How to keep your New Year’s resolution and adopt healthier eating habits

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Small daily changes can help in achieving a more balanced diet

São Paulo, February 2023 – Second month of the year and already finding it difficult to stick to the New Year’s resolutions to adopt more balanced eating habits? Stay calm! There is still hope.

Umami Committee nutritionist, Graciela Vargas, explains that to create more balanced eating habits, it is essential to persist in your choices. “There are several ways for you to have a more balanced and healthy diet. The most important thing is to recognize which options will help you achieve the desired goal,” highlights Graciela.

To help with this process, the nutritionist shared some tips that can positively impact health. Check out the specialist’s recommendations:

Reduce the number of portions at each meal
Reducing the number of portions at meals is an excellent strategy to control satiety and thus adopt a new eating routine that does not require such radical changes at the beginning.

Split meals into smaller portions
The recommendation to split meals throughout the day is a great ally in reducing portions, whether in the main meals of the day or in intermediate snacks. In addition to speeding up metabolism, this practice reduces the chances of the well-known “food attacks” resulting from prolonged fasting.

Keep a food diary
To follow the new routine, how about using an app or even a food diary during the process? Using this resource can help against possible self-sabotage that often arises along the way. In addition, it can help you better visualize the progress of your change and serve as encouragement to persevere toward your goal.

Eat umami foods!
Umami is the fifth basic taste of our palate, and including it in meal preparation brings several health benefits, such as increased salivation, aiding digestion, and promoting satiety. Foods that provide umami taste are rich in free glutamate, an amino acid naturally present in cheeses, tomatoes, mushrooms, meats, vegetables, among others. In addition, it is possible to consume umami in its industrialized version, monosodium glutamate, produced through sugarcane fermentation here in Brazil. It is a way to help reduce the sodium content of meals because it contains less sodium in its composition compared to table salt.

UMAMI
It is the fifth basic taste of the human palate, discovered in 1908 by Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda. It was scientifically recognized in the year 2000, when researchers at the University of Miami confirmed the existence of specific receptors for this taste on the taste buds. The amino acid glutamic acid and the nucleotides inosinate and guanylate are the main umami substances. The two main characteristics of umami are increased salivation and the continuity of taste for a few minutes after food ingestion. To learn more, visit www.portalumami.com.br.