– Fast & Feast – 5 Healthy Eating Tips To Try This Ramadan

Come the holiest month of the year and the air instantly gets filled with the glad tidings of scrumptious and crunchy pakoras, samosas, and a chilled glass of soul-soothing Rooh Afza. The fast breaks with a lot of impulsive eating, since we just love aloo, piyaaz, and chicken pakoras but the unpleasant bloatedness that follows? Not so much!
Thankfully, there are multiple ways to help such a situation, and ultimately adapt to healthier eating habits during Ramadan — The secret lies in striking a balance! If your intake of food aka the greasy, oily options (that goes to the heart but troubles the tummy) are well proportioned, and you are drinking plenty of water, your body might be able to skip the puffing while shaping up in surprising ways.

Here are some balanced eating tips for feasting right after a full day of fast:

1. Make Greens your Bestie:

Incorporating a side of veggies into your Sehri and/or Iftar meals is a sure way to meet your body’s daily requirements for energy, vitamins, and proteins while keeping your digestive system in check.
If eating greens seems like a task, veggies can also be turned into delicious curries by adding spices, herbs, or cheese can instantly elevate vegetables’ palatability, making for a deliciously balanced bite!
Ehem – Excuse us while we daydream about Laree Adda’s deliciously comforting Palak Paneer.

2. More Protein, Fewer Carbs:

Our advice: go nuts on tikka botis! (An easy feat if they taste as good Laree Adda’s)
We go for paratha after paratha in fear of facing the dreaded hunger monster in the middle of a fasting day but the trick is to opt for food groups that last in our body longer, like complex carbs and protein!
Kebabs are a foolproof way of staying full longer while keeping your Iftar and Sehri meals fun, wholesome, and meaty. We recommend Laree Adda’s seekh kebab and malai tikka boti for a lip smacking, protein fix.

3. Skip the Pakoras, Opt for Grilled:

We know, we know the fried, mottled pakoras can be hard to resist, but the trick is to go for something tasty to keep their cravings at bay, like the flavourful and juicy mixed grill platter from LA! It’s just as good as the pakoras, and doesn’t give one a nasty heartburn and keeps one full for long.
A total win-win diet, if you ask us.
But if you still feel like it, you can have one pakora afterwards. Just one.

4. Hydration is the key:

Drinking enough water is the most affordable form of self-care, but probably the second hardest thing to do, since the first one is to be able to resist Laree Adda’s Makhani Chicken handi – Have you even tried that??!
How could something so simple be so hard? But yep, staying hydrated goes a long way – specially in Ramadan.
To make the task easier, we recommend you find a water alternative: something sweet and tangy like zeera-pani or mint margarita from LA would get you hooked to drinking, halal drinking, for sure!

5. Pick Kheer over Cake:

To satiate your sweet tooth, we recommend you pick something more fulfilling and relatively healthier than a cake doused in sugar and chocolate; like a milk-based kheer complete with nuts and cardamom.
Or gajar halwa sounds like a great substitute too! It’s vegetable-based, has milk, and ghee with a decent amount of protein and calcium content for that added nutritional value.
If you’re still scratching your head on where to find one or all of them under one roof – We’re surprised you still don’t know the answer!

– Laree Adda –
Serving Deliciousness, Love, & Prayers This Ramadan