About Neha Goyal

Neha Goyal is passionate about keeping herself healthy and educating others about the same. She believes that a fit and healthy body is our greatest asset. Being a post-graduate in Nutrition, she promotes healthy living and eating. She is also a REEBOK certified aerobics instructor. According to her, health is a relationship between you and your body, and you have to take full responsibility for the same. Her health mantra is, "Eat mindfully, sleep soundly, and stay active as much as you can, so that you age gracefully"

January 14, 2021 By Neha Goyal 1 Comment

Healthy Substitutes for Butter

Have you ever wondered where butter comes from or how it is made? In short, it is a dairy product made from milk, also known as milk fat. It is composed of about 80 percent fat, which is the part that has been separated from the carbohydrates and protein of the milk.

Butter is a popular spread and baking ingredient. It is widely used as a spread for bread, crackers, and other food items. It also functions as a leavening agent in baked goods. Due to its high concentration of fat, butter has a rich flavor and creamy texture. It works especially well for high-heat cooking like sautéing and pan-frying to help prevent sticking while adding flavor.

Despite its various uses, there are a few reasons why you might want to substitute butter.

Why You May Need to Substitute Butter

Milk Allergy: While butter is very low in protein, it still contains a small amount of the milk protein casein, which can be allergenic.
Lactose Intolerance: People with lactose intolerance tend to tolerate the small amounts of lactose in butter without adverse reaction. However, some are more sensitive to lactose than others and may have to avoid butter for this reason.
Health Reasons: Some individuals avoid butter because it’s high in saturated fat. High intake of saturated fat has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease.
Veganism: Some people have made a dietary choice to avoid all animal products including dairy, so they avoid butter.

For whatever reason you may choose to avoid butter, here are a few alternatives that you might want to try.

Butter Substitutes for Pan Cooking

Ghee: Having a high smoke point, it is a great alternative commonly used. Some other benefits are an aromatic & nutty taste. It has no casein or lactose, so it is safe for people with milk allergy. Additionally, it has anti-inflammatory properties and contributes to a healthy digestive system.
Olive Oil: is better than any other refined oils. Being monounsaturated fat & high in antioxidants, it is good for the skin, heart health & for lowering cholesterol.
Coconut Oil: In south India, coconut oil is a part of many recipes. Its delicious to cook with & rich in healthy fats that actually boost fat burning in your body. It also provides quick, sustainable energy to your brain and helps you focus.

Substitutes for Baking Purposes

Butter functions as a leavening agent in baked goods and provides texture and flavor. It can be replaced by ghee, coconut oil & olive oil in baked goods. However, the ratio of these while substituting butter have to be kept in mind.

There are some more foods that work best as butter replacements in cakes, muffins, cookies, brownies, and quick breads. However replacing butter with foods is often a matter of trial and error.

Applesauce: significantly reduces the calorie and fat content of baked goods. Yet, it does add sweetness, so you may want to reduce the amount of sugar in recipes.
Avocados: These add nutrients and healthy fats to your recipes. Use dark ingredients like chocolate to cover up the green tint that may result from using avocados.
Mashed Bananas: Using mashed bananas provides extra nutrients and decreases the calorie and fat content. Add bananas to batters slowly, until the desired consistency is reached.
Hung Curd: If dairy is not an issue, using Greek yogurt/hung curd adds protein to your recipes and replaces sweetness with a tangy flavor. Full-fat curd is best for keeping baked goods creamy and tender.
Nut Butters: Nut butters infuse baked goods with a nutty taste and tend to make them more dense and heavy. Still, keep in mind that they’re high in fat and calories.
Pumpkin Purée: This is a nutrient-rich butter replacement. Use 3/4 the amount of pumpkin purée when substituting for butter.

Substitutes in Spread

Butter is widely used as a spread for bread, crackers, and other food items. The following foods have consistencies that are ideal for spreads, in addition to being tasty and nutritious.

Nut Butter: Peanut and almond butter can easily be spread onto toast or crackers. They are delicious as well!
Cheese or Hung Curd: Try cottage cheese, cream cheese, or hung curd if you can tolerate dairy. You can also add some herbs & finely chopped veggies to enhance flavor.
Avocado: Lightly spread a tablespoon or two of ripe avocado over toast & sprinkle some salt, pepper & dry herbs mix.
Hummus: also works great for spreading and dipping.

