Healthy Vegan Snack: Chickpea or Chhole Chaat

Hi Friends! We find it very difficult to think of a healthy evening snack. Most of us find it very difficult to find healthy options for evening snacks & finally eat some unwanted calories like a cake, chips, mixtures etc. Today I will write a simple vegan snack, tasty & healthy.

Indie-Chickpea Trailmix (Chhole chat)

Ingredients
Chickpea (Chhole): 1 cup
Onion: 1 large
Tomato: 1
Cucumber: 1
Corriander or Cilantro leaves: few springs
Green chili: 1
Lemon juice: 2 teaspoons
Red chili powder: 1/4 teaspoon
Black Pepper: 1/2 teaspoon
Sweet tamarind sauce: 1 tablespoon
Dried mango powder (Amchur): 1/2 teaspoon
Dried Pomegranate powder (Anardana): 1/4 teaspoon
Salt as per taste
Ginger: 5-6 thin pieces for garnishing

Preparation:
1. Wash & Soak the chickpeas overnight in water 12 hrs, you will see the chickpeas swell up. Pressure cook them in the morning till soft in the same water so that all nutrients remain intact, add a little bit of salt while doing so. Leave it to cool.
2. Chop the onion, tomato, cucumber, chili finely & make a mix. Mix it well with the cooled chickpeas and add the lemon juice as well.
3. Add the spices black pepper, red pepper, amchur, anardana and salt with the already made chickpea mix.
4. Now your Indie trail mix is ready. Now you just need to garnish it with the tamarind sauce, Cilantro leaves, Ginger pieces. It will be a lip smacking snack for the evening.

Chickpeas are great source of vegan protein, gluten free with a low Glycemic index so excellent for diabetic patients as well. Await a complete article on health benefits of chickpea or bengal gram. Please let me know your suggestions to this. Thanks!

Some More Tips to Lose Weight

Hi Friends! Welcome back after the weekend. Hope you all had a great one. I want to start your week with maintaining weight or losing unwanted weight. Again these are just a few simple tips which are not very difficult to follow. This is in continuation to my previous post 10 tips to lose weight

1. Work out in short intervals: If you walk for 10 min in 4 slots a day rather than walking 40 min at one shot you will have a better workout. This will ensure that the calories you take are burnt out at regular interval & does not let it add up. Also the hunger you feel after a long work out will also not be there.

2. Ditch the juice, rather have the fruit: This will help you to avoid the calories added from the sugar added to the drinks & also the fruit has fibers which help your digestive system.

3. Do not eat till you are hungry: You must have seen that kids are very choosy & avoid food at times, this is the natural instinct of the human body which we tend to lose as we grow up. We eat at regular intervals whether hungry or not. We eat any time if we are sad stressed or anything else. This is the reason why we put on extra calories.

4. Drink Water before meals: It will suppress your appetite so you will restrict your eating. This will also count your calories & eventually weight loss on your way.

5. Take your Multivitamins regularly: It has been seen that a regular dose of multivitamins help you maintain weight & helps reduce your appetite when on a weight loss plan. This has been proved in research taken place.

I hope this would help you plan your week ahead well. Friends these points are the things which can be followed very easily. If these points are there on your mind you can follow them more consciously. Our motive is to live a normal life & remain healthy. Enjoy your day friends!

Hypertension: High Blood Pressure

Hi! Today's topic is about Hypertension after discussing the counter part Hypotension yesterday. We know lot of people who would be suffering from this condition. The causes for hypertension listed out have been obesity, stress, sleep apnea, alcohol consumption, diet etc. Now, if you analyse the reasons carefully you will see that the reason accounting to Hypertension is mainly due to the lifestyle we indulge in. These conditions are known as lifestyle disorders or diseases & seen frequently in today's youth, though you can say there are factors which cannot be removed or changed from our daily life but we can still ensure certain corrective actions.

What to do?

Reduce your salt intake, it will reduce the sodium intake in your diet which has been considered to be one of the major reasons for increase in blood pressure. It takes extra fluid to flush out the salt from the system & thus pressurizing the heart to increase the blood pressure. Avoid packaged & processed foods, because they account for maximum salt intake in the body. You can also limit your intake if you cook yourself.

