Mid-Autumn Festival "Vegetarian Baking" is low-carbon, healthy and worry-free

The Mid-Autumn Festival national barbecue event has started again. Under the trend of focusing on health preservation, most people already know to emphasize a balanced diet with low oil, low sugar, low salt and high fiber. But now considering carbon reduction and global warming, nutritionists suggest that choosing low-carbon food "vegetarian barbecue" is also a good choice. People can also use their creativity and make vegetarian ingredients by themselves, such as vegetarian meat skewers and vegetarian tempura. Not only is it healthy to eat, but it also makes people salivate and enjoy the food.

Wang Yaru, a nutritionist at Tainan Municipal Hospital, pointed out that when people do vegetarian grilling, they should first choose fresh seasonal ingredients and pay attention to the freshness of the ingredients during the grilling process to avoid them from thawing and spoiling while grilling. Secondly, they should grill vegetables first to increase satiety and fiber intake, and also to avoid unknowingly consuming too much protein (soy products). In addition, the barbecue sauce generally available on the market is salty and high in sodium. Every 15 grams of barbecue sauce contains about 400 mg of sodium, which is approximately equal to 1 gram of salt. This is a burden for patients with high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and kidney disease.

In addition, the calories are also quite high. Applying barbecue sauce once more will add 15 calories, and every 15 grams contains 23-25 ​​calories! Therefore, it is recommended to dilute the commercially available barbecue sauce with boiling water, or reduce the repeated application during the barbecue process; the best way is to use natural ingredients instead, such as ginger, chili, basil, peppercorns, thyme, pepper, rosemary, bay leaves and other spices. Non-vegetarians can also choose to eat green onions, garlic, and onions, and even make their own lemon juice or passion fruit juice for seasoning.

Nutritionist Wang Yaru emphasized that vegetarian grilled food, as the name implies, replaces meat and seafood. She suggested choosing soy products instead, but try to avoid over-processed fried tofu buns, vegetarian meatballs, vegetarian tempura, vegetarian chicken, vegetarian sausages, vegetarian ham, etc., because these products often add too much salt and seasonings, such as 900 mg of sodium per 100 grams of vegetarian ham, which loses the meaning of responding to health and environmental protection.

Moreover, people like to have barbecue with various sugary drinks. Generally, 100cc of sugary drinks contains 10 to 15 grams of sugar (40 to 60 calories), which often leads to too many calories. Therefore, it is recommended that drinks can be replaced by iced water with lemon slices, sugar-free tea or herbal tea, or even commercially available zero-calorie cola or zero-calorie sarsaparilla.

At the same time, you can also choose to pair it with grains and root vegetables such as toast, corn, pumpkin, sweet potato or potato when grilling to make your diet balanced. Wang Yaru also reminded that if you want to control calories during the Mid-Autumn Festival, you cannot ignore grapefruit, because every 2 slices of grapefruit (about 165 grams) is equal to one serving of fruit with about 60 calories. In other words, a grapefruit contains about 500 to 600 calories, which is equivalent to the calories in 2 bowls of rice, which should not be underestimated.