Healthy Hanukkah food for your weight, heart and diabetes

Weight, heart health and diabetes during Hanukkah

Fried food takes on a whole new meaning during the Jewish festival of lights. If you're looking after your weight, heart or diabetes the advice is to avoid or limit frying foods in oil; yet during Hanukkah, these foods are a reminder of the oil that burned for eight days - the Hanukkah miracle.

How, then, do you honour and celebrate the tradition of Hanukkah while looking after your health? It all comes down to forward planning, handy food swaps and moderation.

Hanukkah healthy oils

Nurit Raich is a food scientist and holistic nutrition coach who has helped many people with inflammation and blood sugar control. "Being a passionate foodie and Jewish as well, I am always looking for ways to keep our traditions alive whilst looking after health."

She says that you can keep the tradition of having cooking oil during Hanukkah, so long as you choose the heart healthy options: "we want to consume the oils that contain high amounts of unsaturated fatty acids, which normally come from plants, instead of the oils that have high amounts of saturated fatty acids, trans-fats or omega-6, which tend to come from animal sources.

"These unhealthy cooking oils can increase our risk of heart disease and cause long-term inflammation. It's important for everyone to aim for an anti-inflammatory diet because long-term inflammation can damage healthy cells, tissues, and organs. In turn, this can cause diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, excess weight, arthritis, and dementia among other diseases."

On the other hand, Nurit points out that oils made with unsaturated fatty acids - sometimes called healthy fats - can actually help protect our hearts. One way they do this is by lowering our bad cholesterol, called low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and raising our good cholesterol, known as high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol¹.

Foods to control your sugar levels

If you're going to enjoy sugary treats during the festivities, you can balance this with certain food combinations to help manage sugar crashes, spikes, and cravings.

Nurit says: "One of my top tips is to make sure that you consume healthy fats and proteins alongside any sugary treats you have. For example, if you eat sufganiyot as dessert, try to do this after a meal that includes fish, chicken, or beef, alongside vegetables roasted with olive oil or a good salad with avocado.

“This is because eating protein and healthy fats in each meal can help regulate blood sugar levels by slowing down your digestion of carbohydrates and their sugar content. This means the sugar doesn't enter your bloodstream all in one go, which can cause high blood sugar, an insulin spike, and a resultant sugar crash and more cravings. Ultimately, this trick can keep you feeling well and more energised over the celebrations."

Sufganiyot

Hanukkah food swaps

Dietitian nutritionist Yelena Wheeler has given a lot of dietary advice to people with heart disease and diabetes. Although not raised by practicing Jewish parents, Wheeler has also recently started celebrating Hanukkah for her Jewish children, who really wanted to embrace the traditions. She shares her healthy food swaps for a few festive favourites:

Yelena's latkes

"Latkes are the most traditional food eaten during Hanukkah, and these fried potatoes pancakes are usually served with sour cream and apple sauce," says Yelena. "Here's how you can make them healthier."

• Healthier oil - use unrefined avocado oil instead of canola oil. It has a higher smoke point, meaning that it retains more nutrients during cooking, and is a good source of vitamin E, which can help lower both blood pressure² and blood sugar levels³.

• Healthier frying - if you have an air fryer, this requires significantly less oil. This is the best option even when using avocado oil which contains healthy fats, as limiting your fat intake is especially important over Hanukkah celebrations.

• Healthier potatoes - swap white potatoes for sweet potatoes which are more heart healthy due to having a higher fibre content and therefore a more gradual effect on blood sugar levels⁴.

• Healthier sides - if you favour sour cream with your latkes, replace with fat-free Greek yoghurt. This has a similar sour taste, but even low-fat sour creams have a significantly higher fat content than Greek yoghurt. For apple sauce fans, making it homemade or purchasing one with no sugar added can help blood sugar management, although you'll still need to limit how much you have.

Yelena's beef brisket

"My best healthy food swap tip for brisket is to use other spices instead of salt. Also be careful with how much you put on your plate, and enjoy with a healthy portion of vegetables" says Yelena.

There are many spices you can choose from to pack lots of flavour into your beef, including smoked paprika, chilli, black pepper, cumin, mustard seeds, thyme, coriander and garlic, in any combination you like.

Yelena's challah bread

Yelena says: "challah bread can be made using whole wheat flour instead of white flour. This contains more fibre, among other nutrients, which can help lower your cholesterol and balance your blood sugar levels."

White flour is a refined flour, meaning the wheat has undergone manufacturing that has removed many of its nutrients, unlike whole grain products.

Yelena's matzo ball soup

"Matzo ball soup is also a holiday tradition," says Yelena. "Certain ingredients, like carrots and dill, are incredibly healthy. However, the matzo ball itself can be very high in carbohydrates, and so I recommend making the matzo ball from almond flour to increase your fibre intake, for better blood sugar and cholesterol management."

Healthy Hanukkah recipes

Sweet potato latkes

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Further reading

1. ScienceDirect: Monounsaturated fat.

2. Emami et al: Effect of vitamin E supplementation on blood pressure: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

3. Asbagi et al: Effect of vitamin E intake on glycemic control and insulin resistance in diabetic patients: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

4. Shinde et al: A review on benefits of sweet potato for the management of diabetes mellitus.