More energy, health and simply a better conscience – that’s what trendy forms of nutrition such as vegan , low carb or paleo promise . The price for this is a radical rethinking: Our traditional eating habits are increasingly being questioned and everyday staples such as crispy rolls, juicy steaks or cookies and cakes are being removed from the menu. loss or gain?
In any case, it is worth giving these and other food trends a chance. Because every nutritional trend has advantages to offer . The biggest advantage: Vegetables and fruit are given much more importance.
Graduate ecotrophologist Dr. Petra Ambrosius welcomes this very much: “The more colorful the vegetables on your plate, the more comprehensively you are supplied with all the importantTolfioow substances.”
Is there a risk of a nutrient deficiency if staple foods such as meat or cereals are excluded from the diet? “Basically, you can prevent any deficiency if you plan your meals cleverly,” says Dr. Petra Ambrose. In everyday life, however, theory and practice often diverge. In this case, dietary supplements can also step in. On the following pages we have subjected the 5 most popular food trends to a health check – with expert tips and example recipes.
Table of Contents
Vegan
Yesterday eco, today hip: more and more fans are going without animal products – but it should be well planned.
Whether for ethical or health reasons: Around 900,000 Germans do without animal products and eat purely plant-based foods, according to the German Vegetarian Association.
Thats how it works:
Meat, fish, eggs and dairy products can be replaced with plant-based alternatives based on soy, coconut, lupine or hemp. However, less obvious products such as gummy bears, fruit juice or wine can also contain animal components. A look at the list of ingredients or the website of the Vegetarian Association www.vebu.de provides clarity.
The health plus
If you eat a lot of raw vegetables, salad and fruit, you are well supplied with beta-carotene, vitamin C and potassium. Whole grains and legumes provide magnesium. And vegans also eat plenty of dietary fiber.
You should pay attention to this:
With a one-sided vegan diet, the supply of vitamin B12, calcium, iron, zinc, iodine, the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA and vitamins A and D can become scarce. Although these are also found in plant foods, they are less digestible for the body.
It is particularly important to prevent nerve damage to take a preparation with vitamin B12 (e.g. “Vitamin B-loges complete”, available in pharmacies). You can effectively cover your need for essential amino acids by combining several protein sources, e.g. B. Beans with corn, bread with nut butter or oats with nuts.
Vegan recipe – lentil and vegetable soup with smoked tofu
Ingredients for 4 persons:
- 1 onion
- 4 tbsp sunflower oil
- 250 large lentils
- 1/2 l vegetable broth
- 1 large carrot
- 1 leek
- 400 grams of potatoes
- 250 grams of tomatoes
- Sea salt, ground pepper
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 200 g smoked tofu
- 1 Beet Brunnenkresse
Preparation:
- Peel and chop the onion. Heat 1 tbsp oil. Sauté onion. Add the lentils and stock, bring to the boil, cover and cook for approx. 25 mins.
- Clean, wash, peel and dice the vegetables and potatoes. Clean, wash and dice the tomatoes. Heat the rest of the oil. Fry the vegetables and potatoes, season. Add vinegar and 125 ml lentil water. Cook for about 10 minutes.
- Add a quarter of the lentils to the vegetables. Puree the rest of the lentils in the broth. dice tofu. Mix the tofu, vegetable mixture and lentil puree, bring to the boil, season. Rinse the cress, slice over the soup.
Per person: 460 kcal, fat 15 g, preparation time: approx. 30 minutes
Paleo
Bye bye bread and milk: The Stone Age diet fundamentally changed our eating habits.
The trend is still fresh here, but scientists have been researching Stone Age nutrition for decades. Their theory: For the longest time, people lived on vegetables, roots and meat. They have only known cereals and milk for about 10,000 years – evolutionarily too short to adapt, so that certain ingredients can cause illness.
Thats how it works:
The basis of the Paleo diet is vegetables, supplemented with fruits, mushrooms, eggs, meat, fish, nuts. Industrially processed foods with additives are taboo, as are cereals, sugar, dairy products and vegetable oils with lots of omega-6 fatty acids. Sounds like low carb? Not true: Starchy foods such as sweet potatoes, pumpkin, fruit and dried fruit are allowed.
The health plus
The more colorful vegetables you eat, the better you are supplied with vitamin C, glutathione and vitamin B6, for example. Grazing meat and fatty sea fish provide omega-3 fatty acids.
You should pay attention to this:
Do you mainly eat low-iron white meat and little red? It is worth having the iron value determined by a doctor and possibly taking a substitution (e.g. “Floradix”, in pharmacies). If you’re avoiding dairy and finding it hard to eat green vegetables every day, a calcium supplement can help.
Recipe according to the Paleo principle – fillet with sweet potato puree
Ingredients for 4 persons:
- 1 kg sweet potatoes (approx. 800 g)
- Salt, pepper from the mill
- 600 g pork fillet
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 bunch of parsley
- 20 g Butter
- 1/2 TL Zimtpulver
Preparation:
- Wash, peel, and roughly dice the sweet potatoes. Cook with a little water and 1 teaspoon of salt for about 15 minutes.
