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Thai cuisine offers a number of valuable spices making each dish a veritable nutritional party on a plate or in a bowl. Many of the dishes include turmeric, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, basil, red chili pepper and curries. These spices increase the nutritional value of the dish and give potent phytochemicals that can offer additional health benefits.
Thai Food and Coconut Oil
While some believe you should also avoid Thai foods that contain coconut milk due to the high saturated fat content, many believe it to be one of the healthiest oils in the world. Just a few of the benefits include the coconut milk or oils ability to kill viruses, bacteria and fungi. The aid it offers for osteoporosis, gall bladder disease and magnesium and calcium absorption for healthier teeth.
It stabilizes blood sugar levels and well as improves the immune system, reduces inflammation and aids in the prevention of periodontal disease. There are so many more benefits from using coconut products. These include every thing from improving sagging skin and age spots to offering help to damaged hair. You'd be hard pressed to find a healthy Thai recipe that didn't include coconut milk.
Try a Yellow Curry for One Example of the Healthiest Thai Food
Yellow curries contain turmeric. Turmeric is a natural antibacterial agent but also doubles as a spice in Thai cooking and Indian cuisine. They found that the inclusion of turmeric in the diet might help fight prostate cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, childhood leukemia as well as preventing several type of cancer from spreading.
It's a natural liver detoxer and new studies show it both prevents and slows Alzheimer's disease by removing the amyloyd plaque that builds in the brain. Turmeric also is a natural painkiller and anti-inflammatory that rivals prescription and over the counter drugs but with no side affects. This makes it an ideal treatment for arthritis.
If you're dieting, the turmeric in yellow curry can help you lose weight. There are studies that show it aids in fat metabolism. It also increases the rate of wound healing and helps with skin conditions such as psoriasis.
Try a Thai Chicken Salad with Rice Noodles
Keep the soy sauce off the salad or at a minimum and increase the vegetables and spices. You'll find that Thai dishes, while normally healthy, can even be better when you add additional spices and extra Napa cabbage, carrots, red bell peppers and onion. That hot chili paste and fresh lime juice adds more nutrients to your diet as well.
Enjoy a Different Type of Soup
Go for thai-spiced watermelon soup with crabmeat. With spices such as lemon grass, ginger, hot green chili peppers, cilantro and garlic, the spices alone make this a healthy choice. Now cut up a seedless watermelon and add limejuice, shallots, olive oil, crabmeat, and you'll have a healthy meal fit for a king. Watermelon is a good source of vitamins C, A, B1 and B6. Green chili peppers fight inflammation while lemon grass, shallots and garlic are antifungal, antibacterial and bring digestive aid and pain relief.