We hope this article helped you in your quest to substitute butter. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below! For more on nutrition, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by experts on GOQii Play.

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December 10, 2020 By Neha Goyal Leave a Comment

All About Cooking In Clay Pots

As we are becoming more and more health conscious, trying to eat healthier meals, we cannot overlook the cookware used to prepare those meals. The vessels we choose have a great impact on the taste, quality and nutritional value of food. While Researching about which cookware is the best for our health, I always noticed that clay pots are on top of the list but I was never sure if I can really cook my regular food in them. A few weeks back, after a lot of research on how we can use them for regular cooking, I gave it a try and bought one home. Now I can confidently say that everyone should give them a try. In fact, I am planning to buy some more as I find more space in my kitchen to keep them safely. Before you get convinced by my experience, let’s understand why you should be switching to clay pots.

Benefits Of Using Clay Pots

They infuse your food with calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, sulphur and many other minerals depending on the composition of clay used in making these pots.
Help in restoring pH balance of food as clay is alkaline in nature.
Lends a nice earthy aroma and enhances the flavor of your food which metal pans usually destroy.
Preparing food in clay pots requires slow cooking which helps retain maximum nutrition.
Less oil is required while cooking in clay pots as the porous nature of clay pots allows heat and moisture to circulate evenly.
Prevents us from harmful chemicals and metals that leach into our food while cooking in metals like aluminium and non-stick cookware.
They are pocket friendly and available in different sizes and shapes.
Environmentally friendly and completely biodegradable.

How To Choose Them

Clay pots are available in glazed and unglazed form. Both have their own set of advantages.

Glazed ones are ready to use, have a shiny appearance and are easy to clean. These encourage good steam circulation due to low ability to absorb water. But sometimes, their glaze could be of low quality that may contain harmful chemicals. On the other hand, unglazed pots need a little bit more care being more porous, but have better ability to balance the pH of food.

How To Use Clay Cookware

Clay cookware needs to be prepared prior to first use by immersing them in water for 24 hours or at least overnight.
Next day, scrub and rinse it and let it dry. Then you need to soak it in starch water/rice, cooked water/rice soaked water for one more day.
Wash it again and dry it under the sun. After drying, wipe it with any vegetable oil and dry it under the sun till the oil is absorbed by the pot.
Your clay pots are ready to use now.
Though this preparation process seems long but ensures a long life to your clay pots.

How To Maintain Clay Pots

Some points are needed to be kept in mind while using clay pots in your daily routine.

Never keep hot clay pots on a cold surface or put cold water in a hot pot. This temperature shock may cause cracks.
You may not want to clean them with soap as it will enter into small pores of the pots which can mix into food while cooking. Use ash, baking soda and salt, rice flour or gram flour to clean these pots.
These pots work well on a regular gas stove, but never heat empty pot on very high flame. During cooking, it is advisable to keep the flame medium to low.

If you haven’t got a hold of clay pots yet , I suggest getting one and experiencing the goodness and flavor in food that usual cookwares lack. I hope this article helps you if you plan on using one. Do leave your thoughts and queries in the comments below!

For more useful information, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by experts on GOQii Play.

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November 25, 2020 By Neha Goyal Leave a Comment

Is Olive Oil Suitable For Indian Cooking?

With newer superfoods making their mark on our plates, olive oil has gained a lot of popularity in India. Indians use oil in everything while searching for the healthiest alternative at the same time. As a result, the markets are flooded with brands and variants of olive oil. The most important question to ask here is that does it fit in the Indian kitchen? Let’s find out by understanding what you are buying from the market because not all of them are created equally!

