Alkaline Bananas: A Superb Snack

Woah!, I was just looking at the calendar to see how many days are left in May and I saw another whole week. 5 Fridays in this May, that means 5 posts. As you know, I keep alkaline eating easy, I don't go into complex exotic recipes involving half a dozen fruits half of which you won't find in India and the remaining half for which you don't know the Indian term. My ideas are fairly simple, primarily because, if they weren't, I wouldn't be using them myself.(lazy me ;)).

Having said that, let me take my favorite fruit of all time for this week's alkaline food, banana.The fruit that is available throughout the year, is cheap to buy. The benefits go on and on, but let's take a closer look into how we can use it as part of our alkaline diets. As an important note, bananas have a high glycemic index, what this means is that the sugar(glucose) content is high in them, this causes the sugar to be absorbed into the blood stream faster and causes a spike in the blood sugar levels. This isn't very good, because it is best to have a sustained blood sugar level without fluctuations. If a fruit/vegetable has a low glycemic index, it will get absorbed into the blood gradually and keeps the body stable. If you've ever felt a sudden spike in energy after eating some junk like McDonald's or KFC or something like that, this is what it is. Fluctuating blood sugar causes sudden feeling for a craving, sometimes in the middle of the night, or at odd times, this won't happen if you eat healthy foods and maintain the alkaline balance.

To be clear, a banana and a McDonald's meal can in no way be compared, in other words, don't worry about a high glycemic index as it is a natural sugar and as a part of an alkaline diet, it will blend in perfectly. (If you plan to go on a banana diet for an entire week, that maybe a different story ;)).

3 Ways we can use Bananas in our alkaline diets are
1) Fruit: As simplistic as it sounds, bananas and a couple of almonds make for a terrific snack during the evening, I usually feel hungry at about 7pm, I grab a banana, grab a couple of almonds and I needn't worry about dinner till about 9:30.

2) Banana Sundae:  Typically, sundae is a word used to describe an ice-cream sundae, but in our case, we are referring to an entirely alkaline dish. Sliced bananas, served with honey on top make excellent dessert. Slice the bananas, place them horizontally on a plate and pour honey over them and it is ready to eat.

 3) Salad: You may know from my previous posts that I mix and match fruits and veggies in my salads. Well, a banana is no exception, multiple times per week I add bananas to my salads and it makes for an awesome salad. Bananas, being sweet, neutralize the taste of any non sweet alkaline foods and make the salad palatable.

This concludes my post on bananas and their alkalinity. Although bananas are not highly alkaline, focus on natural foods is my priority as I believe that nature has made food available to us if we just look.

Give me your thoughts, I want to know. What do you want to hear about? Post in the comments.

Cheers,

Prithvi

Tomatoes Alkaline Possibilities

With the beginning of a new month, let's go deeper into specific fruits and veggies that we can use every single day in some form or another.It's never possible to continuously create new recipes and try new veggies, we need to find something that works and repeat it over time. For the first week of May, let's pick tomatoes, tomatoes are everywhere, they are ubiquitous, they've been here for as long as we can remember, and will stay for as long as we live. Best part, they are alkaline.

Today, I'll delve into 3 different ways I use tomatoes in my alkaline lifestyle, how tomatoes are playing their part in my alkaline eating.

The 3 basic ways we can use tomatoes in our Indian alkaline diets are
1) Curry
2) Juice
3) Chutney

1) Tomato Curry: Simplest and probably the most common way of using tomatoes alone to create a curry, tomato curry is easy to make(no discussions about recipes here today sorry ;) ), tomato curry in itself can be a dish, it can be eaten with rice and with rotis (disc shaped item made of wheat). It tastes good if the ingredients have been added correctly, best of all it is light. After eating tomato curry, it fills you up, but keeps you feeling neutral, it doesn't make you feel drowsy. This is an excellent dish to add to your diet.

2) Tomato Juice: A much rarer use of tomatoes is tomato juice.Juices play an important role in the alkaline diet, essentially since we believe in a 70% water rich diet. Please note that water rich foods ≠ water, overall foods that have more water content in them qualify. Tomatoes fit the bill, tomato juice, with any additives of any sort, has excellent benefits, the best of the benefits is serving as a replacement to other beverages. Tea/Coffee/Soft Drinks/Alcohol/Milk Shakes, none of them are alkaline, there are alkaline alternatives which we will discuss in another post, but for now, remember that tomato juice is one of them.

3) Tomato Chutney: The 2nd most common chutney after coconut chutney is tomato chutney. It is similar to a curry but it is used with breakfast items like idly, dosas, wadas. While a chutney is just a side dish and doesn't classify as a main dish, our objective is to ensure that most of our diet is alkaline, small changes like chutney, beverage etc go a long way in improving the quality of our diets.

There are several ways of using tomatoes in our alkaline diets, start using these 3 and we'll add more later.
I'd love to hear about your recipes and experiments with the alkaline diet. Post your thoughts below in the comments.

Regards,

Prithvi