8 Foods To Eat Your Way Out Of A Hangover

December 28, 2019August 27, 2020Leave a comment

Sometimes (often during weekends) you wake up with a terrible headache, dizziness, dry skin, and little memory of the previous night’s binge drinking with friends. Maybe you didn’t need to have that fifth drink, even though it tasted delicious. Now, we can’t do much about last evening’s embarrassing videos and photos, but we could help you with the hangover, by suggesting these nutrient-rich foods.

What Happens in a Hangover?

That soul-crushing hangover is nothing but the alcohol interfering with the neurotransmitters of your brain. Alcohol is known to release reward chemicals like dopamine, hence you feel happy when you have a drink or two. Now, when the drinking stops your brain takes time to regain its regular balance of these happy chemicals, making you feel confused and sometimes sad.

Additionally, when your body processes alcohol it creates a substance called acetaldehyde, which makes you feel nauseated and gives you those neverending headaches. If you drink moderately, your liver can get rid of acetaldehyde, however, when you binge it puts pressure on your liver, causing the sick-in-the-stomach feeling, literally. Of course, the dehydration and acidity due to lack of water and food, doesn’t help.

How Can You Fight Hangovers?

Since you can’t turn back time and drink in moderation, eat these foods the next morning to get rid of the hangover.

1. Bananas: When you are dehydrated, your body loses electrolytes such as sodium and potassium. [1] One banana has almost 12% of the potassium that a person needs daily [2]. Bite into this yellow fruit and see the magic.

2. Eggs: Your morning omelet is packed with amino acids that help produce antioxidants in your body. Now when you drink, it depletes your body of these powerful fighters that aid your liver to process alcohol. Eggs help fuel-up these antioxidants in your body, making you feel healthier and full [3].

3. Nuts: Alcohol stays in your bloodstream for 24 hours. Almonds, walnuts, and other nuts contain magnesium, which helps break it down for your liver [4]. This eases hangover symptoms.

4. Leafy Vegetables: Alcohol is known to attack the iron storage in your body, hence you feel fatigued the next day along with having a pale, dull skin [5]. Spinach, kale, and other leafy vegetables are rich in folate or iron and help replenish this nutrient in your body.

5. Ginger: This amazing root has a host of health benefits. It is ideal to cure a sore throat, nausea, and upset stomach that come with hangovers. It has anti-inflammatory properties and calms the acidity [6] in the body, soothing the throat and the stomach.

6. Coffee: If you’re severely dehydrated, coffee may not be the best option, but it might be a boon if you have it an hour after drinking enough water. It has anti-inflammatory properties that soothe the stomach [7]. If you need to get to work, you will definitely need a caffeine pick-me-up after a fatigued and confusing morning. Stick to a light one with milk.

7. Other Fruits: Have water-rich and citrus fruits like orange, pineapple, watermelon, and berries that are packed with vitamin C and fiber to help your body recover. This vitamin helps slow down the conversion of alcohol into acetaldehyde easing symptoms of a hangover [8].

8. Oatmeal: Complex carbs in oatmeal provide a slow and steady release of sugar into your body, helping you avoid the spikes of high or low blood sugar [9], common after an alcohol binge.

References:

Easy & healthy tiffin recipes for kids

July 17, 2018August 9, 2018Leave a comment

The summer break is over; it’s time to go back to school. And as the new school year begins, every mother’s biggest nightmare is back: what to make for tiffin?

bon happetee indian food diet plan app

Now kids always peep into each other’s boxes while they sit together for lunch. The radiant smile when your child has the most delicious lunch is priceless – and every mother’s pride.

Managing your child’s nutrition and pleasing his taste buds during the vacation was easy. But once school starts, you can’t prepare wholesome and interesting meals in the maddening morning rush. And at the same time, you can’t give him the boring roti and sabzi every day.

That said you need not lose sleep over what to prepare for dabba. Bon happétee has some healthy and fun tiffin recipes you can whip up in a jiffy.

So here we go:

Bread uttapam:

Prepare a batter of suji, curd, finely chopped veggies, salt, and spices. Heat a griddle, add some oil and place a bread slice. Spread a layer of the batter on the bread. Ensure that the batter side is on top. Flip the bread and cook from the other side.

This uttapam is a smart way to sneak the fiber and antioxidant-loaded veggies in your child’s diet.

Baby corn and capsicum rice:

An international version of the Indian pulao, this rice preparation is a sure-shot hit. It entails freshly prepared/leftover rice, olive oil, diced bell peppers and baby corn, along with onion, garlic, tomato puree, ketchup, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. You can toss in a protein surprise by adding paneer cubes.

