Staying Healthy Over the Holidays With Seafood (Video)
Many foods can help boost our overall health over the holidays. Whether the holidays are merry or not, this time of year can put extra stress on us or can just feel incredibly overwhelming. The good news is that eating a seafood diet rich in healthful, nourishing foods can help protect against the wintertime blues.
Jennifer McGuire, RD, MS, of the National Fisheries Institute and Dish on Fish spokesperson, Rima Kleiner, RD, MS, joined Oldways recently to share more on how to stay healthy over the holidays with seafood.
Eating a Mediterranean-style diet that includes seafood is a great way to get more of the nutrients you need to help keep you healthy over the holidays.
We know that the foods we eat can greatly impact our health, and that includes our immune system. This is incredibly empowering because it means we can help keep ourselves healthy over the holiday season by choosing foods that contain nutrients that are beneficial for supporting the immune system, like zinc, antioxidants, and vitamins A, B6, C, and D. These nutrients are found in foods that feature prominently in the Mediterranean diet, like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, olive oil, nuts, seeds and seafood, both fish and shellfish.
Eating seafood can boost your health to keep you healthy over the holidays.
The omega-3s and vitamin D in seafood can help support mental wellness, boost brain health and improve mood. Studies from Iceland and Japan—countries with short winter days and typically high fish intake—show that there may be a correlation between a high-seafood diet and the reduced risk of Seasonal Affective Disorder, which impacts about 5% of the US population over the winter months.
There are easy ways to incorporate more seafood into our holiday menus.
Seafood is so versatile and is a great protein-rich food to add to your holiday festivities. One way to enjoy seafood at Thanksgiving is to include it in appetizers and hors d’oeuvres. The Dish on Fish digital cookbook includes 65 delicious-seafood recipes. A couple of appetizers that would work well at Thanksgiving are the Air Fryer Mac ‘n’ Cheese Tuna Bites and the Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs. Baked spinach and artichoke shrimp dip is just super comforting and always crowd-pleasing.
And right on the heels of Thanksgiving is Christmas and Hanukkah, which falls right after Thanksgiving this year. You can serve these traditional holiday dishes with more healthful proteins and lots of vegetables to make your Hanukkah a tad healthier. For example, top latkes with a little cream cheese, or farmer’s cheese, smoked salmon and chopped chives on top. Or try adding some veggies to your latkes for more antioxidants and serving alongside roasted salmon or other baked fish to up your intake of those immune-boosting omega-3s.
Watch the entire conversation with Oldways here:
For more resources, we have many videos discussing the health benefits of eating seafood—including immune health—at our NFI YouTube channel, Dish on Fish, and AboutSeafood.com.
• 5 Nutrients in Seafood that May Support a Healthy Immune System
