Most comfort food might be accompanied with an extra dollop of mayo, ketchup or some extra sweetened drinks to down it all. Chef Rohit Tokhi lists a few items that you can avoid
Whether you’re a diet-conscious person or someone who wants to develop the habit of healthy eating, there are certain foods you should start avoiding to achieve your goal of staying fit. Having sweets occasionally is acceptable but if you do make a big dietary blunder, your body has no chance to compensate by burning additional calories. Repeating these same mistakes become a habit and being fit a dream. These habits and choices will not only wreck your appearance but also jeopardise your health. Here is a list of food that you should never eat:
Cream-based salad dressings: Salads have a reputation for being healthy. So many people turn to them when they are on a diet and are trying to incorporate more nutritive food in their lifestyle. This is an excellent idea in many cases, as salads can be very beneficial and are often low in calories. However, it is important to avoid making an unqualified claim that all salads are healthy; in reality, they can become quite bad for you when they are drenched in cream-based dressings. Although these types of dressings add a lot of extra flavour to salads and can make a meal more enjoyable, it is crucial to remember that they contain a lot of fat and calories.
Packaged fruit juices: Packaged fruit juices undergoes heat treatment and use of lot of chemicals for making a shelf life of six months upto a year. A lot of the nutritional value of the juices dips down due to the heat treatments. Packaged fruit juices have a lot of added sugar for and in fact some packaged juices are not even real fruit, but only concentrates with lots of sugar.
Processed foods: They include, less meat than you would include in homemade items. There is no control on the salt, sugar and fat in processed foods. Processed foods have large amount of salt and sugar to make them taste better. Also, there are added preservatives, colour enhancers and unknown additives.
Mayonnaise: Mayonnaise might be an integral part of most of the comfort food dishes, but it is loaded with different types of fat. The sad part is that these fats are the ones that don’t benefit you. Most prepared mayonnaise are primarily GMO soybean oil, one of the most harmful oils you can eat.
Tomato ketchup: Even one tablespoon of commercially prepared ketchup contains four grams of sugar. Many people consume much more than one tablespoon at a time, which quickly builds up their daily sugar load.
Soft drinks: The consumption of soft drinks causes the sugar level in our blood to rise significantly. Soft drinks play a major role in increasing weight and obesity, which is the main cause of any health problem. Some beneficial alternatives for soft drinks are freshly squeezed juice, green tea, coconut water and curd.
The writer is the executive chef at Kempinski Ambience Hotel