Drinking Coconut water has shown good effects on working of the heart. It has good amount of potassium and magnesium which helps in well being of the muscles & heart. Also the Sodium Potassium pump responsible for the smooth movement of fluid across the plasma membrane will create a less pressure on the heart.

Avoid Alcohol as it has shown negative effects on the blood pressure, also has shown negative effects on the medication for high blood pressure. It also has unwanted calories which add to your waistline & cause more trouble. It has been seen that losing 4-5 kg (10 pounds) can effect your blood pressure positively & not only weight but the waistline has shown correlation with blood pressure. Read my post on how to reduce waistline for help http://healthyyumfood.blogspot.in/2015/02/why-cant-i-fit-in-my-old-jeans-after.html

Introduce Garlic to food, this is an easy home remedy known for years to reduce the blood pressure. Allicin has shown positive effects on production of nitric oxide which helps reduce the diastolic & systolic pressure. Eat it raw in 1 large clove in the morning empty stomach to get best results alongwith addition to your food.

Sesame or til has shown good effects on hypertension, It relieves the oxidative stress in the body & also shows anti-inflammatory effect on the arterial walls thus lowering the blood pressure. It can be had in form of oil or also in food directly.

These are a few tips you can follow to help your hypertension & aid with your medication. Our lifestyle today is making us more & more prone to these lifestyle disorders. Try to live a happy & healthy life, because without these two life is meaningless. Thanks!!

Hypotension or Low Blood Pressure

Hi Friends!! My today's topic is to address a problem which you might not have heard much about. Rather all of us are always talking about high blood pressure or high BP. Jokingly also people say do not take too much of stress else your BP would go up. Then why at all talk about Low blood pressure or Hypotension. There are many equally suffering from low BP like high BP and is equally dangerous. Many of us do not take proper care or understand the symptoms of low BP. First of all lets try to know what would be considered as low BP. Normal resting human adult blood pressure is 120/80 mm Hg. Usually this is not stable & can vary from 100-120/ 60-80 for normal human beings, if a persistent 90/60 mm Hg or below is recorded for a person this is considered as low BP.

The symptoms experienced by the person are dizziness, lightheaded, fatigue, nausea, hard breathing, palpitations caused due to decrease in arterial flow & blood pressure beyond a point, the perfusion of the brain decreasing critically. Sometimes the arterial pressure drops suddenly on standing after sitting, this is caused due to gravity which doesn't allow blood back to the heart & the cardiac output is reduced. The cause of this kind of condition is dehydration, prolonged illness, nutritional deficiencies, decrease in blood volumes, pregnancy, sepsis, toxins, some medication etc.

Some things a person should immediately take care in such a condition is
1. Drink more Water to keep yourself hydrated & Avoid Alcohol as its property is to make you dehydrated.
2. Change your body positions slowly, this would help in reducing dizziness & lightheadedness.
3. Eat food which have low carbohydrate content to help preventing the blood pressure to drop drastically after meals. Also have meals in small gaps.
4. Eat healthy food, to fulfill any nutritional deficiencies. Eat good amount of lean proteins.

Some foods which have shown positive effects on hypotension are:
1. Salt: the presence of sodium helps to increase the blood pressure but this remedy should not be taken for a long time, as prolonged high consumption of salt can lead to other functional problems.
2. Lemon juice: It helps body fight dehydration and taking it with a small amount of salt & sugar serves the purpose, also in the long run it does help in maintaining blood pressure also, avoiding problems of fluctuating blood pressure.
3. Raisins: They are considered excellent remedy in Ayurveda, soak them overnight in water & have them in the morning for a few days & you will see change. The same can be done with almonds also which has shown very good results.
4. Coffee: Caffeine as mentioned in my previous post has sight effects on blood pressure can help. Especially having it with meals help you fight orthostatic blood pressure which is caused due to gravitational forces.
5. Holy basil leaves with honey: Have holy basil leaves or tulsi in the morning with honey, this has been recommended in Ayurveda for years. Also it helps fight common flu & cold.

Thanks Friends, I hope this article would be of help.

Whiten your Teeth at Home

Friends, all of us want a beautiful smile, and teeth should look great to smile freely. We try to take care of teeth by lots of means brushing, flossing, but still sometimes we do not get stain free teeth. I am sharing three home tips which can brighten your teeth.

