10 Small Steps Towards A Healthier Diet

Eating well doesn’t have to be complicated. If you get the basics right, and keep them relatively consistent, you can then add in the extra bits to optimise your health with food. Here are some areas that you may wish to focus on this year.

Turmeric comes from a plant related to ginger. It’s a common spice and an important ingredient in curries. Its primary active ingredients, curcuminoids, are yellow and give foods a lovely colour. Over the years there has been a lot of research, including studies done in people, on turmeric for a variety of health conditions. It’s still early days, but preliminary studies found that curcuminoids may be beneficial in helping to control pain, inflammation, and healing. Adding in black pepper to the meal has been shown to help with the bioavailability of its important compounds so perhaps aim to combine the two! Fort turmeric rich meals why not try Saba’s Gaeng Karee Fuktong or the Caveman.

Interestingly, green, black, and oolong teas all come from the same plant, but are prepared using different methods. To produce green tea, fresh leaves from the plant are lightly steamed. There’s evidence that green tea enhances mental alertness, as would be expected because of its caffeine content.

There are other studies that suggest that both green and black tea might have beneficial effects on some heart disease risk factors, including blood pressure and cholesterol. Although not likely to replace medications when they are required, they may be a healthy addition to your diet if your focus is improved heart health. Fancy trying it to see if you like it? Why not order it with your next Saba meal.

I think the power of eating more vegetables is under-rated. You could argue that it’s a matter of life or death. Risking being too serious for a moment, it’s worth noting that approximately 3% of deaths worldwide are attributable to not eating enough fruit and vegetables. Quite a startling figure! So, what makes them so important?

There are many health boosting properties within fruit and vegetables. They are bursting with antioxidant vitamins A, C and E. These vital nutrients have many health benefits from healthy gums, regenerating other vitamins, helping to absorb certain minerals and even helping to keep our energy levels stable. Fruit and vegetables also contain huge amounts of phytocompounds which is a fancy name for the plant nutrients they contain. These nutrients are often what give the individual fruit or vegetable their own special health-boosting power.

If you did want to eat more vegetables, the majority of Saba’s meals contain lots of vegetables. The stir fries are particular high in vegetables with the option of including more vegetables on the side of your meal available.

Garlic is the edible bulb from a plant in the lily family. A great deal of research has been done on garlic, although mostly small studies. Some evidence suggests that garlic may lower blood cholesterol levels and may be helpful for high blood pressure. Therefore, it’s often associated with heart healthy benefits. The American Institute Cancer Research recognizes fresh garlic as one of several vegetables with potential anticancer properties. The variety of phytochemicals such as allicin it contains have shown some cancer-fighting properties within the lab setting. Although never an alternative to traditional medicine, it might be an idea to include some garlic in your cooking and favourite meals. Of course, there’s no one food that reduces cancer risk. It’s your pattern of eating that counts. Choosing mostly plant foods, with a sprinkle of garlic, may help! If you don’t like garlic, why not include other vegetables from the allium family including onions, shallots, leeks and chives!

Often people think that antioxidants come from fruits and vegetables. They’re not wrong! However, they might be missing out of the benefits of herbs and spices which are also jam-packed full of antioxidants. This is one the reasons eating Thai cuisine can be a super healthy choice.

So why are antioxidants so important? Antioxidants engulf free radicals in the body. Free radicals are highly unstable molecules that are naturally formed when you exercise and when your body converts food into energy. Your body can also be exposed to free radicals from things within the environment such as cigarette smoke, air pollution and even sunlight. Therefore, these natural substances help prevent or delay some types of cell damage. Oxidative stress is also thought to play a role in a variety of diseases including cancer, heart diseases and diabetes. So make sure to eat lots of different fruits and vegetables as well as lots of herbs and spices!

Eating out can be socialable, convenient and extremely enjoyable. However, it can also have negative implications on your health if the food that is being served isn’t of the highest quality. High quality meals are made from scratch and are jam-packed with wholefoods rather than processed foods. Saba pride themselves in cooking everything from scratch, using the highest quality ingredients. In fact, most of their vegetables are bought locally from Irish farmers. However, as an authentic Thai restaurant, if the ingredients can’t be grown in Ireland, they are brought in from Thailand.