How to eat healthily the Italian way

Anyone who knows anything about Italy knows about the country’s food. It is a place where pizzas and pastas are in abundance, and yet the people are still extremely healthy. Studies have repeatedly found that a Mediterranean diet has numerous health benefits, from reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease to living a healthier, longer life, and yet in much of the rest of the world pizza and pasta are synonymous with poor eating. So what are the lessons we can learn from real Italians when it comes to cooking and eating for health?

Low-fat seasonings

credit: Pixabay

Italians season their food with a variety of things very few of which are high in fat. Avoid oily salad dressings in favour of low-fat Balsamic vinegar and don’t be shy to lace your food with lemon, herbs, capers, vinegar, and other low-calorie yet flavourful foods for seasoning instead of creamy sauces.

While some of the most famous pastas are things like Macaroni cheese, these are not the way Italians eat pasta. Macaroni cheese was developed in England and does not follow the simple Italian system, in which they use small portions of low-calorie foods to make simple and delicious meals.

Italians are also more likely to lightly coat their pasta instead of drowning it with sauce. Excessive sauce just piles on the calories and fat content without adding any extra flavour.

Instead of using a garlic-butter sauce with your next fish portion, or drowning your steak in a creamy pepper concoction rather try a gremolata. Gremolata is an Italian garnish of raw, finely chopped garlic, fresh parsley and lemon zest and sprinkled on fish or meat at the end of cooking adds huge amounts of flavour without the calories or fat.

Eat smaller portions and stop when you are full

In Italy meal times are an occasion and involve sitting around a table, not eating distracted by TV or other entertainment. The meal is divided into a number of smaller courses, which has actually been shown to help keep you thin.

It’s an often-quoted statistic that it can take twenty minutes for your gut to tell your mind that you are full, and research has shown this figure, while not black and white, is roughly true. Between the moment you chew your food and finally feel full there are a number of processes that your body needs to go through before it can feel satiated, and breaking the meal up into a series of tiny courses can give it the time it needs to tell you when you should stop.

The overall result of all of this is that Italians stop eating when they are full, something others in the west may not do due to the fact that we eat everything on one big plate while distracting ourselves.

Cook pasta al dente

Dough for pasta. Picture: iStock

If you are going to eat pasta consider doing as the Italians do, and cooking it al dente instead of soft. Al dente pasta is that which is still a little chewy. This not only maximizes taste, but is ultimately better for you, as pasta cooked so it has a little tension in it has a lower glycemic index – meaning it takes longer to digest, causing less of a spike in blood sugar.

You will also find that cooked this way you will remain fuller for longer on less pasta.

Cut back on red meat

Italians eat very little red meat. Most meals are either entirely vegetarian or contain chicken and fish. In a perfect Mediterranean diet, you should consider eating fish, or other seafood twice a week.

Eating fish two or three times a week has been shown to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease, while also providing a top quality source of protein, that compares favourably with meat and chicken. Seafood is also an excellent source of many important minerals, including iodine, zinc, potassium and phosphorus.

Beans form a solid part of an Italian’s diet, particularly in Tuscany. They are high in soluble fibre and protein and will give you that feeling of being full for longer while also adding relatively few calories. Pasta e Fagioli and Ribollita soup are both popular dishes made with beans that are both cheap and extremely healthy to make.

Use fresh ingredients

Picture: iStock

Fresh ingredients always make a difference in how your food tastes. Cooking for yourself with ingredients you just picked up at the farmer’s market will not only mean you eat tastier meals but also means you know exactly what is going into your body. Most prepared sauces and meals, even those from restaurants, include loads of preservatives and salt, that can cause health complications over time.

Taking time out to cook for yourself gives you a better appreciation for what you are putting into your body and just how much you are eating.

You should always be careful however to ensure you don’t overuse your herbs and spices as they are intended to accentuate a meal, not over-power it.

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