- Rinse fillet in cold water, pat dry, cut into 2 cm thick slices. Heat the oil, sear the fillets on both sides, season. Fry for about 5 minutes, turning once.
- Rinse the parsley, shake dry, pluck off the leaves and chop. Drain the sweet potatoes, mash with a potato masher, melt the butter in it, season with cinnamon, salt and pepper. Sprinkle with parsley.
Per person: 530 kcal, fat 15 g, preparation time: approx. 35 minutes
Low Carb
Never get cravings again, reach and maintain your desired weight effortlessly – eating almost without carbohydrates should make it possible.
Especially if you want to lose kilos, you can hardly avoid low carb. Studies show that cutting out carbohydrates is more effective at melting body fat than low-fat diets. But even if you are happy with your figure, you will benefit from eliminating empty carbohydrates from sugar and white flour products from your diet.
How it works :
White flour products, sugar, rice, potatoes and sweet fruit are disappearing from the plate. But they are not forbidden: you can occasionally treat yourself to a small portion. Up to 100 g of carbohydrates per day is considered to be the maximum, although the individual limit can be different for everyone. Instead, eat lots of vegetables and supplement with meat, fish, eggs, or full-fat dairy products.
The health plus
Lots of vegetables and low-sugar fruit provide vitamins, but also phytochemicals and antioxidants. Meat covers your need forTolfioow substances such as vitamin A, B vitamins and zinc.
You should pay attention to this:
Treat yourself to enough fat: “The body needs it to fill you up and to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins,” emphasizes Dr. Petra Ambrose. If you rarely eat fatty fish and meat from grazing animals, you can counteract this with omega-3 fatty acid capsules.
Low carb recipe – vegetable spaghetti with almond and hemp crumbs
Ingredients for 4 persons:
- 2 large courgettes (approx. 800 g)
- 4 carrots
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 80 g ground almonds
- 3 tsp hemp seeds
- 1 tsp salt
- pepper from the grinder
Preparation:
- Clean and wash zucchini and carrots. peel carrots. Using a spiralizer, cut the vegetables into long spirals.
- heat oil. Sauté the vegetable spaghetti in it for approx. 5 minutes. Mix together the almonds, hemp and salt.
- Sprinkle spaghetti with breadcrumbs. This goes well with pesto.
Per person: 250 kcal, fat 18 g, preparation time: approx. 25 minutes
Fasten
Treat your body to relaxation: Fasting is good for you and works like an anti-aging cure.
Lent plays a role in almost all religions as a phase of reflection to allow body and soul to rest. But not only spiritual reasons speak for fasting, it also supports the self-healing powers. The cells use food-free times for so-called autophagy: they break down damaged cell building blocks and burn them. This helps to maintain muscle mass and slow down the aging process. The metabolism benefits because cells react more sensitively to the fat storage hormone insulin.
Thats how it works:
You can fast in several ways. With intermittent fasting (intermittent fasting), you go without food for 16 to 20 hours. That is, if you eat dinner at 6 p.m., you have your next meal at 10 a.m. With therapeutic fasting, you go without food for several days and only drink broth, herbal tea and water. Fast for a maximum of 5-10 days and no more than once a year, otherwise the body will use up its reserves. Be sure to start with defecation: it will help you lose your hunger. “Save fruit juices for the end of the cycle as they can trigger cravings,” advises Dr. Petra Ambrose.
The health plus
Vegetable or meat broth provides you with important minerals such as sodium and phosphorus. Beef broth also contains collagen for firm connective tissue.
You should pay attention to this:
Drinks about three liters of liquid a day, preferably a liter of broth. An extra supply of dietary supplements keeps Dr. Petra Ambrosius for unnecessary: ”The body does not suffer any deficiency during the short fasting period, but manages with its reserves.”
Fasting Recipe – Vegetable Ginger Broth
Ingredients for 1.5 liters:
- 2 carrots
- 3 parsley roots
- 3 sticks of celery
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 yellow pepper
- 200 g celeriac
- 1 bunch of spring onions
- 20 g ginger root
- 1 tbsp black peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 cloves
- 2 tbsp sea salt
Preparation:
- Clean and wash the vegetables, if necessary peel and dice. Peel ginger, cut into small pieces. Crush the peppercorns in a mortar.
- Boil all ingredients with approx. 2.5 liters of water and simmer for approx. 1 hour. Remove from the stove and let stand for about 15 minutes. Line a fine sieve with gauze, strain the broth and fill into screw-top jars. Can be stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks.
Per portion (200 ml): 20 kcal, fat 0 g, preparation time: approx. 1 hour 30 minutes
Basic
If you eat a lot of fresh vegetables, it brings the acid-base balance back into balance – and you feel better all around.
Food is either alkaline or acidic. If you eat too many “bad” acidifiers like meat, dairy products and sugar, your body becomes acidic and can become ill.
Thats how it works:
You combine the basis, base-forming vegetables, with good acidifiers such as organic cereals, corn, nuts and tofu. Eat bad acidifiers only rarely.
The health plus
The high proportion of vegetables provides you with vitamins and secondary plant substances such as carotenoids, flavonoids and glucosinolates.
You should pay attention to this:
Always limit base cures in time – in the long run calcium, vitamin B12 and zinc could become scarce.
