Certainly, with high temperatures we have more desire for fresh foods, and fruit and vegetables are healthy and delicious to the palate and very useful for our body.
Fruit and the vegetables have characteristics which render them essential in summer, much more so throughout the year: they contain a lot of water, are an excellent source of fibre, makes us feel lighter regenerating us with something fresh and nourishing at the same time, they provide vitamins and mineral salts, very important to help our body’s enzymatic and metabolic functions.
With regard to vegetables, we can say that they contain fibres, salts, antioxidants, low in calories and provide alkalizing and hypoglycemic contributions, essential for those with excessive intestinal transit problems and who do not stand fibres well; while in fruits, even when they contain fewer calories, we find fructose, a sugar that when consumed alone can lead us to draw-up insulin and, besides remaining a snack that provides us too quick energy to consume, it draws back the sense of hunger.
Summer fruit, such as watermelon and melon, can contain water up to 90%. They are refreshing and satiating but it is always advisable to combine them at the mid-day or mid-afternoon snack, the serving of fruit to a protein part, such as the proteins of the “Grana Padano” cheese of Grok, a handful of oil seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame...), dried fruit (a few walnuts or almonds) in order obtain a correct combination, nutritionally functional and lasting for the energy expenditure period.
The simplest way to benefit from fruit and vegetables is changing their quality by introducing all colours (purple, orange, yellow, green, white, red...). This way we can intake a varied and as much as possible complete set of antioxidants, vitamins (A, B, C, E, K) minerals (calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium and manganese...).
Vegetables must begin every meal, preferably raw and can accompany every dish, even carbohydrates, such as a simple dish of pasta or rice, with fresh sautéed tomato, zucchini and aubergines.
With regard to fruits, it is better not to eat them at the end of a meal, in order to avoid heaviness and fermentation during the in digestive phase, but eat them during the mid-morning or mid-afternoon snacks or together with our breakfast.