Eating Healthy in Male’

All over the world, people are increasingly becoming more aware of what they put in their bodies. While the desire for leanness could still be a major motive, the notion of living healthy, taking care of one’s own body, giving it the nutrients, care and attention it needs, is an idea that’s been snowballing everywhere.

Browsing through healthy recipes on Pinterest and looking up international health and fitness influencers on Instagram might make us feel like eating healthy is expensive and difficult here in the Maldives.

Sure, avocados don’t grow here, so those pretty looking avocado toasts can turn out to be pretty pricy; same with the beneficial berries. And kale, the darling green of the health conscious, could be available here at stores for a period and then completely disappear for a week or so.

But we actually have quite a lot of great ingredients easily available here too. For example, pumpkins, eggplants, gourds, yams, moringa, a whole lot of leafy greens like ‘kopee fai,’ many fruits like bananas and papayas and mangoes, and not to mention all the tuna with their omega 3 fatty acids.

So perhaps it’s about finding ways to sneak these ingredients into our dishes. We can add some moringa leaves to our omelettes, make a pumpkin mashuni, serve a kopee fathu satani with whatever you are making for lunch, snack on a banana when you crave sugar and so on.

And perhaps it’s also about practicing some good judgement at most times. For example, although we really do love our hedhikaa, maybe we can go for the non deep fried ones like masroshi and boakibaa most of the time, and swap some white flour in our roshi with some Atta and swap some white rice for brown or red.

These days we see local Instagram businesses that cater to the healthy bandwagon popping up too.

(Photo by Milk and Yolk)

There’s Milk and Yolk’s homemade granola. They’ve got five blends including honey roasted almond, peanut butter and dark chocolate, and apple pie. Granola’s oats deliver fibre and iron while nuts and seeds give boost you with healthy unsaturated fats and a bit of protein.

(Photo by Flourless by Feny)

There’s Flourless by Feny providing goodies to all of us who are gluten intolerant. The products are dairy free and naturally sweetened too. You can get breads with sorghum and almond, chickpea bagels, banana bread. They also include pumpkin and sunflower seeds for some added crunch and goodness.

(Photo by AzHam’s Microgreens)

AzHam’s Microgreens offers a range of fresh and organic microgreens including mung beans, mustard baby greens and pea microgreens. Most microgreens varieties tend to be rich in potassium, iron, zinc, and magnesium and are also a great source of beneficial plant compounds like antioxidants.

(Photo by Glo Cleanse)

For those who need a bit of a kick-start into their weight loss and healthy living journey there’s Glo Cleanse. They provide plant based detox juice cleanses that give your digestive system a break, and are all loaded with antioxidants, anti inflammatory compounds, vitamins and nutrients. Apart from the juice cleanses, they’ve got nut milks too.

And as for those of us who eat out, a couple of years back, who’d have thought we’d have healthy and even vegetarian options from the restaurants in Male’. But now there are a lot of restaurants serving healthy fare, such as the Mediterranean quinoa salad from Seagull, Blood Orange’s cauliflower ‘Paree’ rice, Shell Beans’ chicken chickpea & quinoa salad and so on.

So, as the new year looms nearer, it’s once again that time of the year for new year, new me resolutions. And for anyone who wants to jolt in to healthy eating, we say go for it.