New Year resolutions often emphasize on weight loss, developing a hobby, exercising, or increased productivity, thus suggesting that we’re not sufficient as is. It turns life into a continuous task of self-improvement, robbing it of its joy. This year, let’s resolve to embrace life without the constant pressure to fix ourselves all the time.

Let’s aim to enjoy life by focusing on additions rather than subtractions. To start, let’s incorporate a superfood into our daily diet each month.

In the realm of health and wellness, superfoods are recognized as nutritional powerhouses, offering significant benefits to overall health. These include plant-based foods and select animal products known for their exceptional nutrient density. Superfoods play a vital role in promoting a holistic and healthy lifestyle.

We can elevate our well-being with the curated inclusion of twelve superfoods — one for each month in 2024.

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“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, Bible)

August is the month of celebrating friendships. You and your friends may have made plans to spend the day together, and some may have even bought friendship bands, too! Did you know that the concept of friendship bands dates back to the Stone Age when hunters and gatherers would exchange hand-made rings to symbolize a strong connection?

Friendship is all about strong connections and relationships. When friends come together as a unit, their strengths are amplified and they bring out the best in each other.

Just like us humans, foods too have ‘special friends’ which when combined not only improve the flavour of the meal, but also enhance nutrient absorption.

Food pairing/combining may seem like a new trend, but it’s actually an age-old tradition, practised from the time of our ancestors. Dal and Rice. Carrots with Peas. Peanut Butter and Jelly. Some combinations are simply better together!

How important is nutrient absorption?

Vitamins, minerals and other nutrients found in foods help in metabolic processes that are necessary for proper bodily functions. While maintaining a healthy diet is important, do we ever wonder what happens to the food once it reaches our stomachs? Food enters the stomach and is broken down by digestive enzymes. Waste is eliminated as it passes through, while nutrients are further absorbed in the small intestine.

Sadly, sometimes our gut doesn’t always function well. This may lead to poor absorption of nutrients and issues like exhaustion, mental fatigue, poor digestion, or skin disorders.

‘Food Besties’ that enhance nutrient absorption and are better together

Tomatoes and Olive Oil
It is an old Italian tradition to combine tomatoes with olive oil. Research reveals that when combined they boost each other’s health advantages. Lycopene, a potent antioxidant found in abundance in tomatoes, can help prevent conditions like cancer and heart disease. Lycopene is more easily absorbed when olive oil is used. E.g. home-made tomato-olive oil chutney.

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‘Love is in the air’ and chances are, you might be scouting for the ‘perfect gift’ to give your loved ones.

Every year, February 14th Valentine’s Day, is celebrated to commemorate our feelings of love, affection and friendship. This day is celebrated across the globe with people showcasing how much they care and cherish their loved ones with grand gestures and gifts.

Given how the past two years have gone by, the world has experienced a number of ill effects caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, the best gift you can give someone is, ‘the Gift of Health’. This Valentine’s Day, give your loved ones something healthy, which is not only useful but also a thoughtful gesture.

To help you make a choice I’ve put together five fun ideas to help you express your feelings through thoughtful gifts that are motivational towards a healthier lifestyle.

1. I’m NUTS about you

This year, do away with the traditional red roses and stuffed teddy bears. Instead gift a box of assorted nuts and seeds which will not only bring a smile to your loved one’s face but will add health, immunity and well-being. Nuts and seeds are collectively a good source of healthy fats, fibre, protein, minerals and vitamins. Nuts and seeds are considered excellent antioxidant powerhouses that keep the body healthy by neutralizing damage-causing molecules known as free radicals.

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Healthy food choices and eating habits are important at all stages but vital for teens. Because of the changes taking place in your body, your total nutrient needs are higher during teenage than any other time in your life cycle. Nutrition and physical growth are closely related. Adequate nutrition is a must for achieving your full growth potential.

Naturally, most teens have increased appetites so their bodies can get the extra nutrition they need for the growth spurts. This is the stage when you may be changing your food and eating habits too. You’re also likely to choose food for reasons not related to nutrition, like peer pressure and changing social activities and your choices may not be the best ones.

Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats

Your level of physical activity and stage of development, rather than age, determines how much you need to eat. Carbohydrates, proteins and fats, all play an important role in your diet. Teens generally consume approximately 53% of their calories as carbohydrates. Foods that contribute the most carbohydrate to their diets include bread, soft drinks, milk, cereals, cakes, cookies, donuts and sugar. While being rich in carbohydrates, all of them are not healthy foods.

Regular healthy meals and snacks should include carbohydrate-rich foods like bread, rice, pasta, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, lean meats, poultry, eggs, legumes and nuts. These ensure keeping sugar levels adequate, preventing sudden energy crashes.

Proteins are made up of building blocks called amino acids. Your body produces most of these naturally. However, there are nine essential amino acids which your body cannot make. These must come from the food you eat.

Teens need protein for building and repairing muscles, ensuring hair and skin health, fighting off infections and carrying oxygen in the blood. Proteins also help with building enzymes, hormones and vitamins. Meat, chicken, eggs, fish, milk, cheese and yogurt are all good sources of protein and they provide the nine essential amino acids.

If you are a vegetarian there are many options for protein. They include beans, legumes, lentils, nuts, seeds, whole grains, soya, quinoa and vegetables. Sprouts of alfalfa, green gram, chickpeas and soya beans are highly nutritious and rich in protein.

The human body requires dietary fat and essential fatty acids for normal growth and development. It is recommended that adolescents consume no more than 30% of these from fats. Major fats in a teen’s diet come from milk, meats, cheese and butter.

Healthy dietary fats promote proper skin and hair development. They also help absorb essential vitamins and minerals.

Micronutrients

Micronutrients, including calcium and iron, are critical for you.

Calcium helps you reach peak bone density and build strong bones. The skeleton accounts for at least 99% of the body stores of calcium. The gain in skeletal weight is most rapid during teen growth spurt. About 45% of the adult skeletal mass is gained during adolescence. Because of the dramatic increase in skeletal growth, calcium needs during teens are greater than in other stages.

Milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream are major sources of calcium in a teen’s diet. Juices, breakfast bars, breads and cereals are calcium-fortified. Soft drink intake by teens often displaces the consumption of nutrient-rich beverages such as milk and juices.

Your bones begin to stop taking in calcium deposits by the time you reach your early adulthood. That is why it is critical to get enough calcium as a teenager. If you don’t meet your calcium requirements now, you have higher risks of brittle bones, bone breakage, stunted bone growth and osteoporosis later in life.

Increasing blood volumes and growing muscle mass means you need more iron during your teens. Iron has an important role to play in muscle function, energy creation and brain development. It aids red blood cells’ ability to carry and circulate oxygen throughout your body. So, if you are not getting enough iron through the food you eat during the day, you’ll probably feel tired and lethargic.

Iron is a mineral that is naturally present in many foods. Red meat, eggs, poultry, fish, shellfish, dark green vegetables like spinach collards and kale, nuts, black beans, black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, other cooked or dried beans, rice and cereals are also good sources of iron.

A vegetarian diet can provide enough iron too if you eat iron-rich vegetarian alternatives to meats. They include green leafy vegetables, legumes like beans and lentils, whole-grains and fortified cereals. Getting the right amount of iron can improve your performance in sports and in studies.
Iron deficiency leads to anaemia. Anaemia occurs when you don’t have enough healthy red blood cells. Without sufficient red blood cells enough oxygen does not reach all parts of your body. This causes you to feel weak and tired. Your skin may become pale especially around the hands, nails and eyelids, your heart beat may quicken, you may become irritable, lose appetite and feel dizzy, too.

Vitamins and Minerals

Vitamins and minerals are called micro-nutrients because your body needs only tiny amounts of them. Yet failing to get even those small quantities of vitamins and minerals, can cause serious diseases. Lack of vitamin C, found in fresh fruits and vegetables, can cause scurvy which results in the bleeding of gums and listlessness. Vitamin A deficiency can cause blindness. Deficiency of vitamin D can cause rickets — a condition marked by soft, weak bones that can lead to skeletal deformities such as bowlegs. Your body is designed to get the vitamin D it needs when your bare skin is exposed to sunlight. A combination of calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K and phosphorus ensures strong bones.

