OTTIMMO – During this pandemic, mostly the routine is changing. Work from home, school from home, is becoming new normal things now a days, even shopping from home. During this new normal, some people manage to start their hobby that consume energy, but it is not few people complaining that they gain weight during stay at home because they tend to have snack when there is no activity.
On the IG live session with Great School Surabaya, on July 17th, 2020, Chef Sonia Anggun from Ottimmo Culinary Arts Kitchen cook Baked Salmon Basil Pesto with Cauliflower Rice and Garden Salad, she also have some tips for new lifestyle during new normal to protect the immune system against the viruses. Here are the tips :
- Fill Your Chiller with Real Food
Having a grocery list every week? Always put the real food into your list, avoiding the processed food. What is real food? Real food is whole, single-ingredient food. It is mostly unprocessed, free of chemical additives, and rich in nutrients. Real food includes fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, grains. If you can find organic, is better. But if you cannot find organic, not a big problem.
“To rinse the fruits and vegetables, you don’t need to buy any chemicals stuffs. Just clean with cool water and 1 bottle cap of white vinegar.”, Chef Sonia said.
On the contrary, we have to avoid processed food. Processed food become popular in 10th century, it is all the packed ready-to-eat meals, they are convenient but they are harm to your health. It is includes the frozen pre-cooked foods; chicken nuggets, ebi furai, etc and then sausages, instant noodle, canned food, snack or cookies on packaging, juice on box, all variants of beverage on bottle. If you cannot avoid these type of foods at all, at least minimize.
- Choose the Appropriate Cooking Technique
When you have all the real food stored on your chiller, it is automatically you consume good food, but this step is important as well. It is how to cook those ingredients. Basically, you don’t need a lot to do with real food, you don’t ask what is the ingredients to make real food. Because real food is the ingredients itself.
What you need to do is just make sure you are using cooking techniques that is less fat, such as : steaming, boiling, grilling roasting, baking, air-frying; instead of deep-fried, stir frying, and else. If you need to use fat on your cooking process, make sure you use good fats; which is unsaturated, such as olive oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, soya oil, etc. No butter, no margarine.
“In this time, we have fresh salmon, just baked it with salt and pepper as seasoning. Garden salad with balsamin citrus dressing, and then we have basil pesto from olive oil, cashew, basil leaves and parmesan cheese. The method is to blend all of these ingredient raw, it is high in nutrients and contains all the good things from nature.”
- Subtitute your Simple into Complex Carbs
Have you ever feel hungry again after ate a big portion of dishes? Maybe it is not the big enough, but what is inside is matter. Simple carbs like rice, noodle, snacks, is usually easier to digest and give you a lot of calories intake. When you finished to eat that, you will no longer full but hungry again and keep to eat something else, because they are fast through our digestion. Thus, try to change your carbs into complex carbs that high density and high of fibre such as grains and vegetable.
“Vegetable supplies no calories, so it is make you full but not cost you gain weight. Cauliflower comes very similar texture to rice when it is blanched and then grated, we put a bit chia seeds and sautee a bit with olive oil and garlic.”, Chef Sonia explained what she made.
Red rice, brown rice, rolled oats are good examples of complex carbs. Avoid to eat double carbs which is happened often, eating rice with noodles for example.
- Drink a lot of Water to Keep you Hydrate
Water play important roles of body, human body consist of 40-60% water. Many people feel hungry it can actually be dehydration. So, try to drink more water instead of craving unhealthy! The common recommendation is to drink 8 glasses of water a day.
- Home Workout at Least 2-3 Times a Week
We all know that staying home is very boring sometimes, but our body cannot do nothing for a long time too. At least do home workout 2-3 times in a week using matrass and heavy tools at home. A little cardio also great idea such as riding a bike, running or jogging. You can variates your workout with stretching just like yoga and meditation. Doing sport doesn’t mean to be hard, do it even just 20-30 minutes at one session just to keep you sane, because after doing workout your body release endorphine hormone that makes you feels good!
Now, we all know the tips for having the healthy lifestyle during new normal. All this informations may be a slightly difficult adjustment for some, but only at first. Stick with it, and you will see the results. The best part of it is they are permanent results, it so called new lifestyle.