healthy breakfast Archives

May 7, 2020 By Urvi Gohil 1 Comment

Healthy Eating: Oats & Besan Pancake

Eating the same or similar food everyday can be a boring affair. So if you’re tired of eating roti-sabji (flattened wheat bread and vegetables) and are looking for a change, try adding a twist to your meals! Following a healthy diet is easy, even during lockdown! Here’s a Oats & Besan Pancake recipe which is super easy, nutritious and tasty.

Ingredients

Besan / gram flour – 1 cup*
Roasted and powdered oats flakes – ½ cup
Finely chopped onion – ½ cup
Grated carrot – ½ cup
Finely chopped tomato – ½ cup
Finely chopped capsicum – ½ cup
Washed and chopped coriander – 4 tbsp*
Chilly ginger paste – 1 tbsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp*
Chilly powder – ½ tsp
Salt to taste

Method

Mix besan and oats. Add the required amount of water to it to make a medium thick batter
Add salt as required and allow it to rest till you chop the vegetables
Add the chopped vegetables to the batter and stir
Add green chilly ginger paste, turmeric, chilly powder and coriander to the batter and stir
Add some water if required to make the batter thin
Heat a pan and spread the batter once hot
Make a thin medium sized chilla and allow it to cook on medium flame
Flip it over once cooked from bottom.
It turns out soft and thin even without a drop of oil but if you like you can add a tsp per pancake.
Serve it hot with green chutney

Highlights

It works great as a quick breakfast idea. Best for your kid’s tiffin but I love to eat it for dinner as well. Oats has Beta Glucan which is a soluble fiber and helps in losing weight. It aids blood sugar control as well and is best for the gut!

Do try this Oats and Besan Pancake Recipe and let me know if you like it! I will be back with a new healthy recipe soon! You can check out other healthy recipes in Healthy Reads and also tune in to GOQii Play for some tasty cooking sessions!

*Abbreviations: 1 cup = 200 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml

#BeTheForce

January 4, 2020 By Navnee Garg 1 Comment

10 Ways to Add Vegetables to Your Breakfast

You’ve come across the saying “Eat breakfast like a king and dinner like a pauper”… being a nutritionist, I strongly believe in this. Yes, one should definitely eat a nutritionally lavish meal in the morning. Breakfast needs to be a combination of simple and complex carbs along with some high biological value sources of protein. But is it enough? Does it make a complete meal?

We often tend to forget to add fibres and other micronutrients in the first meal of the day, keeping it for later meals, and we miss on achieving the daily requirement. Adding vegetables to your breakfast can help you improve your health in numerous ways and make it a complete meal. Let’s see how we can do that.

Ideas to Add Vegetables to Your Breakfast

Try adding sautéed spinach to an open-faced egg or paneer sandwich. Spinach is a rich source of Vitamin A, C and K.
Replace other root vegetables besides potatoes in your basic recipes. Try sweet potatoes, turnips, and even beetroot to get some extra vitamin boosts from these colourful root veggies.
Cook a quinoa, veggie and egg scramble. A perfectly balanced breakfast for lazy mornings.
Add spinach to your savoury oatmeal. Fibres in all together.
Try shifting your salad to breakfast and add some grain along. Try Pizza crust waffle with a breakfast salad. A great way to indulge guilt-free.
Avocado can be used as a spread on breads. To enhance the nutritional value, chopped veggies, salt and pepper can be added as a treat to your taste buds.
Try skipping the toast along with omelette or scrambled eggs. Instead, replace it with Sauté greens. Whether you can add cream or simply cook them with garlic, is up to you.
Add sautéed vegetables and mashed paneer/eggs to the pancakes/cheela you make at home. This would make it more filling and add an extra boost of protein as well.
Busy enough to cook every morning? Drink it up then! Just blend up greens or vegetables into your morning smoothie and sip it on the way to the office.
And the Easiest: Add vegetables in everything you cook, be it poha, vermicelli, and even upma!

We hope this article helps you add more vegetables to your breakfast for a power-packed start to your day! Do try them all out and let us know in the comments below.

For more healthy recipes, check out our other blogs or simply tune in to GOQii Play.

#BeTheForce and #LevelUp2020

December 31, 2016 By Anusha Subramanian 7 Comments

7 trends in Health and Wellness that we can look forward to in 2017

The year 2016, was a year of healthy living which became a huge trend and will continue to be so in the coming year. All this was because the trend in wearable technology took centre stage in 2016. In fact, the year 2016 could be termed as the year of wearable technology that brought along with it healthy living. Healthy living in turn saw the influx of usage of cold pressed oils, Apple Cider Vinegar, drinking Matcha (a new form of Green tea derived from the Japanese tencha leaf and then stone ground into a bright green fine powder) and few other foods that are slowly becoming more of a fad.

Let us look at 7 emerging trends in Health and Wellness in 2017

The use of Curcumin or Turmeric: Popping Curcumin tabs or drinking turmeric curd or milk is a big trend that is being witnessed across the world. For Indians, Turmeric has been an age old remedy for aches and pains. But, in recent times it is being prescribed as an anti-inflammatory food and is slowly being integrated into one’s lifestyle and diet.

Super Foods: Super Foods are becoming part of daily regular diet. Two years ago, Quinoa, flax seeds, Melon seeds, Pumpkin seeds and Kale were considered exotic and difficult to find in supermarkets. Now however, these super foods have become staples for many and is part of regular daily diet of many. However, a disclaimer form my side is buy these only if required and not because it’s a growing trend and a fad to eat them.

Wellness retreats: Since people have taken to healthy living, their holiday habits are also changing. They are thinking of going for wellness spa holidays, or meditation and yoga retreats in the mountains or go to pure wellness centers that is built amidst nature for detox. People are taking off for a week to be in complete solace with themselves and soak in the good aspects of life and bring in a discipline in their life. However, it needs to be seen how one is able to sustain this lifestyle once they are out of the retreat and back to their normal and routine life

Healthy Gupshups: Being conscious of their health many have taken to talking healthy as well. All those who have experienced healthy lifestyle and leading one are becoming influencers and trying to get their near and dear ones to also see the change and adapt a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise, eating well, sleep and good rest. A whole new community of healthy living influencers are emerging all around us. Healthy Gupshups over good clean food, events, and workshops are coming into action. It’s amazing to gather with like-minded people to exchange healthy recipes, finding balance in your life, fitness, etc and this is only here to stay for the long term as people are getting more conscious.

Healthy Cocktails and Shots: For all those health conscious souls who also like their alcohol once in a way during a social gathering are now opting for healthy cocktails and shots made of healthy natural juices and drinking more responsibly.

Sitting is the new Smoking so walk 10,000 steps daily: If smoking was not bad enough to kill you, here is another lethal habit that can kill you-‘Sitting’. Sitting is known to increase belly fat which in turn is a recipe for disaster as it directly injures the heart. Hence, clocking 10,000 steps on a daily basis has been proved to be good and medically too doctors have accepted that this should be the daily norm.

Positive thinking: The quest to live healthy is also leading many to think positively in life. They are finding way to look good and care for themselves.

So if you are not on the health path, then the coming year is your chance to walk this path. Watch out for these trends and adopt those that you think suits you and always stay positive and happy.