Reasonable Tet nutrition for people with chronic diseases and children

During Lunar New Year, every Vietnamese family has many indispensable typical dishes such as banh chung, pickled onions, jam, meat, wine, and beer.

Illustrative photo. (Source: Viet Ha/Vietnam+)

These dishes are nutritious but not suitable for people with chronic diseases such as overweight, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Many people gain weight quickly after Tet holiday. Therefore, people with chronic diseases need to pay special attention to their diet during Tet holiday to ensure adequate nutrition and health protection.

Besides, Tet is also a time when family activities are not as regular as usual, so we need to pay more attention to the diet and activities of young children.

Dr. Truong Tuyet Mai, Institute of Nutrition, said that people with high blood pressure need to pay attention to a low-fat diet, limit salty foods (reduce salt), limit alcohol, beer, cigarettes, eat lots of vegetables and ripe fruits, and control weight.

During Tet, following a strict diet is relatively difficult. Tet meals are shared meals with a joyful atmosphere with children and grandchildren. People with high blood pressure also have difficulty controlling their blood pressure, leading to eating more carbohydrates, greasy and salty foods, and drinking too much alcohol and beer.

In the Tet holiday feast, the first “enemy” of people with high blood pressure is fat. Fat from meat as well as fat in the skin of poultry not only causes weight gain but also contributes to atherosclerosis leading to high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.

People with high blood pressure should eat dishes made from fish and seafood, and limit eating banh chung and sweet cakes because these foods cause weight gain.

Salty foods with a lot of salt are also an issue that people with high blood pressure need to pay special attention to and limit their use.

To avoid eating foods high in salt, people with high blood pressure should pay attention to checking the amount of salt listed on food packaging for ready-made foods, limit eating dishes that use a lot of salt such as pickled onions, braised dishes, cook with less salt, and use spices to replace the salty taste of salt.

People with high blood pressure should eat lots of green vegetables, tubers and ripe fruits to provide lots of fiber, potassium, magnesium, vitamin C and vitamin A, these are nutrients that have a positive effect on blood pressure.

Dr. Nghiem Nguyet Thu, Deputy Head of the Department of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics (Nutrition Institute) affirmed that people with diabetes should try to ensure they eat at certain times and avoid skipping meals. These people need to pay attention to keeping their diet (amount of food) not much different from normal days, avoiding eating too much or too little.

Diabetic people's meals always need to include 4 food groups: carbohydrates, protein, fat, vegetables and fruits.

Some traditional dishes during Tet such as sticky rice and banh chung contain a lot of carbohydrates, so you should be careful to eat just enough, keep the amount of carbohydrates stable in meals, and not eat too much. Dishes such as bamboo shoots, sausages, fried pork rolls, and braised meat have a lot of fat, so you should only eat them in moderation.

Diabetics should eat more vegetables and should not drink sugary fruit juice.

Nutrition experts recommend that people at risk of being overweight and obese should note that each piece of banh chung creates about 150-250 kilocalories. Just eating 2-3 pieces of banh chung per day will significantly increase energy, not to mention other types of food such as candy and alcohol.

Overweight and obese people should not eat too much red meat, prioritize eating fish and poultry; encourage eating fish and tofu; should use enough vegetables and fruits.

In addition to a diet high in animal protein, consuming too many cakes, candies, carbonated soft drinks, and other soft drinks also increases dietary energy for overweight and obese people, so these products should not be used or should be limited.

Overweight and obese people need to balance animal and vegetable fat sources, avoid foods high in fat and cholesterol such as fatty meat, butter, cheese, brain, animal organs, fried dishes...

In addition, overweight and obese people also need to maintain the habit of reducing salt intake, eating moderately according to their needs; not eating cakes, candies and drinking soft drinks, and not abusing alcohol or beer.

For young children, mothers need to feed them enough food, enough of the 4 food groups; let them eat on time, sleep on time; do not give children food that is easily spoiled, suspected of being spoiled, food processed from the previous meal... to prevent diarrhea.

Families should limit giving children candy and soft drinks, especially before meals, as this can make them lose their appetite. When traveling far away, they should prepare clothes in case the weather changes during Tet, making children susceptible to illness./.

According toVietnamplus