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ISLAMABAD: Dough-wrapped samosas filled with meat and vegetables. Pakora fritters made from potatoes. Mutton stews. Sweet vermicelli milk pudding, and lots and lots of dates. The holy month of Ramadan may be about fasting for devout Muslims, but it is also as much a gastronomical festival.
As Ramadan arrives in Pakistan each year, it brings with it questions of what to eat to remain energized, full and healthy at both the daily Sehri pre-dawn meal and the iftar dinner with which the devout break their fast. Especially when fasting from dawn till dusk needs to be practiced in the heat of summer months, maintaining a diet that helps keep the hunger and fatigue at bay and the spirits up is even more essential.
Good news first: dates, a Ramadan staple around the world, are a healthy option!
“Eating dates with water at iftar or Sehri helps to maintain electrolyte balance,” said nutritionist Tehreem Usman who works at Islamabad-based fitness studio The Space. “It provides important minerals like potassium, copper, and manganese.”
The lack of healthy nutrients in the body throughout the fasting day causes hunger pangs and headaches, Usman said, which people try to overcome at the iftar meal by overeating and opting for instantly gratifying fried snacks and high-sugar drinks.
So what are the right foods to eat?
For Sehri: “Protein-rich foods like egg, meat, lentils, green vegetables, whole grain cereals or complex carbs and low-fat dairy help you keep full for hours to come as they digest slowly and help stabilize blood sugar levels,” Usman said.
But preparing healthy meals for yourself is hard when the rest of the family is ready to throw back handfuls of greasy, crispy delights.
One option in Islamabad is to use healthy food delivery services like Treat, the brainchild of Ali Paracha who started the service because he had gone through the experience of not being able to eat clean, especially in Ramadan, as he went through a personal journey of weight loss. Planning what you eat was key to staying healthy in Ramadan, Paracha said.
“You have to make sure you don’t attack all the samosas and fried food and that you’re planning what you’re eating and that you’re making sure that it’s healthy and not overly sugary and salty,” he said.
Eating high doses of sugar and salt lead to a shock to the system and finding a balance, nutritionist Usman said, was essential.
“For Sehri, eat foods that will keep you full for the day and not abandon you before you reach iftar, like eggs with multigrain bran bread or loaded oatmeal,” she said. “A lot of people eat parathas (fried bread) for Sehri which is a terrible idea! That much fat at that time is not good for your body, because it’s storing the fat and using the carbs.”
Instead, the answer was complex, slow release carbs.
“I would recommend Treat’s five seed granola which is packed full of superfoods and oats roasted with honey, some nuts, and dried fruit,” Paracha said. “You can have that with fresh fruit and yogurt and it ends up being a well-balanced meal.”
And for the iftar meal, by which time one has gone over 15 hours without eating, one should be “eating to replenish,” said Usman.
“One should eat foods from all major food groups: cereals, fruits and vegetables, meat and meat alternatives including low-fat dairy,” she said.
“Think salads, or at the very least, side salads,” Paracha said, adding: “And fruit chaat (salad) prepared without the juices and sugar we are likely to dump on them.”