A dish prepared with care, designed in the balance of nutrients, colors and calories, is liked and is good for you. Not just to the line. Science says it, the history of man tells it, as confirmed by the Internet searches for healthy recipes that have increased in these months when the pandemic has forced us to stay at home much longer than usual.
Recipes to lose weight by eating pasta: rigatoni with tomato sauce and fusilloni with broccoli
Healthy recipes
Eating well today is more important than ever. The ingredient that cannot be missing? The weather. To fine-tune the combinations, prepare the dishes, make choices that take into account our health without sacrificing taste and the pleasure of sight. “Pasta does not make you fat, it is what we season it with that could make it very caloric. We must not give up pizza, just prepare a marinara with capers, anchovies and rocket. Extra virgin olive oil is rich in beneficial properties but also in calories and we can find healthy alternatives to dress salads or fish “, explains nutritionist Nicola Sorrentino.
Recipes to lose weight by eating pizza: marinara (with rocket) becomes light
It is easy to predict that a plate of spaghetti with first fruits from the garden is more inviting than boiled chicken and overcooked zucchini. But where does the need that today more than ever have to cook dishes that are good for us comes from?
The need to cook
“Our need to cook is ancestral, it has allowed us to develop a stronger skeletal, muscular and physiological system”. Antonio Cerasa, neuroscientist of the Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation-Cnr, starts from afar, reconnecting to a theory of the neuroarchaeologist Suzana Herculano-Houzel. According to which the rapid evolution of the human being has passed from the possibility that the fire has given us to cook food, making it tastier, more digestible and above all more energetic. “We went from a plant-based diet, which took a long time to accumulate the amount of energy needed to survive, to a diet with cooked foods, such as meat, which released a tremendous amount of energy. Thanks to the cooking we had energy for the neurons and time to do something else. “
The ritual of preparation
Our age has accustomed us to frenetic rhythms and an abundance of food. Why cook for lunch if we have the opportunity to unwrap a protein bar? With the pandemic, something has changed. There are those who, locked up at home, with more time available, have rediscovered cooking and the rituals of preparation that have always accompanied food. “A ritual through which you take care of others and yourself. As with the sauces that our grandmothers prepared for us, the long preparation gives the weight of the care we have for someone else or for ourselves” says Antonio Cerasa.
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“The containment measures of the pandemic have had negative effects on eating behavior: staying at home for a long time, with easily accessible food supplies favors the use of food in times of boredom or as a consoling strategy in times when stress becomes high and intolerable. Furthermore, we often end up eating without being aware of either how much or the taste “says the psychologist of the University La Sapienza of Rome Caterina Lombardo. But these measures have not only had negative effects: “in most cases they have allowed us to recover some time. Dedicating this time to preparing recipes that are healthy but also tasty and beautiful to look at, rather than resorting to ready meals and take away, it can have a positive effect on health and well-being: in fact, food has not only a nutritional value but also a hedonic one and dedicating time to cooking is a way to take care of yourself “.
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Cooking as a therapy
Cooking is not just a pastime, according to Antonio Cerasa who dedicated the book to the topic La cooking therapy (FrancoAngeli). “It can become a rehabilitation treatment: if we try to do a series of operations to reach a goal, we get motor, cognitive and emotional effects. Even social if done with others. This is why we cook. The longer the preparation, the greater the benefits. It’s been like that since the dawn. “
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