After two years of ‘home’ celebrations due to Covid, Easter 2022 will spend more freedom to meet and celebrate this anniversary together, especially at the table. To keep the shape without losing the taste of the holiday, the watchwords are vegetables such as ‘shield’ to binges, super dark chocolate and no to fasts before or after the big feast days. The nutritional biologist Gemma Fabozzi of the B-Woman center for women’s health in Rome draws up the line-saving menu.
“Starting the meal with raw vegetables is a useful trick to facilitate the sense of satiety – explains the nutritionist at Ruetir Salute – As an appetizer we can therefore prepare a pinzimonio of fennel, celery, cucumber or mixed, seasoned with simple oil and lemon or , the tastiest solution, blend an avocado with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and squeezed lemon to fill up with good anti-inflammatory fats “. Then make way for bitter vegetables, “rich in inulin, a very effective substance in detoxifying the body and in particular the liver, which in this way will be able to better manage the sugars that we will introduce during Easter or Easter Monday lunch”.
“If we opt for a meat-based lunch, we can eat it raw – suggests Fabozzi – and choose between rocket, chicory, Belgian endive or curly, radicchio, or opt for a carpaccio of raw artichokes, but only the heart, to avoid having as a side effect of abdominal bloating “. In the event that the main course will be a first course, like the classic lasagna, “choose a vegetable that is always bitter, but sautéed in a pan with oil, garlic and a pinch of raw chilli pepper on the plate to take advantage of the vitamin C and capsaicin content , with documented ability to burn fat and stimulate metabolism, which would otherwise be inactivated by heat “.
Particular attention must be paid to carbohydrates, recommends Fabozzi: “We should choose between pasta or bread, fruit or dessert. In the latter case, you can prepare a large bowl of strawberries with lemon drops, rich in vitamin C and iodine, an aid for digestion, also facilitating both the function of the liver and the pancreas. If, on the other hand, you prefer a dessert, you can always use strawberries accompanied with 2-3 tablespoons of fresh unsweetened whipped cream, which slows down the absorption of sugars and lowers the insulin index “.
But the real star of Easter is chocolate. If common chocolates and various snacks, explains the nutritionist, “have no beneficial effect, on the contrary, they can only tire the liver and pancreas due to the high sugar content, dark chocolate is a real ‘superfood’, thanks to the innumerable properties of cocoa beans, rich in vitamins and minerals and, even more importantly, in antioxidants, flavonoids and polyphenols which act as protection against free radicals, responsible for cell aging, but also for some pathologies. chocolate must be dark, with more than 80% cocoa. So pay attention to the label, there must only be cocoa mass-cocoa butter “. The mood also gains.
Let’s not forget that “the intake of chocolate, thanks to the presence in the cocoa beans of phenylethylamine, dopamine and serotonin, allows our body to produce endorphins, helping us to counteract negative moods”. For a greedy and healthy snack, you can “melt the chocolate in a bain-marie, wet half the strawberry in it and let them cool in the fridge, creating ready-to-use snacks, which add the properties of strawberries to those of cocoa”.
Finally, the nutritionist rejects fasts. “In the evening after Easter lunch – he underlines – avoid skipping dinner, so as not to suddenly pass from a condition of hyperglycemia to one of hypoglycemia. It is much more useful to have a ‘light’ meal with a combination of foods that support the liver and kidneys, so as to make them work at their best at night: if we happen to wake up thirsty it means that our liver is overloaded and needs water to work after our addictions “.
To avoid this, Fabozzi suggests “structuring the meal following the super lunches by combining two vegetables, one cooked and one raw: for example, fennel salad dressed in oil, lemon and 100g of green olives and a chicory sauteed in a pan with oil, garlic and raw chilli pepper on the plate. Finally, we can conclude the meal with an herbal tea that helps our liver such as that of thistle leaves or, alternatively, thistle seeds to boil for 10 minutes “.
