EATING IN A BUFFET IN A HEALTHY WAY

Hi everyone! In this post we’re going to give you some tips about eating in a buffet.

Travelling or at the workplace, it’s easy that the place where you should eat is a buffet. At first sight, that sounds ideal! Almost everyone likes buffets: lots of different kinds of food, and all you can eat! But if you need to eat there frequently, that’s not the better idea.

 Eating on a buffet can also be healthy, but it will be easier if you put a little bit of order in your meal and follow the next tips.

They are based on the “Harvard plate” or “The healthy eating plate”, a guide created in 2011 in the Public Health School of Harvard in order to create healthy and balanced meals.

The Harvard Plate. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegarfield/6635485089

Our proposal consists on a menu composed by 3 dishes: starter, main dish and dessert.

STARTER: START WITH SOMETHING GREEN

To start, a salad is the best option. Usually in the buffet there will be a salad station, more or less variated but enough to create your own.  The one in the photo was made on a little buffet and it’s only composed by lettuce, tomato and cucumber. You can let your imagination fly and add other ingredients, such as corn, tuna, York ham, olives, vegetables, boiled egg or even nuts.

Respect to the dressing, try to use only olive oil (and vinegar if you like it). Avoid sauces (such as cheese, caesar or honey mustard sauce), because they provide a big amount of calories, sodium and sugars. Furthermore, we’re not looking for a main dish, only a fresh starter which precedes another plate.

Another starter can be a light cream or soup, which we can also found usually in a buffet. Choose them only if they are light (without heavy cream or similar) and without rice or noodles, because we will include the carbohidrates later. 

MAIN DISH: COMBINATION LEADS TO SUCCESS

As a main dish we propose a single plate where we will combine all the macronutrients needed in our diet.

Respect to the quantity, it must be moderated: not so big that you finish exhausted and not so little that you finish needing another plate. A big plate must be enough (full but not filling it until the border).

In that plate, we are going to include:

•        Proteins (1/4 of the plate aprox.), which will be provided by meat, fish, eggs or even legumes. They can have a little sauce, but don’t abuse with them. Avoid fried preparations, red meat and fatty meats like bacon.
•        Carbohydrates (1/4 of the plate aprox.), like rice, pasta ot potatoes (roasted or boiled, not fried)
•     Vegetables (1/2 of the plate aprox.), they can be grilled, steamed, boiled or even raw.  

  *Fat: respect to the fat, we won’t add any additional fat, because all the preovious preparations were cooking using oil, and on the other hand we added a little olive oil to the starter salad.

       In the photo we can see pork meat in Asian sauce with vegetables, pasta and steamed broccoli.           That is only one of the million of combinations you can imagine, so take into account the               previous reccomendations and let your imagination fly.  

In the case you find a stew plate, very typical in Spain, such as lentil soup or baked beans, it’s not necessary to make the combination explained before, because they include inside all the macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fat). According to the quantity, a deep plate will be enough.

DESSERT: FRUIT, FRUIT AND MORE FRUIT

And to end, the dessert. In this dish, the healthiest option will be fruit. Lucky, we can usually find in the buffets a huge variety of peeled and cut fruit (such as in the photo, where you can see mango and French melon). This is a healthy option that provides variety and usually is appetizing. If not, there will always be a traditional piece of fruit, such as an apple, a banana, etc.

Try to avoid prepared fruit salads, and fruits with syrup or compote. They have always sweeteners and conservers, which provide unnecessary sugar and calories.

We can also choose a yoghourt, preferably without sugar, but we recommend more to take fruit.

THE DRINK: WATER

Avoid sugar and drinks with gas or alcohol. Drink at least 2 glasses of water during your meal. A correct hydration is essential to be active and healthy.

To end this article, here we leave you a list of the dishes you may let apart due to their low nutritive value and high fat, sugar and refinated oils such as palma oil. They are:

•        Fried meals: fried chicken, french fries, etc
•        Fatty dishes which probably will be precooked, like pizza nuggets or burgers.
•       Sweet desserts such as pastries and cakes.

Now you have the main keys to eat in a buffet in a healthy way. You only need to put them into practice!

You can look for more information at:

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/translations/spanish/

Este obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento 4.0 Internacional.