How to manage a summer barbecue without unnecessary calories?

A good barbecue is inseparable from hot summer days. There's nothing like making the day more enjoyable with delicious food, cold drinks and sitting down with friends. However, it can be easy to get distracted and disrupt your planned menu while barbecuing. And if you like to barbecue often, it may be for this very reason that yoursummer physique starts to look more like a winter bulge. Fortunately, it's not a problem to enjoy grilling while avoiding excess calories. You just have to know how to do it.

So in today's article, we're going to look at a few tips to help you stick to the numberyour calorie intake in check and make your barbecues much healthier. But we'll also look at healthy alternatives to some of the ingredients or sauces.

Quality ingredients are the key

If you want to grill healthily, first of all you need to get the right ingredients. The most important one is good quality meat (or whatever alternative you use). In this respect, the same rules apply for choosing meat as for normal cooking. It is ideal to use good quality chicken meat, but fish or perhaps beef with a lower fat content are also available. If you like to grill cheese, for example, make sure that it is of a quality suitable for grilling. It is not worth saving money on oil or other forms of fat for grilling, as in those myless good quality ones, chemical reactions occur at higher temperatures which produce unwanted carcinogens.

Don't forget the vegetables

Vegetables are an indispensable part of any diet. It contains important substances such as fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. At the same time, they contain quite a lot of water, which is extremely necessary for hydrating the body, especially in the summer months. You can read more about the importance of sufficient hydration in our article on better immunity. Vegetables on your plate can help you fill you up without overdoing it with otheringredients, effectively reducing the number of calories you take in during the barbecue. However, you don't have to limit yourself to fresh vegetables. Who wouldn't enjoy grilled zucchini or other vegetables.

Don't overdo it with portions

A common problem you'll encounter especially at barbecues with friends in large groups is overly large portions of food. When everyone brings something with them, the food piles up on the table very quickly. If all this food gets on the grill, it's a shame not to eat it straight away, because if you put it away for the next day, for example, it won't be as good. For this reason, it is always better to grill only what you plan to eat. At the same time, remember that if during each grilling session you are totally you overeat at every barbecue, it will significantly affect your overall calorie intake.

Of course, this is not to say that you should starve, eat only small bites of food and leave the table uneaten. Nor am I saying that if you don't starve yourself once, the world will end. But treat barbecue like any other meal on your menu, and be as responsible as ever when portioning out your meals.

Make a homemade marinade

An excellent way to avoid unnecessary calories is to use your own marinade. This avoids the huge amounts of salt found in most commercial marinades, while at the same time you won't need additional salt or different types of sauces to flavour your food (we'll get to the issue of sauces in a moment). To make a homemade marinade, all you need is soy saucelow-sodium soy sauce, vinegar, fresh garlic, ginger and olive oil. At the same time, you can use a variety of herbs that make the dish beautifully without using the aforementioned salt or unhealthy sauces.

Avoid unhealthy sauces

We'll stop with the sauces mentioned above for a moment. Commonly bought sauces, which are very popular at barbecues, often contain controversial flavourings, colourings and aromas. At the same time, they contain a surprisingly high number of calories, which again contributes to thepeople often take in considerably more calories during grilling than they first think. The solution may be to use the aforementioned homemade marinades or to choose good quality and appropriate sauces. Examples include Zero Sauce from BioTechUSA or one of GymBeam's Zero Sauces.

Pay attention to the appendix

If you make a great looking burger on the grill, it's a good idea to have fries or a similar side dish. Of course, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but if you want to reduce the amount of calories you take in, try to think of a healthier alternative. Vegetables (grilled or fresh), bean salad, couscous or even a regular vegetable salad will work well as a side dish. Even the aforementioned chips can be prepared quite healthily if you make them at home and don't use too much oil for frying.

Bake your own burger buns

This advice doesn't just apply to burger buns, but pretty much anything you can make yourself at home. Homemade food will generally contain better quality ingredients and, more importantly, you always have control over what's in it and what the nutritional value is. At the same time, you can avoid unnecessary preservatives and similar substances that you don't need.

Don't overcook your food

I'm sure you've heard that eating something burnt is "good for your beauty". But if you follow this rule, you risk serious health problems. In addition to the fact that burnt food can cause digestive problemsthe polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons produced by burning fat can be carcinogenic. So next time, you'd better be careful not to overcook your food.and if you can't, don't eat the burnt part of the food at all. To avoid the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as much as possible, grill meat at lower temperatures for longer periods of time.

Wash used dishes

This point may sound a little strange, but don't be fooled. A common practice when grilling is that people leave the grilling surface burnt and don't clean it much. Therefore, the carcinogens mentioned in the previous point will ultimately get into the food anyway. At the same time, this avoids the unpleasant taste that can remain on food grilled on a burnt surface.

Be careful what oil you use

When grilling, the food is exposed to high temperatures. For this reason, you need to be careful what oil you use for grilling. For example, extra virgin olive oil is a bad choice, as it can flavour the food, but when exposed tohigh temperature, it will lose its flavour quickly and overcook, which will lead to the unnecessary production of carcinogens. Therefore, always choose oils with a high smoke point, i.e. oils suitable for high temperatures. Examples include Pure Ghee or GymBeam's Canola Oil Spray.

Which products might be good for you?

Supplement manufacturers are also focusing on healthy eating and nutritionally rich foods in large numbers these days. As a result, you'll find plenty of healthy sauces, quality oils for frying and grilling and much more in their range. For grilling, we particularly recommend the ZERO range of sauces, coconut oil from Kulturistika.com or Ghee from BrainMax.

Final summary

You can enjoy grilling too without having to worry about excess calories. However, you need to pay attention to what ingredients you use, combine your food with plenty of vegetables, avoidavoid unhealthy sauces and large amounts of salt, do not overcook your food and use the right oil. If you pay attention to these things, there is no reason to worry about your hard-earned summer figure.

That's all for today's article, but if you have any questions about the topic, feel free to contact us in the comments.