Healthy Eating on Vacation in Guanajuato, Mexico

The bad news is watch those tamales, laced with lard. The good news - every corn tortilla you eat provides 40mg of calcium.So how do you balance the good and the bad while you’re eating festively in Mexico,for example, in my adopted home city of Guanajuato?

Most North Americans know how to avoid illness. Drink bottled water, stay away from raw fruit and vegetables peeled by others, leave the lettuce, and, some people say, avoid fish and shellfish.

But maintaining fitness in the face of Mexico’s culinary temptations takes  planning. I go by three basic principles: watching snacks, eating small portions and avoiding fatty food like carnitas, cake or cookies, and pizza, all readily available in Mexico. Just as at home, fast food is usually fatty food, often made with cheese high in saturated fat..

Of course, not all fat is equally bad. When I want  to snack, if I don’t but a banana, I buy monounsaturated peanuts or an avocado, all coming in their natural covers.

What could be more Mexican than one of those dark green fellows with the light green insides, many of them grown in the state of Michoacan? You  can peel the avocado,  cut yourself a slice and feel those in-between- meal pangs go away so that you can usually walk right past the carnitas (those tasty but fatty meat snacks) sold everywhere in Mexico. Meanwhile, you may be lowering the low-density cholesterol level in your blood.

Peanuts roasted in their shells provide healthy nibbles whether you’re visiting an archaeological site or exploring city lanes. Apples from the US and Mexico are popular and available just about everywhere in Mexico. All you need is a pocketknife to peel one. If you visit Mexico in the winter, you’ll find juicy clementinas (tangerines), supplying vitamin C and calcium along with flavor.  And of course there are mangos and papayas. .