Hung curd sandwiches:

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Mix finely chopped capsicum, onion along with grated carrot to the hung curd. Add chaat masala, salt, oregano, black pepper powder and mix well. Apply a thick layer of the mixture on the bread and grease it lightly with butter on one side. Grill it either in an oven, a sandwich maker or on a tava.

This easy-to-prepare snack will make your child’s tiffin box the most interesting one. As a mother, you can pat yourself for preparing a snack that’s rich in protein, calcium, antioxidants, and fibre.

A paneer bhurji sandwich is another interesting lunch box idea.

Chapati or paratha wraps:

The regular chapati and sabzi are boring. Time to give it a makeover.

In a pan, heat butter. Throw in some finely chopped onion, tomato, and capsicum with boiled potatoes, green peas, pav bhaji masala, salt, coriander leaves, and cheese. Now spread this mixture in the middle of a roti and roll it up. With such a delicious wrap, your child will flash his broadest smile. And you’ll be happy since you’ve wrapped all the five pillars of nutrition in a one meal.

You can always showcase your culinary skills by trying new fillings.

bon happetee indian food diet plan app

Parathas:

bon happetee indian food diet plan app

Parathas have been the most popular and versatile tiffin recipe. You can try different parathas – from a sprouts paratha to mix vegetable, gobhi, spring onion and cheese, paneer and the all-time favourite aloo paratha. You could add ragi, soya, bajra, or jowar flour to the whole wheat atta to up the nutrition quotient.

And yes, the home-made mint/coriander chutney is a healthier accompaniment to parathas than the preservative-laced ketchup.

Idli stir-fry:

A quick meal you can prepare with leftover idlis. In a wok, heat oil. Add sliced onion, carrots, capsicum and cabbage. Once the veggies get cooked, put in salt, noodle masala, and diced idlis.

This simple dish will win your child’s heart with its colourful appearance and scrumptious taste. Additionally, the fermented idlis and veggies will boost your child’s immunity.

Pasta:

This one’s special and coming straight from my mom’s kitchen. As a kid, I’d always be behind mom to make pasta for dabba. In fact , I still do 😉

She prepares home-made pasta sauce using dudhi, carrot, tomatoes, chilli flakes, oregano, basil leaves, salt, sugar and cinnamon the previous evening. In the morning, she heats olive oil/butter in a pan, adds the home-made sauce and durum wheat pasta. A grated cheese cube on top and my day is made.

Sometimes, she cooks white sauce pasta. She prepares the sauce using atta, not maida. She adds corn, capsicum, mushroom, and yeah, I can’t stop grinning.

Now you can heave a sigh of relief. You’ve taken care of your child’s nutrition and taste buds without running from pillar to post or worrying about what to cook.

Happy school day cooking from Team Bon Happétee 🙂

Vishruta is a nutritionist by profession and a writer by heart. Content writing and menu planning have become her passions over the past few years. Love food, love life — is her mantra.

Walk your steps to better health

February 12, 2018March 2, 20181 Comment

If you ask your parents about the happiest memories they have had of their children growing up, the first answer to pop up would be ‘the time my child took his first step’. Every parent knows that the first step in a child’s life is a landmark event. Our parents witnessed the smile and the thrill radiated through our face and that was a joyous moment carved in their memories. As children, we stumble and topple a few times over till we can manage to walk confidently, without any support. And when we turn from crawlers to walkers, it brings together a sense of independence, productivity and exploration.

So what changed as we grew up? Continue reading →

How I eat 2 rasgullas daily & stay fit? A guide to eating Indian Mithai guilt-free

January 4, 2018March 1, 2018Leave a comment

Surely, you’ve read our recent post on how to eat fried foods without guilt. In this post, we’ll teach you how to befriend another of your favourite dishes that have been labelled as a villain by most nutritionists – sweets, our good ol’ desi mithai.

Rasgullas, who doesn’t love them? These fluffy, white instantly-melt-in-your-mouth balls of sweetness! No wonder I can never stop at one rasgulla! And even if I dig into two rasgullas for the next 15 days, I will still not gain a kilo! My genetics or metabolism is not responsible for it. But, my eating habits are. My trick is – I relish sweets with a smile and smartness.

After reading this blog, I am confident that you’ll master this trick too! So, let’s get started!

Craving for halwa in the sweater weather? Go ahead and dig into it!