Fluids

Teens need to drink plenty of fluids. Water is obviously the best source (easily available, too) of liquid and supplies fluid without calories. Other fluid sources are milk, milk drinks, fruit juices and soft drinks.

As a teenager you will be exposed to periodic food fads and slimming trends, and may fall into the habit of skipping meals, and develop irregular eating habits. One of the most frequently missed meals is breakfast. Breakfast plays an important role in providing energy and nutrients needed after your overnight fast. It also helps concentration and performance in school/college.

Snacks are an integral part of your meal pattern. You cannot eat large quantities of food at one go and you often become hungry before the next meal. Small mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks can help meet your energy needs of the day.

Over-nutrition

You need about 3000 (for boys) and 2500 (girls) calories daily. But if you are overeating in general or indulging in a lot of junk, over-nutrition and weight gain can become a problem.

Excess weight gained during adolescence does not go away automatically, even after the teen growth spurts. An obese teen has 80% chances of becoming an obese adult. That raises long-term risks of heart disease, diabetes and sleep problems. Teens who are obese also tend to have lower self-esteem and higher emotional ups and downs.

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Adolescence or teenage, a period for physical and mental growth, requires high attention to nutritional needs. A healthy diet during this time is important as the foods that teenagers eat have a great impact on their health when they reach adulthood. If during this period of growth, a teenager’s diet is high in sugar and fats, their metabolism tends to slow down and overweight and obesity sets in. This also increases the risk of teenagers developing heart disease later in life, high cholesterol and other health related issues.

In order to make sure the body is nourished with important nutrients and best foods from all food groups, teenagers have to surround themselves with fresh, wholesome and nutritious foods. This is where parents of teenagers play an important role. Parents must ensure that healthy eating starts first at home. Once family members adapt to healthier eating alternatives, teenagers themselves will adapt to the nature of eating right. What can be better than a “Kitchen Makeover” to make this work?

What’s a kitchen makeover and why is it important?

By talking of a kitchen makeover, we don’t mean swapping your polka dot curtains and patchwork kitchen floor, but swapping healthy foods over junk foods. In other words, keeping only the food or drink that your teenager should actually consume. If a food/drink isn’t conducive to your goals, why should you keep it? A kitchen makeover gets rid of non-nutritious foods that trigger you to engage in poor eating behaviour. Then it replaces the junk with a bounty of health-promoting foods.

The very first step would be gathering all the unhealthy foods from your fridge. This includes:
1. Junk foods: Mainly chips, chocolates and candy, sodas and other sweetened drinks, instant food mixes, frozen foods and other processed foods.
2. Trick foods: These are foods which trick us by seeming healthy but are extremely unhealthy. These include sweetened yogurt and frozen yogurt, bakery items, breakfast cereals, granola bars and fruit juices.
3. Miscellaneous foods: These include those foods which you didn’t even think about. These include salad dressings, bread croutons which we mainly add in our Indian soups, ketchup, processed meats such as sausages, salami, and other cold cuts, cheese spreads. We always feel a little of these foods would do no harm, without being aware of how a little of these daily would sum up to having adverse effects on our teenagers health in the long run.

Besides categorizing these foods, parents should also figure out what to keep and discard by thinking upon the following questions:
1. Does this food come in a bag, box, or plastic package?
2. Does it have more than a couple of ingredients on the label?
3. Can you pronounce all of those ingredients?
4. How far away is this food from what it used to be?
5. Is this food perishable?

A take-away tip for parents: If you are confused about whether a particular food is healthy or not, read the Nutritional Label. Look for forms of sugar such as high fructose corn syrup as well as hydrogenated oil, fractioned oil and preservatives.

Once your kitchen is free of HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), trans-fats (hydrogenated oils), MSG, and items that are high in processed sugar, you have successfully transitioned to a healthy kitchen.

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