Chances are this summer you’ll be reaching for veggie crisps, smoothies and fruit for breakfast. Warning, error. An overview of the fake friends present on our plates.
After devouring a melon and eating two apricots in the garden of your rental house in Provence, you’ve never felt so healthy in body and mind. Except that. Eating a lot of fruit in the summer is not necessarily a good idea. Ditto for almonds and olives, which have replaced our traditional potato chips. Paris dietician, nutritionist Florence Vaccin lists the false friends of summer.
vegetable crisps
Since you discovered them, you have not stopped extolling their nutritional properties to any friend who dares to choose potato chips for an aperitif. However, the reality is completely different. “Vegetable crunch is an energy bomb. Dehydrating vegetables causes them to lose all the water they contain (that’s 85 to 90% of their weight) and give way to carbohydrates, and therefore sugars and lipids, which come from the finished oil, Florence says. The vaccine.
The result: your beet chips no longer resemble fresh vegetables from the stall and are nothing more than a (uninteresting) source of calories. “Thus, 100 g of vegetables are 60 to 80 calories, while 100 g of vegetable crisps are equivalent to 430 calories,” warns the nutritionist-dietitian.
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The fruits
Fruits have always been our best summer allies. as soon as the craving hits, we swallow a few cherries. A harmless gesture, but not harmless. Although fruits are a source of vitamins, fiber and minerals, “they are also sources of simple carbohydrates. They contain 15 to 25% sugars, which are directly absorbed by the body. Therefore, we cannot eat as much as we want, otherwise the body accumulates sugars,” emphasizes the specialist. Give more preference to fruits with low sugar content, such as red fruits or watermelon. Bananas, grapes and cherries, which are very sweet, should still be consumed in small quantities.
Syrup-based granitas are often loaded with sugar
Florence Vaccin, nutritionist-dietitian
Finally, forget the traditional “five fruits and vegetables a day.” Instead, count three portions of fruit to be spread throughout your meal. By “sharing” we mean compote, whole fruit, a slice of fruit pie or even a glass of fruit juice. One part of cherries is equivalent to twelve cherries, while one part of grapes has ten seeds.
Granites
Everyone has already adopted sorbet or granita to replace ice cream, just to limit the damage and remove the guilt. Wrong. “Of course, ice cream contains a lot of cream, milk and sugar, but syrup-based granitas are often loaded with sugar,” admits the nutritionist. Finally, sorbets (preferably unsweetened) are thus placed in a better position and can even replace some of the fruit. Provided you carefully look at their composition.
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Almonds
“It is important to remember that oily seeds (for example, almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, walnuts) are very useful for the body; walnuts are rich in omega-3 and almonds are rich in calcium. But it should not be used in excess, because they are very caloric,” emphasizes Florence Vaccin. So, the ideal is to limit its consumption to ten or twelve almonds or walnuts per day, and not add oily seeds to olives. “Of course, having fun is necessary, but just try to balance your diet and your excesses,” adds the expert.
Smoothies:
Just like fruit, it’s all about quantity; “If you have a smoothie with one peach, three apricots and one orange, that’s three parts fruit. Therefore, you should limit yourself to a maximum of one smoothie per day,” advises Florence Waxin. Everything also depends on the composition. if the drink contains fruit, sugar and milk, then be sure to rebalance the meals afterwards so that there is no excess of sugar on the same day.
Olives
We often forget that fruit is very rich in lipids. Let’s remember that oil is made from it… “For example, 100 g of olives (about twenty of the last ones) represents one and a half tablespoons of oil. As a result, when you finish the preserve as an aperitif and add sausage and almonds, the calorie intake goes up very quickly,” warns Florence Vaccin. So the ideal is to limit yourself to ten olives during the aperitif.
Good to know. black olives are oilier than green olives because the latter are more ripe.
Source: Le Figaro
