Lunch is not an easy meal to get right. Food that is filling, energizing, and not sleep-inducing can be difficult to put together — especially in the morning when you barely have time for breakfast. Nevertheless, it is worth spending time and effort over: a child with a heavy lunch inside of him will do poorly in the afternoon classes. Office workers who pig out in the canteen at noon tend to fall into a siesta mood. Unfortunately, this is not South America.
Adequate calories
A good lunch contains adequate calories — approximately 30 per cent of the day’s requirement. It is really a mini-balanced meal. The typical Indian five-tiered ‘lunch canteen’ of chapattis or pooris, rice, dal, curry, sweet, curd, and a ripe banana is heavy on calories and carbohydrate and the resulting spike in insulin levels puts the body into a snooze mode. It also is common practice to eat tiffin items (dosa, poori, vada and so on) at lunch. However, these foods are low in protein and are often prepared with reheated oil in hotels and canteens, thereby increasing one’s exposure to trans-fats – the worst fat in terms of cardiovascular risk.
The ideal lunch is filling — without inducing a feeling of being stuffed to the gills. A couple of chapattis, dal, curry and a fruit make for a simple yet wholesome meal. A sandwich made with whole bread, and an omelette, low-fat cheese, low-sugar jam or mustard can be a quick snack, but it is not a good lunch by itself. However, add a slice of lean meat or a grilled chicken breast to the sandwich, and include a side order of fruit, and you have something close to a perfect meal.
Avoid soft drinks and colas at lunchtime – they are temporarily stimulating, but one feels very sleepy once their effect wears off. High sugar foods such as chocolates, ice cream and sweetened fruit juice have a similar effect. Low-fat milk or 100 per cent no-sugar-added fruit juices are ideal drinks at the mid-day meal- especially for kids at school.
The body needs high quality fat to function effectively, and the mind needs it to feel good about itself. Choose unsalted, roasted nuts (peanuts, cashew nuts, walnuts, almonds and pistachios) over butter, cheese and fried foods.
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