Can You Eat Nigerian Food and Lose Weight?

By Rume Ameke

Can you eat Nigerian foods and lose weight? This is a question most of us would ask considering the fact that our staple foods like Yam, Plantain, Cassava, Rice and the likes tend to contain a good amount of starch and carbohydrates. It would initially seem impossible to lose weight eating such foods but if we dig a little deeper; we might find that this is not actually the case because of the following reasons:

1. Our food is mostly grown from the ground. It might contain large amounts of carbohydrates and starch but it also contains essential nutrients and minerals that nourish the body, this means Nigerian food is actually healthy. What sets us back is portion control and lack of physical activity.

2. We now have the option to swap certain ingredients in our meals for less starchy, low calorie options. For example, we usually have ‘swallow’ which is usually made out of yam or cassava with our soups. You can now use options like coconut or oat flour to make your swallow. You can also use vegetables such as cabbage and cauliflower to make swallow and enjoy this with your soup. There are many recipes on the internet for these meals.

3. We can also turn vegetable protein meal options that we would usually have as a side dish to main dishes instead. Foods like moin-moin, black eyed beans cooked in tomato sauce, akara (pan fried instead of deep fried) are options that we can have with a salad on the side and that provides the perfect high protein, low carbs meal.

4. A lot of our soup dishes eaten with swallow contain fresh vegetables particularly green leaves and green leaves are the healthiest and most nutritious of vegetables. For example, Edikang Ikong is a traditional Nigerian soup that includes pumpkin leaves or ‘Ugwu’ as it is referred to in Nigeria. Pumpkin leaves have a healthy amount of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, and Iron. According to Harvard School of Public Health, regularly consuming fresh vegetables such as those found in Edikang Ikong can reduce the risk of stroke, certain cancers and digestive system problems.

5. One will have to do away with the snacks such as Meat-Pies, Puff-puff, Chin-chin as they are full of unhealthy fats in particular and don’t offer much nutritional value. Only have these snacks when you have hit your weight goal and when you are maintaining it, even then, only have them in strict moderation. However, one can find healthier alternatives to the ingredients used to make them and make your own alternative healthy version. There are recipes on the internet for these, but don’t forget to apply portion control.