Student - January 6, 2010

New Year's resolutions

Among those in the Netherlands aged 19 to 30, two percent eat enough vegetables, being the quantity recommended in the nutrition guidelines of the Dutch Health Council. So says the food consumption monitor.

But even this two percent do not consistently consume the recommended 200 grams of vegetables per day. Although I am pretty careful about food myself, I don't succeed either. But this is the time for resolutions. The nutrition guidelines are here for a reason. The ones who abide by them would - with some luck - live longer and healthier. Eating more vegetables is a good beginning. When the 'pepernoot' biscuits, Christmas cookies and chocolate mousse are gone after the festive days - and the money too perhaps - it's time for an affordable kilogram of carrots. An easy way to eat more veggies is to cook them into soups. Sauté an onion in some olive oil. Clean a kilogram of carrots and cut them up. Add these to the onion with 1 litre of bouillon and cook for 15 minutes till soft. Purée these with a blender and add pepper or curry powder and cream to taste. Or prepare this carrot salad instead.
Turkish carrot salad
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Ingredients for 2-4 persons
- 500 grams carrots
- 2 garlic cloves, ground with a garlic press
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ glass yoghurt
- a few black olives
Preparation:
Scrape the carrots and place the strips into boiling water. Cook for 15 minutes till soft, but not mushy. Drain the carrots and pound them till fine. Mix the purée with the yoghurt, the ground garlic and the oil. Add salt to taste, but not too much since our salt intake is high enough. Garnish with the black olives. It's delicious eaten with 'shoarma' (shawarma) buns filled with meat or cheese.