The two words ‘Spa’ and ‘Cuisine’, when combined instill numerous questions, together with expressions of fear and horror in the minds of many cooks and Chefs the world over.
This evolving style of cookery while so complimentary to the Spa Industry is yet to find its feet as a credible cuisine with many of our industry leaders, despite the efforts of a few dedicated Chefs who have clearly seen the simplicity of the cuisine and the benefits and supportive role that this has to the Spa industry as a whole. While Spa Cuisine is slowly moving forward in an otherwise fast developing industry the few dedicated chefs who have seen it as an integral element and the cuisine as fully complimentary to the services being provided in the total mind, body and soul experience are at last starting to have an impact.
Even many of the world’s hotel chains are now adding dedicated spa cuisine dishes to their menus, unfortunately often with limited guidance being given to a reluctant Chef who does not understand the principles of the cuisine, nor the possible health benefits. Nutritional information provided to the consumer on these menus can only be seen as highly questionable at best. As with all food preparation unless you actually understand and care about what you are doing, the end result will not be to the wider expectation.
The basic elements of Spa Cuisine are simple; low fat, low sodium and low sugar. This is not to say that fat, salt and/or sugar must be eliminated, but just that we over consume these elements in our normal diets and we would be a lot healthier if we took the effort to review and subsequently reduce the quantity that we consume. From these basic elements you can then explore into areas such as low dairy and low gluten foods as these are generally accepted as the two food groups with which most people with food allergies also suffer and often unknowingly.
How can we reduce the amount of fat, salt and sugar in our diet? This may be a lot simpler than you first thought.
Taking the low fat element, many cooks and Chefs are prone to throw their arms up in fear and horror and run from this method of meal preparation as fat is seen traditionally as the major flavour carrier in our food, and without it, our food is bland and tasteless. This need not be the case, and if the fat is reduced, the flavour MUST be enhanced in other ways to counterbalance the sensory experience. The addition of palate stimulants such as fresh herbs and spices or some lemon or lime juice/zest are some of the options that can quickly elevate a dish to one of grandeur. Or, to reduce fat, it may be as simple as eliminating fat as a cooking medium. Here, by ‘fat’ we mean ALL fats whether they are butter, margarine, oil or ghee – the fats you add to the pan before you put in the food to ‘fry’ or ‘swim’, depending on the quantity being used. Instead, look again at the dish you are cooking. Can it be cooked in a different medium? Can it be steamed, poached, grilled or baked? Deep-fried items which do not conform to the principles of healthy cooking can often be baked without an sufferance in quality or major change in the preparation and yet remain close to the more traditionally expected final result – without all that extra fat.
Trimming all meats of excessive fat will also greatly reduce your fat intake as will a review of the need to put butter, mayonnaise or margarine on your sandwich. Depending on the filling being used, and providing you are using fresh breads, you more often than not do not need this additional fat layer, however if you really must add it, then keep it to a minimum as a ‘healthy’ salad sandwich can quickly become a regular ‘high-fat’ sandwich with the traditional ingredients of butter, mayonnaise and a thick slice of cheese. One alternative to butter is steamed garlic – while containing a similar energy level, steamed garlic has virtually no fat, against five grams of fat per every teaspoon of butter. However, it is also better to choose butter over margarine as while if may contain marginally more fat per gram than margarine, margarine is produced via a chemical process so what you loose in the extra few fat grams, you gain in the chemical intake reduction.
Yes, there are fats (especially oils such as canola and olive oil) that we have been told repeatedly that are “good for us” and we should include them in our diets, but for Spa Cuisine these should not be used as a cooking medium. Besides, an inclusion of some fat in your diet is essential to a health metabolism, and it is just the excessive level that we consume toady is the problem. Without fear of retribution from the oil industries, ignore the heavy advertising of you have been bombarded with and add only the smallest of amounts at the end and or drizzle over as a ‘sauce’ and you will be using only a fraction of the quantity that you would be if you were actually cooking your food in it, thus drastically reducing the quantity of fats that you consume, especially the saturated ones. Also, do not get overly concerned with dishes such as fresh salmon (or any of the other oily fish for that matter) which at first impression, may have a high fat content, as the fat in salmon falls into the ‘good fat’ category of the essential omega fatty acids, and providing you do not pour over a butter sauce, you will be able to enjoy it without guilt.
One thing to remember, especially when cooking meats, is to under-cook them rather than over-cook them as over-cooking will remove the natural juices including the fats from the meat, resulting in dry and rubbery dining.
Going ‘vegetarian’ is not the obvious answer to low fat cooking either. While vegetables themselves contain little of now fat, it is the sauces and condiments that we add that will very quickly add up the fat grams. Vegetarian dishes such as those traditionally associated with Indian Cuisine can contain excessively high levels of added fats. Nuts and dairy foods (if you are consuming milk products) can have high levels of fats also. So, while on the surface, a vegetarian diet may seem to be ‘low’ fat, it is more often than not, not the case, unless the diet has been designed with the help of health professionals.
