Egg’citing & Effortless Easter Nutr’isms
Easter; the period associated with chocolate, fruit-and-marzipan cake and dough buns. So it’s not necessarily the most nutrition-conscious time of year, but have you ever wondered if you could make your Easter food and meals just that little bit more health-conscious?
Here to help, Eat Drink Think Nutrition® Registered Nutritionist Kate has eight egg’citing and effortless Easter Nutr’isms to support your aspirations of optimising the health benefits within your Easter repertoire.
1. Opt for dark chocolate Easter eggs. A 2022 study in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry suggested that eating 30g of chocolate with 85% or greater cacao content every day for three weeks reduced negative mood scores by 21.5 %, whereas there was no difference when eating chocolate of 70% or lower cacao content. (Improvements were linked to changes in greater microbial diversity and more short chain fatty acid butyrate-producing bacteria in the gut. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2021.108854)
2. One of the traditional centrepieces at this time of year is lamb. However, red meat can be quite ‘fatty’ and pro-inflammatory which may exacerbate symptoms if you already harbour excess inflammation or have an inflammatory health condition. Instead, why not choose a leaner white meat, lean game or a white fish as the piece de resistance of your Easter meal. (If you do choose red meat, try to make it organic and free-range.)
3. Include plenty of dark green leafy vegetable accompaniments, (a palm-size portion with your main meal is initially recommended) throughout your Easter meals. DGLVs are rich in magnesium, phytonutrients, iron and fibre which have a plethora of systemic health benefits. Dark Green Leafy Vegetables such as Asparagus, Kale, Rocket, Spinach, Spring Greens and Watercress are also coming into season at this time of year, and eating seasonally often enriches the nutrient values in the food. It’s also nicer to enjoy food when it’s at its freshest and most abundant.
4. This time of year is associated with new beginnings, so why not include a teaspoon of seeds atop one of your daily meals. (Mixed seed options include chia, flax, pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds.) Seeds are excellent sources of digestion-supporting fibre, skin-supporting Vitamin E, Brain-supporting Omega essential fatty acids, Magnesium and Zinc. Try to buy organic if you can, and if you prefer or need them grinding (flax seeds sometimes come in this form) try to do this yourself.
5. Rather than the Easter Bunny bringing purely chocolate, I’m sure they could be persuaded to intersperse a few exotic, glistening fruits in their Easter offerings. Colourful red and purple berries are aesthetically pleasing additions to a hoard of chocolate eggs, and you could also give the Easter Bunny creative license to be really adventurous and include something like a Dragon Fruit in their basket. Colourful berries are full of antioxidant Vitamin C, Phytonutrients and digestion-supporting fibre, whilst Dragon Fruits are rich in the B-Complex Vitamins, Vitamin C and digestion-supporting prebiotic fibres. And after all, Dragons are born from eggs too, so the Easter theme is still honoured.
6. If you have a sweet tooth, why not try baking your own hot cross buns and/or Simnel cake? Home-baking goods allows you to control some of the less beneficial health elements of food such as ultra-processed preservatives and refined sugar content. (I never add the quantity of refined sugar the recipe suggests when I bake, and indeed I sometimes leave out the sugar altogether when there are other sweet elements within the food.) The act, sight and smell of preparing and baking the food yourself also supports digestion though stimulating the ‘Cephalic Phase’; seeing - smelling - and finally tasting!
7. As well as chocolate eggs, don’t forgot to include the savoury kind of eggs. Eggs are full of beneficial Omega fats and Choline, both of which are particularly supportive of Brain cell (Neurone) function, Neurotransmitters (Brain messengers), and potentially protective against excessive development of cognitive-function-stifling P-Tau prion tangles. So if you are not allergic they are easy to team with vegetables and/or ‘dippy soldier’ wholegrain brown bread.
8. Ever watched a rabbit eat carrots? They chew and chew and chew their food, and I would encourage you to do the same. Chewing is beneficial for gut health (for kick-starting the initial digestive breakdown process), oral health (for increasing the production of saliva for its tooth-cleaning properties and enzymatic food breakdown roles), and is considered ‘exercise for the jaw’ which can have ripple effect benefits for Brain health in terms of generating Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor; the chemical innately generated by exercise and highly supportive of cognitive function. So when eating your food, be more rabbit!
REMEMBER: if you are taking any medications always consult a Registered Nutritional Therapist as well as your Doctor before making significant dietary or lifestyle changes. This blog post is written for educational purposes only and in reference to ‘food’. It is NOT advocating taking dietary supplements. It is very important to please always consult a Registered Nutritional Therapist or your Doctor before introducing any dietary supplements into your health regime as these qualified professionals will be able to offer personalised recommendations.
If Brain, cognition and/or memory are issues which you are struggling with and you want to discover the inspiring and sustainable diet & lifestyle programmes offered by Nutritional Therapy, get in touch via the Contact Me page on this website, or directly on info@eatdrinkthinknutrition.co.uk for more information about 1:2:1 Consultations with Eat Drink Think Nutrition®.
