Eat Your Veggies First

For healthy skin, not only should you should always eat vegetables at every meal, you should eat them before you any other types of food. Then following with protein (2nd) and carbs (3rd). This also helps boost your overall health and keeps your weight down because your insulin spike is inhibited and you feel fuller faster.

Kaiseki is a Japanese traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. It always starts with vegetables, following protein and rice at the end. Even 100 years ago, the Japanese sensuouly knew that you should start with vegetables, otherwise you wont feel good or will have health disorder. In general, Kaiseki is served in an order of 1. Vegetable based appetizer, 2. small sashimi dish, 3. more sashimi,  4. vegetables served with meat, fish or tofu, soup, 5. broiled fish, 6. small vegetables, 7. small soup, 8. hot pot, 9. finally rice + pickled vegetables.

By eating vegetables first, you reduce glycation reaction.

What’s glycation?

It’s a process that sugar molecules attach themselves to protein molecules leading to a breakdown of protein including collagen fibers–fibers that are needed for taut and supple skin. Once healthy collagen fibers lose their elasticity, they become brittle and prone to breakage. This is visible as wrinkled skin. Minimizing the effects of aging requires reducing glycation.

“Glycation is a process where sugar molecules attach to protein molecules and lead to a breakdown of collagen fibers which is needed for healthy, supple skin. Glycation causes tough, inflexible wrinkled connective tissue and is most visible on the skin as wrinkles. It is also damaging to internal organs,” says Dr. Charlene Brannon, former professor of food chemistry at the University of Washington and Mirai Clinical’s scientific advisor.

By reducing your intake of simple carbohydrates and sweets, and choosing foods with low glycemic indexes. Also, by avoiding foods cooked at temperatures above 250 degrees.

1. Vegetables (ideally raw veggies) or fiber rich foods
2. Proteins
3. Carbohydrates

If your stomach is digesting vegetable fiber, the carbohydrates–which you eat after your veggies and proteins–get covered with this fiber. This slows down insulin spikes and the speed that sugar is transported into the blood.

Another benefit of eating vegetables first is that the fiber absorbs water in your stomach, making you feel full more quickly.  And raw vegetables have a digestive enzyme which aides in the digestion of proteins.

Protein is hard to digest, so they stay in the stomach too long, forcing other foods to remain in the stomach, and slowing down digestion.

You don’t have to eat all of each type of food (vegetable, protein and carb) to go on to the next one, but you should always start with vegetables and then go on to protein. After that, you can go on to the carbohydrate, or return to the vegetable. The most important thing is vegetables go in first!

In Italian restaurant, usually they serve bread at the beginning, but please don’t! Wait until you get appetizer at least.

The recipe for the delicious asparagus dish featured above can be found here.