SWEETEST WAY TO CU CALORIES
Healthy living has many definitions. To most of us, it is about having a balanced life that leads to good health. Hence, it is common, now, to see people avoiding poor health choices in daily lives and eating healthy. Awareness is making people revisit their health goals. While some may resort to diet and others take to exercise, it is essential to strike a perfect balance between food and physical activity.
However, when we live in an era of being chronically busy, where is the time for physical activity? Therefore sometimes, incorporating diet plans is easier than devoting time for physical activity. Now, there are several trends when it comes to diet plans — Ketogenic diet, juice cleanse diet, raw diet, no sugar diet and many others. Celebrities from Bollywood to Hollywood have strictly followed one or the other diet plan at some point in time. And yes, most of these plans don’t include white sugar. This is one of the reasons why the no-sugar diet is catching on.
A no-sugar diet removes any added sugar from your
diet. These include the sugar added to your morning tea or the loads of sugar that makes your festive sweets so delicious. Going further, it also takes on the hidden sugars found in many processed foods. For people choosing to follow this diet or even those wanting to lower calories, it is natural, then, to replace sugar with sweeteners or sugar substitutes.
Indeed! Experts say high intake of sugar, salt and oil, to begin with, can have health repercussions that range from diabetes and heart problems to blood pressure. Refined sugar consumed regularly in addition to the added sugars in various packaged food items contributes majorly to unhealthy eating. The calories that you get from sugar are called empty calories.
What you can eat and should skip goes a long way in deciding how healthy you can be. So, what do you eat, then? Well, we spoke to celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor to know some healthier ways of adding sweetness to our diet without compromising on the taste.
The chef says, “You should not deprive yourself of anything. Not during the festive seasons, now that Holi is in the offing. Yep, sweets make any festival more flavourful.”
But is there a way to circumvent all the calories and ill effects of sugar and yet enjoy your favourite mithais of the seasons, such as khus khus kheer, malai peda, nariyal halwa, pal khova and many others? Lets hear what the chef has to say.
“Yes there is,” says the chef, adding, “Sweeteners or sugar substitutes can be used to make a wide range of desserts and mithais. Especially, sweeteners like Sugar Free can substitute for sugar in any baking recipe to make sugar syrup for Indian
Switching from refined sugar to a healthier alternative is a convenient, simple and smart move to make.
SANJEEV KAPOOR CHEF
mithais, and you can also use it to churn out delicious ice creams. Basically, replace sugar in your recipe with sweeteners and get low calorie versions of any of your favourite sweet treats.”
How exciting! No wonder, then, that a lot of people are willingly giving up refined sugar and opting for low- calorie healthy substitutes. With this in mind, it seems ideal that we replace our sugar jar with a pack of sweetener, so that we can use it as a healthier alternative to sugar without worrying and much thought.
In fact, the chef has a special liking for besan ke laddoo. He banks on his “mother’s recipe”, which he has been following for years. To make them low calorie and healthier, he says, “I have also tried making them with sweeteners, a couple of times, and they turned out just as good as the original.”
Undeniably, any diet does not have to put people in a corner, where they have to stop enjoying food or festivals.
It’s easy to think that a few salads here and there and a five minutes’ walk sometimes can do the magic of keeping you healthy. Consistency
matters in terms of health. Hence, take a guess, what needs to be replaced in your diet on a daily basis? Yep, sugar. Go ahead, replace it with healthy sugar substitutes. Or, you could just donate them to bring a smile on a child’s face.