Singaporeans love their hawker fare, it’s the best and satisfying possibility for a scrumptious meal.
However with rising weight problems and hypertension incidence charges, can we’ve got our hawker meals and eat it too?
Strive your hand at deciding on a mixture of breakfast, lunch and dinner, utilizing 18 of essentially the most generally discovered hawker dishes right here. Let’s see if you happen to’ll bust the beneficial dietary limits.
There are 1,140 doable each day meal combos for this recreation.
Taking as its foundation a 2,000 calorie a day food plan – which might usually meet the dietary necessities of all kinds of individuals – ST’s evaluation discovered that solely 5 per cent of the doable each day meal combos on this recreation wouldn’t bust the suggestions for consumption of sodium or fats, amongst different standards.
After all, this doesn’t have in mind elements equivalent to gender, age, weight and life circumstances – as an illustration, solely 3 per cent of the doable each day meal combos can be doable following the identical standards above for a younger girl (21 years outdated, 60kg, 160cm); for an aged man (60 years outdated, 70kg, 170cm), it will be 6 per cent.
Do communicate to a well being skilled for recommendation in your dietary necessities.
What’s wholesome?
It’s clear that hawker centre meals on their very own will be slightly unhealthy. However can we modify the meals in order that they’re nutritionally higher for us?
Over the course of 5 days, reporters from The Straits Instances tried to seek out the healthiest hawker dishes doable whereas eating out for a minimum of two meals a day.
The reporters ate in line with the Well being Promotion Board’s My Wholesome Plate pointers.
This implies for every meal, we should always attempt to have…
- 1⁄2 plate with vegatables and fruits, which is about 2 servings of greens or 1 serving of greens and 1 serving of fruit
- 1⁄4 plate with lean protein, which might be a palm-sized serving of fish or poultry, 3 eggs, or 2 small blocks of tofu
- 1⁄4 plate of wholegrains, which might be a bowl of brown rice or wholegrain noodles
Suggestions from diet consultants
- Plain rice will be the higher selection than flavoured rice like hen rice, duck rice, nasi lemak or nasi briyani, as such carbohydrates are cooked with salt and fats, stated Ms Bibi Chia, Principal Dietitian, Raffles Diabetes and Endocrine Centre.
- For noodle dishes equivalent to fishball noodles and ban mian, choosing the soupy model is usually more healthy than selecting the dry model, as dry noodles are sometimes blended with a myriad of sauces which will include chilli sauce, oil, lard and gravy. Soupy noodles like mee soto or beehoon soto are more healthy halal alternate options to fried noodles, stated Changi Normal Hospital senior dietician Fionn Chua.
- Are wholegrain choices more durable to come back by within the hawker centres or espresso outlets close to you? Strive bringing your individual brown rice or noodles and ordering the opposite elements from the stalls as a substitute, advised Raffles Hospital’s Ms Chia.
Meal evaluation rated by Changi Gneral Hospital Senior Dietician Fionn Chua
Candy potato porridge with two vegetable dishes and braised hen drumlets
Worth (Dec 2023): $4
From: Combined-rice stall at 203 Toa Payoh North espresso store
Reporter’s feedback: This was certainly one of my first few meals, and it was a really late lunch at round 3pm. Choices had been restricted and all of the meat dishes left had been both braised with heavy gravy, deep-fried, or worse, deep-fried with a sauce like candy and bitter pork.
I took the most suitable choice I may discover – which was braised hen drumsticks. There have been no brown rice or wholegrain choices, so I opted for candy potato porridge, together with two vegetable dishes – which gravy I prevented ladling throughout my porridge like I normally would.
Dietician’s ranking: 4/5
Dietician’s feedback: Good selections. Though there aren’t any wholegrains, the addition of candy potato does enhance the fibre content material of this meal. Braised meat is much less oily than deep-fried choices. Nonetheless, it’s advisable to make an effort to take away the pores and skin and fats of the drumsticks as a lot as doable. For the greens, having the dish on a separate plate helps, because the gravy will not be straight added to the porridge.
Brown rice with two parts of greens and hen breast meat
Worth (Dec 2023): $2.70 for brown rice and two veggies at mixed-rice stall, $6 for hen breast from hen rice stall
From: Two separate stalls at Market Avenue Hawker Centre
Reporter’s feedback: Workplace staff who work within the Central Enterprise District haven’t any lack of wholesome choices – with numerous salad bars and cafes catering to the well being acutely aware. However I wished to see if I might be capable of get one thing wholesome at a hawker centre.
After circling the two-storey hawker centre twice, I discovered wholegrains solely on the mixed-rice and the vegetarian stall. Disappointingly, the vegetarian stall was offered out, and there have been no extra lean protein choices on the mixed-rice stall.
I assumed it will be a stroke of genius to mix-and-match my meal by ordering brown rice and greens from the mixed-rice stall and hen breast from the hen rice stall. However alas, there was a minimal order, and I ended up having to pay for a $6 portion of hen breast – which may final me two meals. I made a decision to save lots of a portion for my dinner.
Dietician’s ranking: 4.5/5
Dietician’s feedback: Total, a well-balanced meal. It was a sensible transfer to combine and match dishes from numerous stalls on the hawker centre to attempt to hit the proportions beneficial by Well being Promotion Board’s My Wholesome Plate. Alternatively, for many who eat with colleagues, pals, or relations, this might be utilized when sharing meals.
Braised hen in Chongqing-style broth, with spinach and kailan and candy potato noodles
Worth (Dec 2023): $14.30 in whole – $9.80 for small hen hotpot, $1.50 every for 2 parts of greens and one portion of candy potato noodles
From: Jing Rooster Pot at Kopitiam @ Plaza Singapura
Reporter’s feedback: I had a busy day and felt fairly grouchy on the considered having to hunt for wholegrains at a foodcourt. The one stall that had brown rice was, as normal, the mixed-rice stall, however once more, solely deep-fried choices had been left. I attempted to purchase only a serving of rice itself, however they’d not promote it to me!
At this level my abdomen was rumbling loudly in protest – and I caved to the scrumptious scent of natural soup that wafted over from the hen pot stall. It’s not the healthiest selection, however my willpower has been weakened. As a substitute of rice, I opted for candy potato noodles as a result of a fast Google search instructed me that it was a low-calorie possibility. I additionally added toppings of greens.
The dish turned out extra gravy-like than soupy, and I actually felt a little bit responsible for ordering such a sodium-laden dish and prevented ingesting the gravy.
Dietician’s ranking: 3.5/5
Dietician’s feedback: Contemplating that the earlier meals had been primarily rice with dishes, I perceive why you opted for a extra thrilling dish. Kudos for making a acutely aware effort to restrict consuming all of the gravy as a result of sodium content material and including extra greens.
There are all the time small tweaks that we will make to our meals to make them more healthy and to make sure extra fibre, much less sodium, much less fats, or much less sugar. Over time, this will change into a behavior and one would not must battle with damaging feelings like guilt.
This text was initially revealed in The Straits Instances.
Supply: Her World