studies for free.

What happens next with the received data?

- It's no secret that a properly selected diet allows you to influence nutrition-related diseases, for example, gout, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, preventing their occurrence or significantly facilitating their course. I'm not even talking about obesity and protein-energy malnutrition, when the results of the influence of an individually developed diet are simply obvious. The bioimpedance data, which I spoke about, makes it possible to understand: is a person losing or gaining weight - due to adipose tissue, due to muscle tissue, or due to fluid? To achieve the best effect, the doctor dietitian adjusts the diet.

In our Center, various programs have been developed that are focused not only on reducing or gaining body weight, but also on nutritional characteristics. Nowadays, you can often find people oriented towards various types of vegetarianism or observing religious fasts. Unfortunately, we often see the rejection of certain types of products without replacing them with similar in nutritional value. These people also need a diet that satisfies all the physiological needs of the body. And the basic rules of nutrition are the same for everyone.

What are these rules?

- First, the number of calories consumed must correspond to the number of calories burned. I ate a cake - 400 kcal, spend this energy so as not to gain extra pounds. If a person consumes more energy than he consumes, he is sick. If less - overweight appears, then obesity, he also gets sick.

The second rule concerns dietary diversity. It should contain various types of products: fish, meat, cottage cheese, eggs, bread, butter, cereals, vegetables and fruits. And it is desirable that this variety be observed every day. According to the recommendations of the World Health Organization, every meal should include proteins, fats, carbohydrates. To date, there is no scientifically substantiated data confirming that separate meals have any advantages over mixed meals (if we are talking about a conditionally healthy person, without allergies and other problems).

The third law of dietetics requires that the set of foods that a person chooses for himself during the day should satisfy his biological needs for proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.

Finally, eating regularly is important. The interval between meals should be 2-3 hours. Optimally, five meals a day - three main meals and two intermediate meals. This is a mandatory breakfast (unfortunately, many people ignore it today), lunch, dinner (three hours before bedtime) and two well-planned snacks.

It always seemed to be that it was wrong to kill your appetite with snacks …

- Snacks help a person better control their appetite. Eating every 2-3 hours, he will not experience a pronounced feeling of hunger when it comes time for lunch or dinner.

The main meals should consist of a protein product, side dish, salad, drink. But you should not add dessert to them. Chocolates and bars should be a separate meal, just like fruits, and are good for snacks.

Fruit as a snack is tasty and healthy. Chocolates are delicious as a snack

“… And useful. Chocolate is, firstly, polyunsaturated fatty acids. In addition, it provides fast glucose for the brain, which is especially important for people engaged in mental activity. In addition, there are also "hormones of joy" that improve mood. But in everything you need to know when to stop. Of course, eating a 100 gram bar of chocolate in its entirety is not healthy, but three slices - that's 15 grams of chocolate - is perfectly acceptable. It is better to choose chocolate that contains cocoa butter rather than cocoa butter substitutes, and cocoa liquor rather than cocoa powder. In this case, a person will receive polyunsaturated fatty acids and a certain amount of dietary fiber with grated cocoa. Dietary fiber gives a feeling of fullness and slows down the processing of this chocolate in the gastrointestinal tract. This means that the release of insulin will occur more slowly.

Are salt and cholesterol good for you too?

- Yes, they are. The total cholesterol that we get from food in the form of butter, meat, eggs does not significantly affect the level of cholesterol in the blood. This has been proven many times, so people, even with high cholesterol, can be recommended to include in their diet these foods containing many useful substances.

As for salt, that is, the categories of people who, in principle, are shown salt drinks. The same professional athletes know that they must definitely drink beverages high in salt and sugar during or after training, otherwise they simply will not regain their strength.

We say that there are no harmful foods, there is a wrong approach to nutrition. Unfortunately, over the past half century, the consumption of complex carbohydrates, such as cereals, pasta, bread, has significantly decreased, and at the same time the amount of sugar in the diet has increased significantly. Of course this is wrong. A balanced diet is based primarily on complex carbohydrates and protein foods, while the ratio of proteins and carbohydrates should still be in favor of carbohydrates.

Unfortunately, many do not understand this. Patients often come to the room, who believe that cereals, pasta and bread contribute to weight gain. We have to fight these stereotypes. We develop diets that include these foods, and then our patients are surprised to tell that they eat pasta three times more often than before, and at the same time lose those extra pounds.

Is it even possible to talk about healthy eating when there is only talk about low-quality products?

- Products go through several stages of control before getting to the counter. Rospotrebnadzor actively monitors the quality of products. Another issue is the responsibility of the buyer himself. A person buying food in a store should carefully look at the label: check the expiration date. Then read the composition: how much fat, sugar and salt is there. We have introduced voluntary product labeling, so that responsible producers "signal" in color: green - where the minimum amount of fat, sugar and salt is, yellow - slightly higher, and red - eat a small piece and stop so that the values recommended by WHO are not exceeded … But we still have few of those who necessarily read labels.

Please advise the menu of the New Year's table, so that it is tasty, healthy and the holiday is felt ?

- Let's imagine that on our New Year's table fish baked in the oven or grilled, maybe lean meat and fresh vegetables: cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, radishes, lettuce leaves. For an appetizer, you can offer boiled tongue or, if we continue the fish theme, lightly salted salmon. And for dessert, jelly. If you take a creative approach to the design of each dish, you will get a festive table of low calorie content, containing proteins, fats, carbohydrates - what is necessary for a conditionally healthy person. After such a feast, there will be no feeling of heaviness, and you still have the strength to dance or go for a walk.