Healthier Eating (3) – Dinner

Healthier eating – part 3: Dinner and others

There is one point to important with respect to dinner that is has to be mentioned first, before it even comes to recipes, ideas and what to eat: it’s when you have your dinner. Everything we consume after 8 PM is going to sit on our bellies or hips for a long while, because the remaining period of daily activity before going to bed is cut so short that the food is only incompletely digested when we go to bed. Digestion then slows down and utilizes everything in a slow process over night, or even carries on in the morning when you are supposed to have your breakfast. For a healthier eating program, it is therefore really important that you have your dinner at an earlier time in the evening.

Image via Central U-Pick.

The second most important fact to mention is the size of your dinner plate, or the portion size. In restaurants, you are often faced with huge, largely over-dimensioned portions. So please take responsibility in your own hand and leave of the plate what is too much. If the restaurant considers that impolite, then that is their problem. You have to take care of yourself, and over-eating would certainly defeat the purpose.

If your are dining in, then here are some ideas for a healthy dinner time:

1) Mediterranean roast vegetables:

This is a very easy dish, and all you need is a good bulk of vegetables, enough to fill an average oven tray. Cut some courgettes, eggplants (aubergines), sweet peppers, red (Spanish) onions and potatoes into coarse pieces. Peel and crush a few garlic cloves and add them. Briefly steam the potato pieces for a couple of minutes just to soften them beforehand. Add some salt and pepper, as well as a few sprigs of thyme and Rosemary to the mix. Brush a little bit of oil, preferable olive oil onto the vegetables, and put in the oven which should be preheated to about 200 degrees Celsius. Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

Image via My Own Sweet Thyme.