Seasonal mithais are a good idea. Similar to how aamras soothes your body in the sweltering summers, ghee and nut-based mithais in the winters keep your skin soft and supple. According to our ancient scriptures, there are cooling foods and warming foods. During winters, you need to eat foods that warm your body internally and keep the metabolic rate high. Fats keep you warm and also give you more energy. That’s why, this winter, reap the benefits of healthy fats through peanuts, nuts, sesame seeds and ghee. Dig into peanut chikki, gajak, carrot halwa and an assortment of laddoos – including besan ka laddo, gound ka laddoo, til laddoo and pinni – without any guilt!

And you know what? Seasonal ingredients change the way mithais are prepared. Last week, I prepared gajar ka halwa at home. I took a small portion of it to my father for tasting. After he finished the bowl, he told me that it tasted great but was a little less sweet. That’s when I told him that I haven’t even added any sugar yet. The sweetness came from the all-natural seasonal carrots. Later, I ended up making the gajar halwa with almost 1/3^rd the sugar of a traditional recipe. You see, that’s the power of using seasonal fruits and veggies in Indian mithais.

Here’s an interesting fact: Your maa ke “aate ka ladoo” with milk and a handful of nuts is one of the most traditional and nutritious Indian breakfast. This meal can give any breakfast cereal a run for their money.

Let’s say, you’re not into seasonal sweets and prefer grabbing a gulab jamun, rasmalai or a kalakand.

Our advice: savour it as a post-workout meal. Since our bodies require instant energy after a gruelling exercise session, the sugar in the mithai will be used for energy instead of getting converted into fat.

Whoa! That’s an amazing reward for working out, isn’t it?

Alternatively, you can relish a small gulab jamun as a mid-morning snack along with five-six nuts to keep the sugar levels in check.

Some tips to keep in mind while preparing or eating mithais:

As with fried food, our best advice is to prepare sweets at home, instead of buying it at a nearby mithai shop.
Your preferred ingredient for sweetness should be jaggery over white sugar since it’s more nutritious. You can opt for dried dates or figs to up the healthy quotient of your mithai. But one thing you must avoid at all costs is artificial sweeteners. They are loaded with chemicals which create havoc with our health, ranging from bone loss to hair loss.
Adding condiments and spices like cardamom and nutmeg to your mithais boost the metabolic rate. A high metabolic rate lowers fat conversion.
The thumb rule to avoid weight gain with sweets is to eat sweets as a snack i.e. an hour or two after breakfast or lunch and not with it. That way, you’ll satisfy your taste buds and not dread the weighing scale.

Now, we are sure, a smart eater like you would look beyond the calories and get back the nuts, whole grains and ghee in the mithai. After all, these super-healthy ingredients brim with the goodness of protein, fat, and fibre. All these nutrients keep your stomach full for longer as well as slow down the digestion of sugar. As a result, you keep overeating at bay as well as lower the risk of sugar getting converted into fat. Now, that’s similar to eating two mithais for the calories of one!

Sweets can be a delicious affair if you learn how to eat them the right way. And with our tips, you can give in to your sweet tooth and still lose weight.’

It’s time you became best friends with the much ‘maligned’ mithai!

Vishruta is a nutritionist by profession and a writer by heart. Content writing and menu planning have become her passions over the past few years. Love food, love life — is her mantra.

4 Ways to Detoxify Body Post Diwali

October 17, 2017March 1, 2018Leave a comment

We know Diwali is around the corner when diwali sweets & snacks start flooding in & we start dedicating our weekends to cleaning up our houses until spick and span! And, not your regular sweeping, dusting and mopping kind of cleaning, but it’s the time of the year where every corner gets special attention, unwanted materials are disposed and walls get a fresh coat of paint.

In fact, some ancient texts mention the importance of this cleaning ritual. Since Diwali is celebrated somewhere between mid-October to mid-November, right after the monsoons end, the cleaning makes sure all the germs and infestation that monsoons brought with them get eradicated with the whitewashing and other pre- Diwali cleaning activities.

Giving your home, a good tough cleaning, decluttering, and decorations signify the purity of mind and soul. Basically, we detoxify our houses to have a fresh start!

However, after having cleaned up our concrete houses, it’s time to detox our biological house too – our BODY! Continue reading →

Why we need to take a working mother’s health seriously

October 3, 2017March 1, 2018Leave a comment

Women are super multitaskers. Apart from taking charge at work, women play a key role in the nutrition and overall health of the family. They are the healthy policymakers at home and pass on the food culture from one generation to other. With constant multitasking and taking charge on numerous fronts, women often forget to take care of themselves.

