Dietitian: This is what you should choose for Christmas food

Christmas food in itself is not bad, but could use some tweaking to be really good. The NordIQ Life dietitian gives his best tips so that you can make healthy choices.

There is a lot of good advice about what you should choose for the Christmas table, and the most important thing is to know your own purpose for choosing and opting out. If you are a vegan, you should, for example, skip all animal products, if you are allergic to nuts, the beef bowl is not recommended and so on. There simply isn’t a right and a wrong. If you want to avoid gaining weight when eating Christmas food, here is a small guide that can help.

First: Think about the amount of Christmas food you eat. You can actually eat everything, but not all the time and not in any quantities. Prioritize and value. Christmas food in itself is not unhealthy or bad food, but may need some additions and adjustments to be really good.

• Choose as clean food as possible. Fatty sauces and stir-fries contain a lot of fat and calories, while ham, mutton, salmon, herring and eggs are full of satiating proteins. The fatty fish also contains good fats.
• Lutefisk requires its own row. Together with boiled potatoes, white sauce and green peas, it definitely ends up high on the best list. It doesn’t get much better, it would be a bit more vegetables than just peas in that case.
• Eat the vegetables that are available. If you are involved in preparing the food yourself, take the chance to create new traditions. Oven-roasted root vegetables with mustard dressing are a perfect side dish. Beetroot salad, despite the name, does not fit on any health list. Brussels sprouts and kale do, on the other hand (if you don’t soak it in cream). The biggest shortcoming of the Christmas table is the lack of vegetables, so let your imagination run wild.
• Potatoes are both filling, tasty and energy-efficient. Don’t skip it!
• Oranges and clementines are the best dessert, but unshelled nuts are also good. Not because you should eat the shell, but because the cracking means that it takes a little time to eat. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to relax for a while during the Christmas rush. The nuts certainly contain a lot of fat, but at least they are of good quality and better than other Christmas sweets.
  Put the cutlery down between bites and enjoy what you eat.