Soul Food, for those who don’t know, is the traditional food of African American tribes, which made its impact during the great migration of the 20th century to the States of North America, and slowly the rest of the world. As this food component is highly delicious with a wide variety, it could also be dangerous to your health. Soul food meals range from simple family dinners which include rice and beans, fried chicken, and collard greens with ham hocks. As to special occasions, it can include a table full of rice and beans, fried chicken, and collard greens with ham hocks. These could have a high toll on the heart and cardiovascular diseases, and could make a major impact on your health. We suggest being well informed first, and then choose your diet accordingly.
These foods include a high amount of meat contents, in the form of processed and raw meats, organ meat, fried foods, added fats. These food contents could be highly dangerous to your health as it is so delicious, if you’re not paying attention. These foods had been linked with high rise in diseases such as Heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, stroke, and mental decline. More than 50% of people in this lifestyle has been linked with high blood pressure, and other health issues. The dietary lifestyle with these consequences could be worse on your health part, and you should be more mindful and selective when following these. One thing could be to add more consciousness, and more veggies in your diet, to make your Soul food healthy.
As this goes traditional, this does not mean cutting totally on Soul food. They are not unhealthy as a whole, and this could be achieved with a little modification in the dietary styles.
How to customize your Soul Food diets for utmost health benefits? Due to health reasons, instead of focussing on high table full content, you can make your way to the plate cut and shifting to more veggies, which have high nutritional value and highly health beneficial. With a little of dietary increments and consciousness, you can make your way to traditional, and cultural practices of preserving its nutritional value. Cutting on health risks, doesn’t mean your cutting on this cultural diet entirely. You can make your healthier diet by maintaining flavor, richness, and cultural traditions.
- Choose consciousness with more plant based products and Veggies: Your first major goal should be to cut meat based diets to eating it in less quantities and more seasonal than usual. In place of this, you can transform your major diets to plant based veggies that include leafy greens, okra, watermelon, whole grains, and black-eyed peas. This change has been linked to moderate body weights, decreased heart diseases, and decreased mortality rates.
- Take more Whole Grain Diets: It has been countlessly recommended to increase food intake in terms of whole grain products, which include whole wheat, brown rice, oats, sorghum, millet, fonio, and barley. This can effectively lead to weight management, healthy guts, and cut the disease risks of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and even colorectal, pancreatic, and stomach cancers. Sometimes being conscious about soul foods, and choosing not to take macroni, cheese, and corn breads could be beneficial as they cut the amount of whole grain components, and hence is less healthy than whole grain based products.
You can customize your diet, with more consciousness in the Soul Food intake, which would increase both the traditional and cultural value in the terms of food, and health benefits gained from them.