• Baking Soda & Lemon Paste: Make a paste & put it on the toothbrush, apply it on your teeth & leave for a minute. Wash it off as any excess use can affect the enamel & gums. Ensure wiping your teeth before applying the paste.
• Orange/ Lemon peel: Use it regularly at night before sleeping it will lighten your teeth, the presence of Vitamin C & Calcium helps fight microorganisms.
• Eat crunchy fruits: Eat fruits like apples, strawberries, helps clean the teeth due to the presence of malic acid it removes stains on teeth. Also it helps clean your teeth by removing the bacteria & left over food.

Keeping the post short.. Try these to get a beautiful smile. Thanks!

Rice or No Rice in Diet

Friends there are lots of articles which have stated all along that eating rice is bad for health & accounts to weight gain & other problems. But just think about the vast population of South East Asians Chinese, Japanase & others eat rice with every meal, all their breads & other foods like noodles are made of rice but they are not fat or overweight. So, can we actually account rice as the cause. I am also a rice eater if not three meals atleast 1-2 meals everyday, and frankly I love it :).

Removing rice from the diet is not a good idea, and especially going to a wheat diet instead. It simply means reducing your amino acid intake which is the building block for proteins and Vitamin B. It has essential 9 amino acids present which cannot be synthesized in the human body. The profile is excellent in comparison to other protein sources as well & has shown recovery in muscle strength. The presence of methionine in rice has shown to mobilize the fat from the liver and tyrosine present is also a very essential amino acid. The other option people have started choosing is to replace it with brown rice. Brown rice has the husk & bran remains on the rice which makes it high in fiber, this fiber is actually much more than the body can digest. This would only aid to indigestion, also the proteins present cannot be completely absorbed by the body. Instead of this a better way is to introduce rice which is not completely white but the husk is removed & is slightly brown.

Also to add on to the note that people think that rice is bad for type-2 diabetes has proven to be wrong. The carbohydrates present in rice are complained to be bad due to high glycemic index which makes the carbohydrates to be digested faster and increasing blood sugar levels. But recent studies have shown that Indian rice like swarna & mashuri have GI of around 50 & Basmati GI around 55-69, which is considered to be much better than other varieties of rice present. Another few ways to reduce the carbohydrate content is to wash & soak the rice for about 30 min before cooking. It also reduces the time to cook the rice. Next is to cook the rice in an open container with more water, this way the grains become much bigger as well as the excess water afterwards can be drained so reducing the excess starch.

The next important point to be noted is that rice is a gluten free grain. Gluten is a protein present wheat, barley, rye & oats. Gluten sensitivity is seen in many individuals and shows digestive issues like gas, bloating, diarrhea & also constipation in certain cases. This can cause disease called celiac disease which causes inflammation & destruction of inner cells of the small intestine. This chronic disease leads to malabsorption of vitamins  minerals. Also it has shown adverse effect on type-2 diabetes.

I hope the above article has helped you make your decision clearer. The average Indian's staple food is rice & can be enjoyed in a healthy diet, without worries. Please share your thoughts on the same.
Thanks!!

Milk or Yogurt?

Dear Friends we all know that dairy products are great for health, but to know what are the specific benefits of milk & yogurt. Though both come from the same source the calories, calcium, and other nutrients. So, we need to know which one is better for which purpose. The list is as follows:

Yogurt is fermented milk, but as seen above the properties differ. And as being dairy products are excellent source of different kind of nutrients. You can see that both have certain good qualities and should be included in diet. Actually it is also seen that milk has better quantities of these Vitamin D & K. Milk provides 30-45% of your daily Vitamin intake, which I am sure would be not possible by any other source. And the variety of vitamins & minerals present in milk & dairy products is the highest compared to any other food. But as milk has some adverse effects on digestion people with these problem should have caution in taking milk in their diet. Yogurt is a better substitute to these people. Though people with no such problems should include portions of both in their diet. Also milk & yogurt both can be enjoyed in various forms. You can have shakes, smoothies, and raita etc. can be had easily & made enjoyable. 

A healthy note to add is no addition of sugar either in milk or yogurt, sweeten it with natural fruits rather than sugar. Sugar addition have negative effects on the dentures & also can make you lack in concentration. So, stray from sugar and use other alternative natural food to sweeten.

Thanks!!