Rome, 31 March (beraking latest news Salute) – It is the second Easter lunch that Italians live without being able to celebrate in freedom. And you will be consoled with the pleasures of the traditional table: eggs, sweet and savory pies, colomba, chocolate. But if the goal is also to keep the figure, explains the nutritionist Gemma Fabozzi, head of the B-Woman center for women’s health in Rome, a strategy is needed. “What we risk – he specifies – is that we turn to food to ‘forget’, and our organs are forced to manage the excesses of the Easter lunch, encountering digestive slowness, headache, heaviness and abdominal swelling”.
So here are some rules for a pleasant but also faithful Easter, looking with confidence at summer and at the costume test: first of all, vegetables as a ‘shield’ for binges, raw or as a side dish, choosing in particular those with a bitter taste.
“First rule, therefore: start the meal with raw vegetables, to facilitate the sense of satiety – advises the nutritionist – and as an appetizer we can prepare a pinzimonio of fennel, celery, cucumber or mixed with simple oil and lemon or, a more delicious solution , blend an avocado with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and squeezed lemon to fill up with good anti-inflammatory fats. Then take advantage of the properties of the bitter vegetable, which can be offered as a side dish: if we opt for a lunch mainly based on meat, then it is better to eat it raw and choose between rocket, chicory, Belgian or curly endive, radicchio, or opt for a carpaccio of raw artichokes (only the heart to avoid having abdominal bloating as a side effect). effective in detoxifying the body and in particular the liver, which in this way will be able to better manage the sugars that we will introduce during Easter or Easter Monday lunch ” .
In the event that the main course will be a first course, like the classic lasagna, “then we can opt for a vegetable that is always bitter – advises Fabozzi – but sautéed in a pan with oil, garlic and a pinch of raw chilli pepper on the plate to take advantage of the content of vitamin C and capsaicin, with documented ability to burn fat and stimulate metabolism, which would otherwise be inactivated by heat “.
Chocolate is the watchword for young and old at Easter. But how to choose it ?. “While common chocolates and various chocolate snacks have no beneficial effect, on the contrary, they can only tire the liver and pancreas due to the high sugar content – explains the nutritionist – dark chocolate is a real ‘superfood’, thanks to its countless properties cocoa beans, rich in vitamins and minerals and, more importantly, contain large quantities of antioxidants, flavonoids and polyphenols that act as protection against free radicals, responsible for cell aging, but also for some diseases. Golden rule: the chocolate must be dark with more than 80% cocoa. Raw cocoa is also excellent, obtained from non-roasted beans, an excellent source of antioxidants. Today you can find excellent Easter eggs with this type of cocoa “.
Finally, the mood also has its importance. “The Easter holidays – says Federica Faustini, psychologist and psychotherapist of the B-Woman center – represent occasions for conviviality. How to replace our habits and traditions, which have been temporarily denied to us? First of all, do not give up on preparing local traditional sweets, adorning the house with symbolic objects and following the simplest traditions that we like and which for this reason are also the truest “.
“It can help – he suggests – to create new opportunities for exchange and sharing and to think of alternative and creative solutions for being together even if distant. For example, making group video calls to live dinners or lunches together. But methods can also be used. more traditional, children who cannot see their grandparents can write a letter to be delivered to them on holidays. The lockdowns faced in the last year, all the restrictions and inconveniences suffered have led to the loss of many of our habits and a a completely different way of cultivating our relationships. It may then be useful to go through this phase in a planning way, also thinking about how we would like to feed on some of our relationships as soon as it is possible to do so “.