Loading ...Eating healthy through Ramadan
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins Thursday, has traditionally been good for the soul but terrible for the waistline. In much of the Middle East and South Asia, the long days of fasting — a symbolic spiritual sacrifice — are followed by heavy, sweet meals eaten at night and again before dawn.
But a new generation of health-conscious Muslims in the United States — especially busy professionals and mothers — are finding and sharing ways to cook more healthful Ramadan meals that also can be prepared in advance — in some cases to the dismay of their immigrant elders.
“Sadly, in our culture, Ramadan meals are typically not healthy; they are quite heavy, almost like a fear of starvation that never happened,” said Rabia Chaudhary, 40, a Pakistani American from Greenbelt and a fellow at the New America Foundation. “I have toned it down a lot in my house, but it is still hard for my parents to go through Ramadan without all those deep-fried snacks.”
Aya Owies, 23, an Egyptian American yoga instructor and food blogger based in New Jersey, has been posting her own experimental Ramadan recipes that are filling but not fattening, such as buckwheat with nuts or dates, roasted vegetables with light mayonnaise sauce, and kale salad with pecans and apples.
Owies said she has seen a major trend among younger Muslims who want to “eat healthy and stay active, even in a month like this. They can’t work out, and after fasting all day there is cake waiting for them. But they are looking for alternatives.”
Ramadan, she added, is “all about making connections between mind, body and spirit. It shouldn’t just be about starving yourself but about finding a balance.”
Some older, first-generation immigrants, under gentle prodding from their American-raised children, are also weaning themselves from the oil-soaked and sugary goodies that defined their Ramadan rituals back home, both for the fast-breaking iftar dinner and the pre-dawn suhoor meal meant to sustain one’s body through the coming day.
“In our household, it was always a tradition for suhoor to have parathas or heavy bread fried in oil, with fried eggs. And for iftar, about 70 percent of the dishes were fried,” said Bano Makhdoom, 60, a Pakistani American in Potomac, Md. “But with the last few Ramadans, all that has been eliminated,” she said. “We are trying to have more simple salads, bean dishes and soups.”
Source: www.washingtonpost.com