Which hot pot ingredients you put in first determines how fattening this meal is

When winter comes, it is the hot season for relatives and friends to get together to eat hotpot. Whether it is spicy hotpot, milk hotpot, medicinal hotpot, or sauerkraut and pork hotpot, they are all very popular. How can we eat hotpot healthily in winter and not gain weight?

Why do we often feel gastrointestinal discomfort after eating a warm and nutritious hotpot, even though it contains lots of vegetables? But if you can't even enjoy a hotpot, you can't eat this and that, it's really disappointing.

Especially Taiwanese hot pot, which has many varieties. Whether it is the spicy hotpot with pepper and chili oil, the fragrant milk hotpot, the nourishing medicinal hotpot, the mutton hotpot, or the white meat hotpot with a lot of sour cabbage, each has its own flavor, and people can't help but feast on it in the cold winter. They are often so full that they have acid reflux and can't sleep well at night.

A delicious hotpot must have good soup, fresh and hygienic meat or seafood, as well as a rich hotpot ingredient and vegetable dish. Dipping sauce is also an important part. The staple foods usually include rice, noodles, and vermicelli to choose from. As long as you consider your personal health conditions, master the skills of ordering dishes, and pay attention to the order and quantity of eating, you can enjoy a delicious hot pot with a rich variety of dishes without feeling burdened.

If you want to enjoy hotpot at a safe and healthy pace when you gather together, you should start by ordering the dishes. This week, Xia Ziwen, a nutritionist who knows a lot about food and specializes in nutritional guidance, shares the key to eating hot pot in autumn and winter, and how to maintain your health while balancing delicious food.

When you step into a hot pot restaurant, you'll be dazzled by the menu's dazzling array of soup bases, including Taiwanese pork ribs, Japanese clear soup, medicinal soup, milk, miso, kimchi, tomato, sauerkraut, spicy, etc., not to mention the various seafood and meat platters, the vegetable plates that come with the meal, as well as the free-to-order hot pot ingredients and stewed dishes, the unlimited sauce section, desserts, and drinks.

Tomato soup is not suitable for everyone. It has high potassium ions and is not suitable for kidney patients.

The key to eating hotpot healthily is to start from the moment you order the dishes. You need to choose the soup base that suits you based on your personal taste and health condition. If you are worried about the high calories in the soup base, you can give priority to Japanese clear soup made with kelp or vegetable-based soup such as kimchi, tomatoes or cabbage. If you really want to try the milk soup base, you can scoop out the butter cubes that are added to the milk pot to add flavor and thickness, or ask the store not to add it.

For people with chronic kidney disease, neither bone soup with high phosphorus ions, milk hotpot, nor medicinal hotpot with high potassium ions are suitable. They can consider ordering sauerkraut hotpot or miso hotpot made with cabbage with lower potassium ions, but they must pay attention to the salt content and intake. For those who are prone to acid reflux or gastrointestinal ulcers and love to eat spicy hotpot, if they must eat the salty, oily and spicy hotpot, they can consider ordering a simmering hotpot.

When cooking hot pot at home, you don’t have to make bone soup. You can use a small amount of oil to sauté green onions, and then add tomatoes and cabbage to make a tomato and cabbage soup base, which is very suitable for everyone. However, because tomatoes are high in potassium ions, patients with chronic kidney disease who need to control potassium ions in their diet are advised not to add tomatoes when cooking the soup base.

Avoid combination meat if possible, and make sure it is fully cooked before eating

When ordering meat, the most feared thing is to order a meat combination. Because combination meat needs to be processed, using protein or food adhesives to stick the minced meat together, more food additives are used. If the shape of the meat slices is too regular and the fat distribution is very uneven, it is more likely to be a combination of meat.

When shabu-shabu meat slices, the sticky protein will easily separate when exposed to heat, and the meat slices will scatter as soon as they are put into the pan. The taste is not as elastic and chewy as fresh meat. In case, you accidentally order the combination meat, it is recommended to cook it until fully cooked before eating.

For people who want to lose weight or control body fat, whenever they eat meat, whether it is beef, mutton, pork or chicken, it is best to choose meat that can have the fat removed. For example: For short ribs with a clear distinction between fat and lean meat, you can remove the white fat and only eat the lean meat. This is easier to control the amount of fat you eat than for short ribs with fat evenly distributed throughout the muscle.

For people who like to eat seafood, they can remove the head, roe and internal organs before eating. Whether it is shrimp, squid or fish fillets, the calories and cholesterol are lower than those of meat fillets, and they are also good main course choices. Most of the braised large intestines and beef tripe are high in calories and cholesterol. If you want to lose weight or supplement iron, you can add some pig blood cubes, which are high in iron and low in calories. A large piece of pig blood has only about the calories of a slice of white toast.

As for the side dishes, processed meatballs and dumplings, like combination meats, are prone to concerns about excessive food additives and are high in fat, so eating too much of them is not beneficial. You can ask the store to replace them with vegetables or mushrooms.

Among the main dishes of white rice, udon noodles, prince noodles, and vermicelli, vermicelli has the lowest calories and almost zero protein. It is suitable for people who want to lose weight or for chronic kidney disease patients who need to strictly control their protein intake. However, be careful not to add high-calorie shacha sauce for seasoning. A packet of fried instant noodles contains about 220 calories, which is equivalent to eating 80% full of rice or three bowls of vermicelli. The calories should not be underestimated.

The order of cooking is important for health. Drink the soup first and then the meat to reduce gout attacks.

When cooking hot pot, it is recommended to cook the vegetables and mushrooms first, then drink the soup, and eat it with rice, noodles, or vermicelli, and finally eat high-calorie meat and processed foods. Sauces can be made with natural ingredients and spices, such as grated radish, garlic, onion, and ginger; shacha sauce and bean paste, which are high in fat and sodium, should be used in moderation.

Hot pot is very nutritionally balanced and can make up for the large amount of vegetables that are easily lacking in the modern diet. But it should be noted that whether it is the potassium ions in the vegetables, the possible residual pesticides and heavy metals, or the fat and purine in the meat, after blanching, they are all easily dissolved in the hot pot soup, becoming oily and salty.

For kidney patients who need to strictly control potassium ions and water, in addition to carefully selecting the soup base, they can drink a small bowl of soup before the vegetables are put into the pot. People with a history of gout, high blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids and those who need to lose weight should drink the soup before the meat is put into the pot, when the purine and fat have not yet dissolved in large quantities. As for drinks to be drunk with hot pot, sugar-free tea or sugar-free barley tea, which can remove oil and greasiness, is recommended.

[Extended reading] 3 tips for eating hot pot with less burden

Long-cooked hot pot soup is often regarded as the essence by gourmets, but it contains high levels of fat, purine and salt. If you like to drink soup, it is recommended to drink it before adding meat slices and processed foods, or boil it over high heat, remove the oil on the surface before drinking, and drink water in moderation to eliminate excessive purine and salt.

1. Use green vegetables to replace processed foods such as meatballs, dumplings, etc. You can ask the store to replace them with healthy, high-fiber vegetables or mushrooms.

2. Blanch the vegetables first, then cook the meat: blanch the vegetables and mushrooms first, then cook the vermicelli and noodles, and finally the meat and processed products.

3. Use less shacha sauce: bean paste, chili oil, etc., and replace them with mashed radish, garlic, onion, and ginger.

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