Hot Tips for A Healthy Thanksgiving Meal (With Menu and Gluten-Free Recipes)
Worried that your Thanksgiving meal will take you off track with your health goals? Want some tips for a healthy Thanksgiving recipes, along with Thanksgiving menu options? Here are some tips AND tasty Thanksgiving recipes that will satisfy your family’s taste buds.
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You’ve heard what the analysts say: Thanksgiving is the biggest travel day of the year. It’s a time of year when everyone gets together to share a meal and give thanks for what they have.
But if we were being honest, Thanksgiving is also about the meal itself. How many of us dream of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pies?
Yes, it’s the king of all holiday meals and yet, if you are concerned about your own and your family’s health, what do you do when all the rules of healthy eating are busted on Thanksgiving Day?
Here are some tips from the Body Ecology team:
- Bring a healthy dish or two of your own if you’re visiting relatives. Chances are, the home baked turkey you eat is relatively healthy, so bringing a side dish or two (like our Body Ecology Mock Mashed Potatoes – see recipe, below) is a great way to add some delicious side dishes to the main meal. Another favorite of ours is Red Slaw, sure to be a hit any time of year!
- Host your own healthy Thanksgiving meal – With a few inventive recipes, you can host a healthy Thanksgiving that actually tastes delicious to your relatives who may not be health nuts. Invite them to bring their favorite side dishes so that everyone will be happy. Remember, the turkey is the main event, so you’ve got that covered. Aunt Suzie can bring the sweet potatoes, Uncle Jim can bring the pies and your sister can make her famous garlic-dill mashed potatoes. Now you have all the bases covered!
- Some of you, who have already healed your inner ecosystem, may choose to indulge in the mainstream holiday fare and if you choose to do that, just remember to bring your favorite probiotic liquid and some Assist Dairy & Protein Digestive Enzymes. Both of these will help you digest your meal and help you avoid the fatigue and bloat typical of the post-Thanksgiving fare experience. There’s nothing wrong with indulging occasionally, just make sure you are feeling in tip top health if you do choose to indulge...and have a plan to get back on track afterwards.
Creating Your Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes
If you want to create a delicious, Body Ecology Thanksgiving meal, here are some guidelines:
- Body Ecology Principles For Your Thanksgiving Meal:
- 80/20 Rule – 80% of your plate should be vegetables and 20% should be turkey (the animal protein).
- Food combining – To food combine properly, your meal should include only non-starchy vegetables and no grains, since these foods do not combine well with animal protein (your turkey). Yes, that means you’d pass on the spuds, rice and sweet potatoes…but, we’ve provided you with a delicious mock mashed potatoes recipe, below, so you can enjoy the taste of mashed potatoes with your turkey.
- To learn more, read: Food Combining: The Little-Known Principle to Optimal Health & Weight Revealed
- Turkey – The best turkey would be organic and hormone free. The most important tip is to make sure you DON’T overcook your turkey! Even if you have to take it out of the oven while waiting for tardy guests, it’s important that your turkey is not dry and overcooked. Overcooked protein is difficult for your body to digest and creates toxins in your body. See our recipe for the perfect Body Ecology Thanksgiving Turkey, below.
- Vegetables – Focus on non-starchy vegetables (like cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, red peppers, onions, kale, collards, zucchini, summer squash and lettuce), cultured vegetables and sea vegetables. A salad of Romaine lettuce with the Hijiki (or Arame) with Onions and Carrots recipe from The Body Ecology Diet is a tasty option for thyroid-boosting sea vegetables.
- Drinks and Dessert – You can make a delicious Thanksgiving dessert with Stevia to satisfy your sweet tooth without the health dangers of sugar. The “vice cream” dessert recipe, below is a crowd pleaser any time of year.
You can also use Stevia to sweeten your tea and probiotic liquids. For an after-dinner sweet and sour beverage treat, how about some Innergy-Biotic? It will help you digest your food and give you energy while the others are loosening their belts and dozing in front of the TV.
