Best of nutrition tips in 2011

Here are the best nutrition tips we reported through the year. The theme here is to understand the good and the bad, the portioned and the damned, as well as tips on clever nutrition management. We hope you take notes!

Simple substitutions for healthier meals. Cooking healthy meals is no rocket science. Unfortunately, due to habit or lack of experimenting, we often fall into a rut with cooking methods and staple dishes. Additionally, our tastebuds are wired a certain way and we can't go two days without craving for the very foods we need to banish from our lives.

The key to moving from size 14 to size 8 lies in being able to control these cravings. Simple substitution is a great way of ensuring that you feel fulfilled with an old family favourite recipe, and yet are content in the knowledge that you're eating healthy. Here are some simple substitutions that will make meal times healthier, while giving you what you want.

- Substitute cream with yogurt
- Substitute refined flour with whole grain flours like soy, millet, corn or barley
- Substitute cashew nuts with almonds
- Substitute ice cream with frozen and blended banana
- Substitute mayo with butter or mustard
How to include nuts in your meals. Each of us must attempt to eat at least 7-12 almonds, 4-6 walnuts, 5-8 raisins (we know it's not a nut, but include it anyway) and a few peanuts (no more than hallf a handful) every day. Here's how to incorporate them in daily meals:

- Sprinkle them over the salad at work or restaurant. You'll feel fuller for longer and the salad will have a far more interesting texture.
- Add them to your curries. Try peanuts with stir-fried cabbage. Walnuts with gentle fish curries. Or almonds with spicy chicken curries.
- Pastas cooked with spinach, broccoli and other greens go beautifully with thinly sliced almonds. In fact, some simple pasta sauces can even use a tablespoon or two of pureed peanuts.
- Add powdered nuts in soups and casseroles as thickening agents.
- Add nuts to fruit or other natural food desserts. Ex: Chopped bananas with clove honey, sprinkled with sliced almonds and walnuts, and topped with a dash of powdered cinnamon is an excellent healthy dessert.

Nutrients you must eat every day. We had a word with Shachi Sohal, Senior Dietician, Dietetics Deptt at Dr. B.L. Kapur Hospital, New Delhi to take us through the top 6 essential nutrients of a healthy diet. An excerpt:

"There are six classes of nutrients: Carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins and water. Each serves a specific function in the body. A nutrient is a source of nourishment needed by any living form to sustain life. Nutrients are not only used as an energy source but are needed for growth, metabolism, to breathe, build tissue, help movement and reproduction."

Good and bad alcohol choices. The best alcohol choices for overall health are:

Red Wine - Along with the lowest sugar content and low calories, it also contains resveratol.

Wood aged spirits like Whiskey, Brandy, Scotch and Cognac - Unflavoured distilled spirits are a low carbers dream with zero carb content and plenty of antioxidants.

Berry daiquiris - Knock off the syrup and sugar and you have a healthy cocktail. When you add alcohol to berries you get a thirty percent hike in antioxidant activity.

White wines - Lower in carbs and low in calories, white wine is a good drink though it has 5 to 10 times less phenols and antioxidants than red wine.

Light beers - Light beers have similar properties and carb content as white wines do.

Always pick good carbs over bad carbs. Complex carbohydrates (aka Good carbohydrates) are, more or less, in their natural state. Simply put, they aren't processed. They have high fiber content, and are rich in vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients. Foods rich in good carbs are not digested rapidly, thus they do not heavily impact our blood sugar levels. These are: Vegetables, whole grains, fruits, sweet potatoes, brown rice, lentils and beans.

Simple carbs (aka Bad carbs) are usually refined or processed to the extent that their natural nutrients as well as healthy fiber content are removed. They include additives and added preservatives such as flavourings and artificial colourings. Simple carbs are broken down as glucose in the body which leads to a drastic hit in the blood sugar levels. These are processed foods, fruit juices, mostly all white items such as breads, pastas, rice, preserved soft drinks, and white refined sugar.

Vegetables you must eat regularly. Vegetables are a healthy part of any diet. Whether you're interested in sculpting your body, or just want to tone it that extra bit, vegetables help in improving your overall health by maximizing your weight loss efforts. It is said that just eating 8-9 servings of vegetables in a day, you can improve your body's immunity against diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart ailments. But which vegetables are better disease-fighters than others? Here are top 10 vegetables for a healthy diet, that definitely set the ball rolling: Tomatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, arparagus, sweet potatoes, eggplants, bell peppers, spinach, and onions.

Eat breakfast every day. Over the last decade and more, almost every medium of information has, from time to time, declared the importance of breakfast. Breakfast helps kick start metabolism. Breakfast provides your body with much needed nutrition to enable optimum functioning through the day. Breakfast is even responsible for your digestive tract's smooth functioning.

When we are in our teens our parents control our eating habits, so we eat healthy breakfasts. Then college hits us, our first jobs take over, suddenly there's no time. We're living on our own. The breakfast habit dies. What starts as a break from a habit sets in as the norm. We eat only when we can. Sunday breakfasts. Holiday breakfasts. But during the week, there's no time, so breakfasts are relegated to the least important meal position. When, in fact, it is the most important meal of the day.

Is butter good for you? Many experts feel that butter is not a healthy fat, since it is saturated. Many studies over the last few years also suggest that unsaturated fats are far healthier for our bodies, than saturated fats. Even so, no food, in this case butter, can be deemed 'good' or 'bad' for health. Every food should be had with the principles of balance, variety and moderation in mind.

If you eat butter in moderation, i.e., small amounts every now and then, it will not harm your health. Butter becomes a problem only when people eat it everyday or even large quantities of it, occasionally. A thin pat of butter (half a teaspoon) on a slice of bread a couple of times a week will not harm you. Just make sure, you follow a balanced, healthy diet and engage in regular exercise otherwise.

Does milk really ease acid reflux? Although, many people recommend milk for soothing the pain of heartburn, the results are actually quite the opposite. It is true that drinking a glass of milk can temporarily ease a troubled stomach by neutralizing the acids. But, the calcium in milk later triggers the production of more stomach acids thereby adding to the original problem. Furthermore, milk is known to be very difficult to digest and to get rid of it, the stomach has to produce extra acids eventually causing more reflux.

Does more protein build more muscle? We interviewed strength and fitness coach, Arnav Sarkar. Here's what he says about how much protein is adequate:

"The amount of protein needed to build muscles is often debated, and you will get answers from as low as 0.5 gm per pound of bodyweight to as high as 3 gms per pound of bodyweight (and even higher). The fact is that for each person it will be somewhat different depending on their genetics, size, training, stress levels, etc. A good place to start will be to calculate 1 gram per kilo of bodyweight, and add another 30-40 gms to get a good number to start with. Thereafter with experimentation you can find out what is the best number as per your goals."