By Dr Joe
I am deep into fruit salads.
Why is this? Because fruit salads are healthy so long as you don’t go crazy with additional side dishes to them. For me there is no need for salad dressing when it comes to fruit salad. Just have the fruit. Fruits are tasty enough. Why dress them up? Absolutely unnecessary.
This fruit salad is very simple as expected. Just chuck the fruits in a bowl or your lunch container and you are ready to sizzle.
So what fruits do we need for this salad?
- Raspberries 150 g
- Blueberries 150 g
- Cherry tomatoes 300 g
Nutritional information for 100 g of Raspberries
| Calories | 53 kcal |
| Total fat | 0.6 g |
| Polyunsaturated fat | 0.4 g |
| Monounsaturated | 0.1 g |
| Total Carbohydrate | 12 g |
| Sugars | 4.4 g |
| Fiber | 7.2 g |
| Protein | 1.2 g |
| Potassium | 151 mg |
| Sodium | 1 mg |
You also get Vitamin B6, Iron, Magnesium, Calcium and Vitamin C from your raspberries.
You can get nutritional info for Blueberries here.
Nutritional information for Cherry tomatoes (per 6 Cherry tomatoes)
| Calories | 18 kcal |
| Total fat | 1.0 g |
| Saturated fat | 0.0 g |
| Cholesterol | 0.0 mg |
| Total Carbohydrate | 4.0 g |
| Sugars | 3.0 g |
| Fiber | 1.0 g |
| Protein | 0.7 g |
| Sodium | 5 mg |
| Potassium | 242 mg |
You also get Vitamin A, Calcium, Vitamin C and Iron from your cherry tomatoes.
I like to have a bit of starch to this lunch. The starchy carbohydrate gives this lunch a bedding for the lunch to settle in. This stops you from feeling hungry too soon and also provides extra calories for you to meet your 1800 – 2000 daily calorific requirements. This is particularly so for somebody like me who for the most part skips breakfast.
So what starchy ingredients do we need to add to this recipe?
Well, how about we add some
- Tortilla chips and
- Betroot crackers.
Nutritional information for Tortilla chips – the Kirkland brand (100 g)
| Calories | 518 kcal |
| Fat | 25 g |
| Saturated fat | 3.57 g |
| Carbohydrate | 64.29 g |
| Sugars | 0 g |
| Fiber | 3.57 g |
| Protein | 7.14 g |
| Salt | 0.89 g |
I get both the Tortilla chips and betroot crackers from Costco. They both are great and taste awesome.
The Tortilla chips has Zero sugar added and the Betroot crackers has only 3.3 gm of sugar per 100 g of the crackers. Not bad!
Nutritional information for Betroot crackers per 100 gm
| Calories | 458 kcal |
| Fat | 24.1 g |
| Saturated fat | 3.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 51 g |
| Sugars | 3.3 g |
| Fiber | 5.6 g |
| Protein | 6.4 g |
| Salt | 0.1 g |
What does this mean?
It means these starches are not going to cause your blood glucose to spike after eating. Great for diabetics too. If you are somebody who is currently healthy and conscious of the causes of diabetes, you can relax with these two starches, so long as you don’t go overboard and stuff your face with them. In any case, this is lunch and you are supposed to keep it light. Remember, you have work to do.
How to make this cherry tomatoes, berries fruit salad with tortilla chips and betroot crackers?
- Get your bowl out or lunch container.
- Add the Cherry tomatoes to the bowl
- Add the blueberries
- Then the raspberries
- Top up the salad with the Tortilla chips and betroot crackers.
- There is no need for salad dressing. However, if you insist, you may use any salad dressing of your choice.
- There is also no need for sauce or dip for the chips. I do know some people might consider the chips a little too dry for their taste buds, so if that’s you, then you may use a salsa sauce. This is very optional.
I have tested this recipe over and over again and my blood sugars are fine with it. The last time I checked my blood glucose 1 hour after this lunch, I got a blood gucose reading of 5.5mmol/l (99.0mg/dl) Remember, these fruits are low glycaemic fruits because of their high fibre content. So you can get way with a lot here.
For those who might not want to use the Tortilla chips and Betroot crackers or can’t access them, you can use cracker biscuits as a substitute. I do and it’s even healthier because a cracker biscuit contains only 5.6 g of total carbohydrate per biscuit. I use 5 cracker biscuits.
If you have any issues or are still worried about what this recipe may do to your blood glucose, then see how to cheat your way when trying to avoid blood glucose spikes here. Have fun having this lunch. I did and still do quite often weekly.
Dr. Joe