This article was written by Take The Magic Step™ staff writers Peter Pippig and Silvie Nohr. Both try their best to eat well while living and working in Berlin. The tips were provided by Uta and nutrition advisor Dieter Hogen.
Welcome to the third and last installment of our test series! This three-part series deals with the difficulty of healthful eating in a hectic and challenging daily life in Germany. In the first and second installment, Marie and Sandra reported on their daily struggles for healthy food. To learn about their experiences, read Marie’s and Sandra’s accounts.. In this final part of our series, Stefan will give us insight into his eating habits and will tell us about his sometimes adventurous search for healthy food.
Stefan has been trying to eat healthfully for a few years and is therefore the most experienced of our guinea pigs. He still continuously encounters problems in finding healthful food, especially when it has to be found quickly. As in the first two parts of our series, we will offer a few tips each day for how Stefan might have made better choices, as well as some overall recommendations. We hope that you’ll be able to apply some of the tips into your diet. As always, our goal is to provide tips that can be easily integrated into your daily life, in keeping with the Take The Magic Step™ philosophy - many little steps can eventually have a great effect.
It is easy to feel discouraged when you start changing your eating habits. There’s no rush, so take your time and enjoy integrating each small single step into your nutritional routine. The results can last a lifetime.
Today: Stefan – 29 years old, freelance TV technician, lives in Berlin-Friedrichshain
Sunday
It is Sunday morning, 8:00, and nothing is open. The bakery has only bread rolls with some kind of spread as well as a thick layer of butter. When I ask if they had a healthy alternative to put under the spread, I’m told I can have a mayonnaise glop that has the consistency of cream cheese. I decide that having nothing is a better alternative, so I starve until lunchtime. Well, actually until 6:00 p.m. Then there is a “crew catering“ at the cafeteria of the International Conference Center: potato soup with sausage. Yum! As I am vegetarian*, I pick out the sausages and eat a few spoonfuls of the soup. Later in the evening someone adds a few old, mealy-looking apples to the buffet. My big chance! I eat two apples. On my way home at 1:00 a.m, I buy a sad-looking salad at a gas station. Still in the car, I gobble it down without any dressing. As I am still hungry, I desperately eat a few gummy bears.
[* Stefan considers himself a vegetarian who eats fish, but not land animals.]
Tip: Especially when you face a hectic morning and everything has to go fast, take a few minutes to plan your nutritional moves for the next day. Fruits, like an apple or a banana, nuts and some muesli bars can be packed for the next busy work day the evening before. You can also prepare yogurt to bring to work. Or, try avocado spread on bread – tasty and healthy! One additional tip: You can bring all of your food along in a cooler, to help everything stay fresh for much longer. The same applies when going food shopping - bring a cooler.
Monday
On the way through the city to the International Conference Center, I hope I will pass a health food shop. No such luck, so I give up and enter a supermarket around the corner. At least they have wholemeal bread rolls and some organic fruit (apples, banana, kiwi). I also buy some low-fat cheese and a cucumber. This will last me until late afternoon, and after that the catering’s mealy apples will have to do. In the evening I help myself to a big plate of potatoes, salad and fish from the buffet of the event I am working at.
Tip: You already made good choices for your shopping, and you can be quite pleased with your dinner choice. Make sure to avoid having only two to three meals per day, since they put too much stress on your digestive system. Go for five to six small meals spread out during the day! This helps to support better digestion, and you will be more energized. Your blood sugar level will be more stable, which will reduce the “gummy bear trap” because there will be no need for extra sugar cravings. Because you were already in the supermarket you could have purchased enough food to last the entire day.
Tuesday
On the way to work I stop at a bakery, which prepares my wholemeal bread roll the way I want it: with lots of greens, a little bit of cheese, no butter. I buy two. At lunchtime I go into a little coffee shop that offers a variety of fresh pasta daily, and which you can choose and combine yourself. Today I go for tomato sauce and basil. On the way back to work I quickly stop at a veggie shop and buy some organic fruit. At night I eat at home. We make homemade gnocchi with a tomato and carrot sauce.
Tip: Not a bad day in your nutritional routine! We suggest today as well: bread with avocado spread. Another choice: Bread and hummus spread, some slices of cucumber on top – very nutritious and very tasty. You can carry all your food along in a small cooler. Pasta is a good idea, but you could refine your dish. Go for whole wheat pasta and add some lentils, maybe some beans, but especially all kinds of steamed vegetables, cut in small pieces, to your pasta dish. This is similar to what Italians do in refining their minestrone, adding all kinds of vegetables to it. You ate lots of starches today; you may try to cut back on that a bit.
