Celebrate a world of flavors

The month of March is National Nutrition Month, and the month is almost over! But the good thing is that you can continuously follow these guidelines and routines time and time again and make these tips a part of your daily life and lifestyle. This year the academy’s theme is to celebrate a world of flavors and embrace different cultures which is something we most likely already and for some people may be not but why not start now!

Sometimes we get used to eating the same thing that food becomes boring, and we become disinterested in cooking so why not introduce some new meals and new flavors from different cultures? I always say have a flavorful and colorful palate so that food never gets boring! There are so many cultures that you can try out to have a good nutritious healthful meal. Every week you can explore a new culture or part of the world, for example, one week you can go to the Caribbean which is where my family is from the country of Haiti. You can pick five to seven different dishes that you would like to try from the country of Haiti, one dish that is my favorite that can be a vegetarian/vegan dish is “legume” and it is optional to add meat. The name of the dish is all in the name itself legume! This dish can be made with a tomato paste-based sauce then you can add spinach, coyote, carrots, eggplant, white cabbage, or red cabbage. You can even throw in bok choy which is from the Chinese/Asian culture. After you gather all your vegetables you can season to your liking for me, I like to add all-purpose Goya which some salt and pepper a little Cajun seasoning and vegetables seasoning but really you can season it any way you’d like to and let it slow cook for about 2 hours and you’re done. This dish is usually served with white rice, but you can go for a healthier choice of brown rice or quinoa.

It’s as simple as that then the next week you can plan to have maybe Indian dishes on the menu, then the next week Chinese dishes on the menu and so on. There is so much to choose from that you can really have fun with this and maybe you may like some of the dishes so much that they become a part of your lifestyle. So, this month remember it’s all about exploring and embracing the different cultures and dishes in our world!

Written By: Vanessa J