I have heard from numerous women that ‘they go running around like a headless chicken after work to make meals’ or ‘they have no clue how the day passes by and meal timings are always a struggle’. This leads to a stressed life and mental exhaustion that build up day after day. Well, it is a choice that we as women make but what if an app helps you out, with ALL things FOOD!? Try bon happetee and unveil the science of healthy indulgence. bon happetee is your chef and nutritionist, working as your companion towards a healthier life! Continue reading →

Game of the aisles: How the choices you make at the supermarket impacts your health?

May 5, 2017February 26, 2018Leave a comment

Every week or fortnight, you visit the supermarket, you go through the aisles and put products in your cart. But, when you get home, you realize that you have bought foods that you had never intended to buy in the first place. You also realize that there are foods sitting in your bags which are not healthy and you don’t even remember picking them up. Sorry to burst your little bubble, but it was YOU who actually picked them up, put them in your cart and paid for them.

Try to remember when you walked past the aisle that stocked chocolate spreads, how it made you weak in the knees and called you out to pick it up; and you did. Or when you tasted instant noodles in your mouth by just looking at the bright yellow packet. See, this was how those unhealthy food items landed up in your shopping bags.

Believe me, we have all been there and it is not because of your lack of determination entirely.

You have been played! Continue reading →

10 Fuss-Free Healthy snacks to munch on, this game season.

April 28, 2017February 26, 20182 Comments

One of the biggest events of the year for the cricket buffs is on. Watching the game with friends and family through the thrilling catches, miraculous comebacks and jaw dropping moments is an exceptionally endearing feeling. What the game also revolves around is the food! The feeling of grabbing a greasy pizza, chomping on fries that are washed down by a bottle of cola is what makes a game-night a pleasurable event. But the oh-so-captivating gamer grub, apart from calming down your grumbling stomach for a while, does not really do a favor to your waistline (or your body).

Did you know that sitting in front of a television screen for a long duration has been linked to erratic eating behaviors and subsequent obesity?

The mindless munching of foods that are high in carbs, fats and salt does not bode well with the sedentary nature of the game night. But there can be no fun without your gamer grub around for the games night, right? Let bon happetee come to your rescue.

Here is the list of the most exotic, scrumptious and healthy snacks that blends health with taste. Continue reading →

You Are What Your Friends Eat

March 28, 2017March 1, 20181 Comment

It is not just diet and exercise, the friends you hang out with affects your health too!

It’s time we alter the overused saying “You are what you eat” to “You are what people you are around with, eat”. Imagine a situation when you are having a casual lunch with your friends and you decide to order the main course. Now you really want to have a healthy steamed salmon but your buddy on the right opts for a steak burger with double cheese and fries. You start salivating by just the picture of the steak burger and the cheese oozing out of it. Torn apart by the weight of this decision, you change your order to a steak burger with French fries and a soda to go with it. Haven’t we all gone through this?

The company you keep says a lot about you, they influence the way you think, act and EAT! It is said that “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. To figure out how this is applicable to our daily habits, I was keen on considering the scientific facts. Research proves that there are different areas where our peers affect our choices and I was baffled to know that our eating habits, the weight that we carry, the food choices we make and even our food buying is affected by our peers – surprised much?

Let’s look into how this works! Continue reading →

TOH KUCHH MEETHA HO JAYE

February 12, 2017March 1, 20181 Comment

Have you eliminated yummy pedhas, delicious rasgullas, luscious jalebis from your life? Do you find it difficult to resist scrummy desserts and pastries during parties? Have you substituted sugar with ‘sugar-free’?

If your answer for the above questions is ‘Yes’, here’s a last question for you –

Are you happy with such a restrictive attitude towards sweets? Has it aided phenomenally in your weight loss journey?

And if your answer has now switched to ‘No’, you should definitely find out where you are going wrong!

Whenever we are trying to lose weight, sweets and desserts are the first things we stay away from. But do you know that a small serving of dessert every day can really be beneficial for you? Yes, it’s true! If you have a small portion of sweets today, you won’t feel deprived and will be less tempted to hog on it tomorrow. Continue reading →

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Tag: HACKS

8 Foods To Eat Your Way Out Of A Hangover

Easy & healthy tiffin recipes for kids

Walk your steps to better health

How I eat 2 rasgullas daily & stay fit? A guide to eating Indian Mithai guilt-free

4 Ways to Detoxify Body Post Diwali

Why we need to take a working mother’s health seriously

Game of the aisles: How the choices you make at the supermarket impacts your health?

10 Fuss-Free Healthy snacks to munch on, this game season.

TOH KUCHH MEETHA HO JAYE