CookSmart (13th Issue) Page30

Dietitian Guide

Healthier Options: Vegetables and Noodles

Plain soup, fish soup and vegetables soup, Sylvia thinks, are more healthy soup bases. Apart from vegetables, food ingredients with rich carbohydrate content such as dumplings, Shirataki noodles, fresh noodles and Shanghai rice cake are also healthy food options.

Sylvia also points out that vegetables, mushrooms, rice vermicelli and cellophane noodles will absorb oil released from meats. To reduce fat intake, we should eat vegetables, dumplings or Shirataki noodles first, as these food ingredients will also fill your stomach and help you eat less. Then we can start eating the meats.

Sylvia shares with us a few health tips about hot pot meal:

Cook vegetables and meats in separate pots

This reduces the amount of oil absorbed by vegetables during cooking.

Vegetables first and then meats

Vegetables will fill your stomach and help you eat less.

Remove the oil from the soup

Use a spoon to remove the oil that lingers on top of soup.

Use less dipping sauce

Spring onion, ginger, garlic and fresh pepper provides perfect complement to fresh food ingredients.

Sylvia agrees that it is really very enjoyable to have hot pot dinner with friends on a winter’s night, yet we must be careful not to overeat. We also need to exercise regularly to stay healthy.

“Healthy soup bases include plain soup, fish soup and vegetable soup.”