Different Types of Olive Oil

There is no doubt that it is healthy fat obtained by crushing olives using different methods. The catch is that the quality of olive oil sitting in your pantry is determined by the process of extracting the oil from the olives, the varieties and how/whether they should be used in different cooking methods.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: This is the highest quality extracted from freshly squeezed juice from olives using stone, wood or steel rollers. It has a very strong flavor, aroma and contains no more than 0.8% acidity. No chemical solvent or industrial refining process is used while producing this variant. In fact, temperatures are kept below 75 degree Fahrenheit during the whole process. Even after packaging, it is mandatory to keep it away from heat and sunlight. So it is clear that to get benefits from this high grade oil, you should not heat it. You can drizzle it over your pasta, salad, soups or use it for making dips.
Virgin Olive Oil: This is also an unrefined variety but slightly lower in quality. Containing 1.5% acidity, it is considerably a subpar option to extra virgin variant. Still, it has a good aroma and is suitable for low temperature sautéing and baking as you are trying to substitute butter or any other saturated fat.
Refined Olive Oil: If you see a bottle with “pure olive oil”, “Lite olive oil” or simply “olive oil” in a supermarket, they are usually Refined olive oils (or are mixed with some other refined oils). They are prepared using olives that are in bad condition or rancid olive oil after treating them with heat and chemicals to remove any unpleasant flavors as well as neutralize free fatty acid content. Being heavily processed, they do not contain any benefits of the extra virgin variant. You can use these for any kind of regular cooking. But don’t expect too much from it in terms of health.
Olive Pomace Oil: Pomace is the word used for the leftover olive pulp after the first extraction which consists of skin, pulp, seeds and stems. The amount of oil present in pomace is so minimal that it cannot be extracted through pressing but only using chemical solvents like hexane and high heat. Clearly it has no benefits but calories. This variant is for people who are attracted by the benefits of olive oil, but are looking for something in their budget.

Are These Variants Suitable For The Indian Kitchen?

After going over these variants, if you’re wondering which oil is suitable for an Indian pantry, then go back to your grandma’s kitchen. In India itself, we have so many healthy oil options that you don’t need to run after everything that the western world is popularizing . But just like olive oil, you need to choose the least processed or filtered variety of different oils. Some good options for Indian style high heat cooking are filtered or cold pressed varieties of sesame, groundnut, coconut or mustard oil. Also, let’s not forget desi ghee which accompanies “Maa ka pyar” in every traditional meal. Last but not the least, Consumption of any oil should be in moderation while following a balanced diet and regular exercise for good health.

We hope you find this article useful. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below. For more on nutrition, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by experts on GOQii Play.

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November 7, 2020 By Neha Goyal Leave a Comment

Healthy Eating: French Beans Khichdi

If you are on your weight loss journey, you must have heard the advice of keeping your dinner light, low in carbs and high in protein and fiber. But do you feel that this simple tip is actually one of the most difficult to follow? As the entire day goes chasing work, after a tiring day, dinner feels like the only meal we can eat with all the time in the world and actually indulge in. Even if we decide to eat healthy, there are very few meals that support the low carb and high protein idea, especially for vegans. So, I want to share one of my favorite recipes which is not just good when you are chasing your weight loss goal, but diabetes friendly, vegan and gluten free too. Let’s learn how to prepare the delicious French Beans Khichdi!

What You Will Need

Yellow moong dal – ¼ cup, soaked for 2 hours
French beans – ½ cup, chopped
Carrot – ½, grated
Onion – 1 medium sized
Green chilly – ½ tsp, chopped
Ginger – ½ tsp, grated
Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
Garam masala – ¼ tsp
Ghee – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – ¼ tsp
Lemon juice – ½ tsp
Green coriander – 1 tbsp, chopped
Roasted sesame seeds – 1 tsp
Hing – 1 pinch
Salt to taste

How to Prepare

Heat ghee in a pan and add cumin seeds. As the seeds start crackling, add hing powder, onion & sauté for 2 minutes.
Drain soaked dal and add it to the same pan. Sauté with onion for 2 more minutes.
Now, add ½ cup water, salt, turmeric powder, green chilly, ginger ,garam masala, beans & carrot. Mix everything & cover the pan. Let it steam cook for around 10 minutes and stir 1-2 times in between.
After 10 minutes, turn the flame off and let it team in the hot pan for another 5 minutes.
Take the lid off and add lemon juice, fresh coriander and sesame seeds over it. Mix everything together and your French Beans Khichdi is ready!

Highlights of the French Beans Khichdi Recipe

Being Low in carbs & high in fiber, protein & good fats, it is a good dinner option for people suffering from diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, thyroid, PCOD or even high uric acid levels.
It is weight loss friendly as it is low in calories but still very filling.
It is gluten & lactose free, so people who are allergic to gluten or are lactose intolerant can also enjoy it.

Do give this healthy, delicious and simple French Beans Khichdi recipe a try and let us know your feedback in the comments below! For more healthy recipes, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE cooking sessions on GOQii Play.

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