Wednesday
I am off from work. We go out for breakfast to a restaurant around the corner. They know us there and prepare our “special meals” for us. I eat a huge fruit salad with quark (a mixture yogurt, cream cheese and ricotta cheese that is quite popular in Germany ). For lunch I have wholemeal bread and salmon. As a little snack I also have 100 grams of gummy bears - I just couldn’t resist. At night we make a monster portion of shrimp with green salad.
Tip: You have eaten many good things today! Congratulations! Because you’ve had such a good day and you want to make it even better, try not to consume too many dairy products – especially if those are not organic! Choose fermented soy products, such as soy yogurt, tempeh, miso or fermented soy protein powder, instead, as these are great sources of protein. This also goes for people who suffer from digestive problems such as lactose intolerance. Whichever choice you make, never buy homogenized dairy products. Numerous studies have shown that those can cause inflammation throughout the body, which can lead to many diseases, such as atherosclerosis.
Thursday
It’s again the bakery with my special spread creations. At lunchtime I try my luck in the area. The healthiest place I can find is an Asian carry-out in which someone is just about to fry really good and tender-looking vegetables to death in half a bottle of sunflower oil. Consequently, I decide to go to the supermarket around the corner. Here I buy organic bananas, organic apples, a big container of low-fat quark, fresh juice and…gummy bears.. At night we cook vegetable risotto.
Tip: Great choice to go to the supermarket! Most vegetable oils (apart from olive oil, of course) are not recommended, especially if they have been heated up for long periods to high temperatures to fry or grill food (i.e., in fast food restaurants or carry-outs). Many studies on nutrition have proven that this can have adverse health effects such as inflammation, which can cause many diseases from atherosclerosis to cancer.
Friday
For breakfast I have coffee. For lunch I stop at a vegetarian carry-out on the way. The only healthy thing here is its name - even the tofu burgers are being “refined” in sunflower oil. I order the vegetarian gyros with rice, hoping that they will be fried in a pan with only a little bit of oil. SWISH … goes my gyros in the same oil puddle as the burger of the person before me. I take my food, say thanks politely and at the table move the oily pieces away from the rice as quickly as possible. The rice was quite good.
Tip: The breakfast is not good. Not because of the coffee, as one or two cups a day are not a problem, and even contain antioxidants. You could have chosen the muesli or the fit yogurt with proper planning. Try to take time for breakfast each morning. This activates the metabolism; you start the day with more energy and stay fit for longer. (See our article on breakfast, Kick Start Your Day.) You encountered the same problem as yesterday with the heated-up vegetable oil! Be very careful as it is very hazardous for your health! If you are not sure how something is going to be prepared, ask before ordering. This way you are more likely to get what you want, or you can ask if it can be made the way you want.
Saturday
I have breakfast at my favorite restaurant again. This time I have two bread rolls with salmon and arugula as well as a fruit salad. For lunch I have my mom’s pumpkin soup. In the evening we order sushi. Oh, and I forgot: in between I ate one bag of gummy bears - the best brand, too. Oh, man - my week ends with gummy bears! Well, at least it’s over.
Tip: Again, lots of good food! If the cravings for sweets are getting too much, choose some fruit, nuts, raisins or dark chocolate, if possible with 70% or more cocoa. Again, you can store all this in a cooler. You can also combine the two: dip fresh strawberries into dark melted chocolate and make your own candy – that’s the healthier alternative for sure!
Overall tip:
Take some time and improve your nutritional planning for the next day. A small container can help greatly in organizing each day’s meals, as it keeps the food in an ideal condition for a long time: in summer, cool; in winter, free of frost. Prepare everything you need for the next day the evening before: a sandwich; oatmeal, muesli, muesli bar and fruit (especially one or two apples); yogurt and fruit with ground flax seed; and a large salad in a plastic container. Keep the salad dry - i.e., add the dressing just before you eat it. Take the necessary ingredients for the dressing with you in your cooler.
Most likely, many people will experience the same problems as our subjects. Without knowing what is really healthy, there are still many people wandering through supermarkets unsure of what to buy. Those who want to eat healthfully in Germany often also struggle with integrating their meals into the hectic daily life of a professional. The pace of today’s daily life makes it hard for many people to eat consciously and healthfully. We want to help you and show you a way out of the “nutrition trap.”
The best way - and a great start to improve your nutrition habits - is to be better prepared for the next day and organize your food. Buying all products freshly from the supermarket once or twice per week not only saves you time and money, but it also allows you to eat more healthfully and to be full of energy.
We hope the Take The Magic Step philosophy can inspire you to look forward to many tips for a healthful nutrition. To find out more, visit our Nutrition section.
