How to Survive Christmas!
Christmas is actually three days next week, it doesn’t start at the beginning of December when some of the celebrations actually begin. For those who watch their weight, this time of the year can be a nightmare, multiple Christmas lunches/buffets/quality streets can all add up and all your good work throughout the year is undone. Just by making a few changes to the food choices you make can help you avoid extra calories.
- Mince pies are very high in saturated fat and sugar, all that pastry and suet doesn’t make them the most healthy treat; Swap the open top mince pies you’ll eat less of the bad stuff
- Dips with cream or cream cheese, swap for tomato based salsa style dips
- Puff pastry; swap for filo
- Breaded chicken bites; swap for marinated chicken
- Onion bhaji; swap for prawn wanton
- Crisps; swap for tortilla crisps
- Salted peanuts; swap for pretzels
- Cheese straws; swap for pretzels
- Pre-mixed bucks fizz; Swap for white wine spritzer
There is an increase in food poisoning at Christmas, mainly due to the turkey! Here are a few tips to ensure that you don’t poison the family this year!
- Keep all raw food separate from ready to eat food to avoid cross contamination.
- Use separate chopping boards for raw and ready to eat food, raw food contains harmful bacteria and can easily be spread to everything!
- Wash your hands before and after handling food, especially raw meat and poultry
- Defrost the turkey; take out the giblets and neck to speed up thawing. Make sure that there are no ice crystals inside the cavity and that when you prod the meat with a fork or skewer it is soft. Once it’s thawed store in the fridge or cook immediately
- Don’t wash the bird before cooking, this increases the risk of food poisoning by splashing germs around, thorough cooking will kill all the bacteria.
- Make sure that the turkey is cooked thoroughly, it should be piping hot all the way through, none of the meat should be pink, pull the thigh away from the bird and the juices should run clear. If you have a thermometer use it on the thickest part and it should stay at 70 degrees for two minutes.
- To minimise the risk of eating dodgy turkey meat, be like me and my daughters and have a mushroom wellington!!
So now you’ve all stuffed your faces with the Christmas delights, seated around the beautifully decorated table on the “emergency” chairs with your belly on your knees. After eating your own body weight in Brussel sprouts, stuffing, fizzy drinks and Christmas pud the next stage is a by-product of fermenting food; wind!!!
This can be very uncomfortable for the sufferer if it’s trapped and bloated or very uncomfortable for everyone else if it flows freely!! Stock up this year with peppermint oil which helps to settle wind and scented Christmas candles! Believe it or not, paramedics actually get 999 calls for people with trapped wind thinking they are having a heart attack.
Many people suffer with indigestion or heart burn after over indulging with rich foods or through stress at Christmas, over the counter indigestion remedies can help but if you suffer regularly from this it’s best to get it checked with your GP.
Food poisoning, hopefully after following the tips above you won’t get this! Diarrhoea can be common as you may be eating food that you don’t normally eat and it can upset your system but if you are violently sick and feeling very unwell you should call the out of hours service for advice. Try to keep hydrated.
If you have a history of angina, avoid laying down for a post- Christmas lunch snooze as lying flat with a full tummy can bring on an angina attack. Have 40 minutes or, as my Dad would say “resting his eyes” in the arm chair, the rest of the family will love it when you snore, dribble and twitch!
Stress!
Don’t get too stressed, the perfect, picturesque Christmas family dinner as seen on adverts really don’t exist! What they should show is the decorations falling down even though you’ve nailed them to the wall, kids fighting over a cardboard box, your knitted present from your Gran that could fit you and your siblings in at the same time, the drunk cousin who is going from stage 1 to stage 4 (see previous blog!) in 30 minutes, the very chatty Uncle who dominates the whole conversation and the host who forgets the stuffing and produces burned offerings after you’ve eaten dinner!
Now that is a real Christmas!!!
It’s all about preparation, get as much done before Christmas as possible and designate jobs to the family; Gravy making, table laying, pudding maker, the Bar Man, get the whole family involved. Everyone should help with clearing up- suddenly everyone leads the loo, a cigarette, an important phone call, ban all of this and issue tea towels/ rubber gloves to all, in fact give them out as extra presents! Walking about and standing can help with digesting food and it also helps with that wind problem!
Have a great Christmas everyone, eat, drink and be merry and we’ll see you all back in our leisure facilities in the New Year.
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