Spa Cuisine extols the benefits of a low sodium diet, but sodium occurs naturally in some foods, and while it is generally recognized that we need less than a quarter of the quantity which we customarily add to our food, we need to continuously monitor our level of consumption. Salt, the fine white crystals, which are traditionally seen as a standard dining table ornament, when in its ‘pure’ form is the obvious main source of this, however do not forget the hidden forms as in those found in soy sauce or nam pla. The reduction in your sodium intake is probably one of the most difficult things to do and is best done gradually whereby you progressively reduce the salt you are putting into your meals. Use soy or nam pla if you wish, but again, keep their usage to a minimum and always choose the low-sodium varieties. If you must use salt, a natural rock salt is much healthier than any of the table salts which generally contain other chemical compounds to make them free-flowing.
Moving to a healthier low sugar diet may initially seem drastic for the ‘sweet-tooth’ in the family; however sugar occurs naturally in many foods and in many forms, so the addition of sugar to your food should not be necessary providing you choose suitable replacements. Sugar will give you a natural ‘high’, but this must be followed by a natural ‘low’, so you either continue to consume high levels of sugar, to maintain the ‘high’, or you better control you intake so that your body sugars remain on a more even level. Again if you must use sugar, then I recommend you choose unprocessed sugars rather than the refined white sugar and you will at least have the benefits of some additional nutrients that are bleached out to make white sugar, while accepting that the energy levels are similar. Honey and apple juice concentrate are great natural alternatives to using white sugar, especially the less refined varieties. Apple juice concentrate is especially high in fibre, so although it can be difficult to find, it is well worth the effort. Apple juice concentrate has the added advantage of being suitable as a substitute for oil in salad dressings. Try making your regular vinaigrette salad dressing, but replace the oil with apple juice concentrate (use the1:8 concentrate). Use to taste, but a good start point is 50% vinegar or citrus juice to 50% apple concentrate. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes and herbs to develop you own special dressing. Going back to the sugar issue, fresh fruits all contain differing levels of sugar in the form of fructose or fruit sugars. Depending on the variety of fruit or even on the ripeness of a piece of fruit, the levels can change; basically the sweeter it tastes, the more sugar it contains. Other things to consider are specific types of fruits. Mangoes are a true delicacy especially to the Western palate, and while a half mango may contain a similar energy level to that of an apple, you must be very careful in your serving sizes for mangoes. You will probably only eat one apple, but who can stop at just half a mango? A similar problem occurs with bananas, so you can see that it is not always the actual food you are eating, it is often the quantity that you are consuming.
To further expand your own Spa Cuisine repertoire, you can now move on to reviewing individual food groups. Dairy foods are a group that we need to study carefully, as being from an animal source they tend to be high in fats, especially saturated fats. Yet, dairy foods are an excellent source of calcium besides containing many other nutritional benefits, so it can be important to look for low fat versions to maintain a balanced nutritional intake, unless you are under the guidance of a dietician who can advise of non dairy alternatives. Use low fat yoghurt instead of full fat yoghurt, and low fat or skim milk instead of regular milk. However special care must be taken if these are being used in cooked items. Low fat milk will curdle quickly once subjected to heat, so always ensure that there is a binding agent such as corn starch or arrowroot present to prevent this occurring. Soy milk may be a suitable alternative to dairy milk; however this has its drawbacks. If drinking coffee and you add soy milk, if you are using a sweetener, then use sugar rather than honey as the honey will curdle the soy milk. There are low fat cheeses on the market, but check the labels to see just how low that low is, as choosing another regular cheese may result in consuming a low fat level.
The checking of the food labels is an important part in your education process as you understanding the content of the food you are eating. While we are seeking to consume as much fresh foods as possible, lifestyles can dictate that we will be including at least some processed foods in our diets. This may only be breads and bakery items, but they still will probably contain much more salt, sugar and/or fat than you expected. However do not fear. What is the source of these items? If the high fat content is coming from nuts or seeds such as sunflower or linseeds, then the fat content is very acceptable, providing it is not excessive, however if the source is lard or a processed margarine, then I would choose an alternative bread. Use of breads that contain high levels of fiber (easily defined by the amount of texture that a bread has) are also of much greater nutritional benefit than those made from highly processed and chemically bleached white flour. As with the mango and apples as mentioned above it is much more difficult to eat a quantity of bread containing lots of grains husks and seeds than a slice of white bread.
This can all seem very complicated, but the cooks & Chefs of today can just as easily prepare meals of Spa Cuisine in a commercial environment as those of a domestic environment. The afore mentioned basic elements of this style of cooking are simple and nothing to be feared providing you are open minded in your approach to food and not set in your ways with methods of traditional cooking.
As the world continues to get smaller and we experience the wide and varied culinary repertoire that the world has to offer, many dishes may immediately fall within the guidelines of Spa Cuisine, but many more will require some adjustment. Unfortunately we have increasingly taken the quick and easy way out of our dietary needs and are now paying the price with deteriorating world health levels. Spa Cuisine will not address these in total, but at least they are a tasty alternative to what we are consuming today and more importantly they are supporting the total Spa industry philosophy.
Remember that food is to enjoy and to enjoy it fully there must be a balance. The reduction of fat in a cake may mean an increase in the sugar content to ensure sufficient moisture in the end product. So while we can get very wrapped up in the complications of Spa Cuisine, providing we come back to the basics of low fat, low sodium and low sugar we will result in a tasty meal of nutritional benefits.
Bon Appetit.