For an alternative to typical non-alcoholic beers that do nothing for your health, try Whole Grain Biotic on it’s own or for a sweeter “cocktail,” use a recipe favorite of Donna Gates: 2 oz. of Whole Grain Biotic, ½ cup sparkling mineral water, a twist of lime and 4 drops of Stevia.
Delicious and Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes
With all these tasty choices for your Thanksgiving meal, you can rest assured that you can enjoy this holiday season and still stick to your health goals! The healthy Thanksgiving recipes below may just make your friends and family believers in healthy food as a delicious way to treat your body AND your taste buds.
Thanksgiving Turkey
Ingredients:
- One organic turkey
- Organic unrefined coconut oil (other delicious options are organic butter, ghee or extra virgin olive oil) – use enough to rub all over the turkey
- 1 TBL Rosemary
- 1 TBL Basil
- 1 TBL Celtic Sea Salt
Instructions:
- Make sure you have allowed enough time to let your turkey thaw thoroughly. This can take between 65 – 96 hours, depending upon the size of your turkey.
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.
- Remove the neck and giblets from the turkey and rinse the whole turkey, drying with paper towels.
- Place your turkey (breast side up) into a shallow baking pan with about an inch of water in the bottom and cover.
- Rub the turkey with organic unrefined coconut oil, raw butter, ghee or extra virgin olive oil.
- Rub sea salt, rosemary and basil inside the turkey cavity and either on or under the turkey skin.
- Place your turkey in the oven. For an unstuffed turkey, cook for about 20 minutes per pound for an 8 to 10 pound turkey or 14 to 16 minutes per pound for larger turkeys. Remove the cover from your turkey during last 1 hour of cooking time.
- At just over half the roasting time, baste the turkey in it’s own juices with a spoon or baster. Repeat basting every 20 minutes until the last half hour of roasting time, when you will baste every 10 minutes.
- You will know your turkey is done when the drumsticks move easily in their sockets and the juices from the thigh run clear (with no sign of pink). A meat thermometer can be very helpful and if you do use one, your turkey is done when the meat thermometer reaches 170 degrees F in the thigh.
- Let your turkey cool for 20 - 30 minutes before carving.
Curry Cauliflower “Mashed Potatoes”
This is a variation of the Curry Cauliflower sauce from The Body Ecology Diet. One of our Certified Body Ecology coaches accidentally learned that this makes a delicious mashed potato substitute! Your guests will like it so much that they won’t care that they aren’t eating spuds…and better yet, since all of these ingredients combine well with your Thanksgiving turkey, everyone will digest much better!
Ingredients:
- 1 - 2 Tbsp. organic, unrefined coconut oil, ghee or butter
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 11/2 tsp. ginger root, grated
- 1 Tbsp. curry powder or to taste
- 1/4 tsp. cayenne
- 1 head of cauliflower, chopped
- ¼ cup water
- Celtic sea salt, Herbamare or Trocomare to taste
- Lemon juice to taste
Instructions:
- Sauté onion, garlic, ginger root, curry powder,and cayenne in oil or ghee.
- Add cauliflower and water.
- Simmer or pressure cook until tender.
- Add sea salt and lemon juice.
Gingery Dairy-Free Sugar-Free All-Natural “Vice Cream”
This is a delicious treat that food combines well with your Thanksgiving meal.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups coconut meat
- 2 cups cashews (soaked only 4 hours)
- 4 Tbsp. vanilla extract (organic and alcohol free preferred)
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- 1 cup water (or simmer a ginger bag and make a tea)
- ¼ cup xylitol
- 4 drops Body Ecology’s Stevia Liquid Concentrate
- 1 ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp. sea salt
Instructions:
- In blender puree all ingredients together.
- Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s instructions.
(Variation: use teas like peppermint or ginger instead of water.)
Source:
Basic Turkey Roasting Recipe. Here Everything’s Better.
http://www.heb.com/mealtime/CT-turkeyBasicRoasting.jsp
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