2023-12-22 18:20:19
Anyone looking for a baby knows this: a healthy life, correct nutrition, and a certain discipline and health routine are the basis for building a context favorable to conception. But if the desire for a baby doesn’t go on holiday, the problem arises of how to reconcile it with the excesses of the upcoming holidays. So is there a fertility-friendly Christmas diet? “There isn’t just one. There is certainly a healthy diet calibrated ad hoc depending on the problems a woman may have. But in general the first rule of the holidays is not to unbalance the glycemic load of meals. Which is easy because, for example, on Christmas tables there is a big absentee: vegetables”, explains nutritionist Gemma Fabozzi, head of the Nutrition area of the B-Woman center in Rome, to time.news Salute.
The expert offers a sort of ‘survival manual’ to avoid holiday excesses, not to stumble in your quest for pregnancy, and at the same time not to give up the joy of conviviality. The first problem to be faced in the ‘eve’ food marathons is visually clear: pies, bread, potatoes, pasta, leavened desserts reign supreme. However, the dictatorship of carbohydrates must be broken, “and this advice applies to everyone: we must guarantee the presence of all the nutrients on the plate. It can help to include a large source of fibre, especially before starting these very demanding meals. Therefore, eat raw vegetables before meal, for example some fennel in dip or a sautéed chicory, gives you more satiety and, especially when bitter, helps to make the liver work and has purifying properties”.
The nutritionist’s invitation is “not to overdo it. If we want to eat pasta, for example a lasagna, that’s fine but let’s avoid loading up on carbohydrates by also adding bread. Let’s try to make a choice, and accompany it with real vegetables, not potatoes,” he smiles. “And when we eat, for example, a protein-rich meal, help can be given by the type of fruit we eat.” A secret is the pineapple, Fabozzi suggests, “especially the stem that we often discard and which contains bromelain, a ‘proteolytic’ enzyme that helps”. If it is a false myth that pineapple burns fat, specifies the expert, “it is true however that this fruit has digestive properties in particular for proteins. So a nice thing at the end of the meal could be a pineapple carpaccio, cut very thin and seasoned with grated ginger and lemon juice, or squeezed lemon and basil leaves. Help for the liver”.
On the occasion of Christmas lunch and New Year’s Eve dinner, when the family reunion includes a menu to be created ‘collectively’, the risk of losing control of the courses is eliminated. But what should we do outside of ‘mandated’ parties? The first mistake not to be made, Fabozzi reiterates, is “fasting. Never say: ‘I’m not eating at lunch, so tonight I’ll do what I want’. This isn’t about a trivial sum of calories, unfortunately. You risk going into hypoglycemia and arrive even hungrier at the next meal. What you can do is balance it with a slightly lighter meal: for example a raw vegetable and a cooked one, such as a fennel salad with olives and then a sautéed vegetable. A choice that satisfies and does not tire the organs, in particular the liver which we put to the test during these holidays. Filling up on bitter vegetables is a really good strategy: chicory, Belgian endive, artichokes (perhaps raw and seasoned with oil and lemon ), puntarelle”.
“Artichokes and milk thistles in fact have purifying properties, precisely at the level of the hepatocytes, thanks to the cynarin”, a polyphenol found in the artichoke, and the silymarin found in the thistle. The latter is “also the protagonist of the historic purifying dish par excellence of the holidays, which is the milk thistle broth of Santo Stefano”, explains Fabozzi. Another ally: “Good fats”, indicates the expert. “We mistakenly tend to eliminate them, to avoid oil for example. But instead seasoning with olives, avocado, gives more satiety. And good fats are anti-inflammatory. If there is fried food on the dinner menu – for example fried artichokes or cod – eating a raw bitter vegetable first helps. Sipping water with lemon drops between meals and another also helps. Finally, spices also help: they have ‘choleretic’ and ‘cholagogue’ properties, they thin the bile It is therefore useful to add a little grated ginger root during preparations or some basil or mint leaves or fennel leaves to salads, which helps to deflate”.
“Glycemic balance” and combating “insulin resistance” are crucial moves for fertility, Fabozzi reminds us to make people understand the importance of what we do at the table even these days. As for the leftover desserts, from panettone to nougat, “I recommend not keeping them at home but sharing them, for example with colleagues in the office. Or, if you really want to eat panettone, do it for breakfast. Not at the end of the meal, and especially in the evening and when you have eaten pasta – advises Fabozzi – You can have a breakfast where there is perhaps some dried fruit such as walnuts or almonds, yoghurt, and then accompanied by a half slice of the panettone or pandoro that they gave us. to balance: you can eat a second course with vegetables and conclude the meal with a bit of panettone. If instead we want a purifying breakfast, the ideal would be vegetables: a fennel dip and 15 grams of dried fruit for example. Or even a semi-savory breakfast: toasted bread with oil, or with olive or avocado cream; two kiwis or a kiwi and half an avocado seasoned with oil and lemon. This dampens the vicious sugar-sugar cycle that has been triggered and which is also responsible for that sense of tiredness and digestive slowness.”
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