insideKENT Magazine Issue 81 - December 2018 | Page 99

CHRISTMAS
Go On…Indulge
THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF CHRISTMAS DINNER
IS THERE ANY MEAL THROUGHOUT THE YEAR THAT’S
MORE LOOKED FORWARD TO THAN CHRISTMAS
DINNER? IT MAY TAKE HOURS OF PREPARATION –
IT MAY MEAN THAT CHRISTMAS MORNING IS SPENT
IN A STEAMY KITCHEN THAT SMELLS OF STUFFING
AND BRUSSELS SPROUTS (AND WILL DO FOR MANY
DAYS YET TO COME), AND IT MAY EVEN MEAN
TELLING EVERYONE TO GET OUT OF THE ROOM
AND LEAVE YOU ALONE – BUT ONCE IT’S DONE,
LAID OUT ON THE TABLE FOR ALL TO SEE, IT REALLY
IS SOMETHING TO BEHOLD.
And there is always so much of it too.
Dozens of roast potatoes, crunchy and fluffy
in just the right measure for a handful of
people, mountains of sprouts, a turkey that
very nearly didn’t fit in the oven and needed
two people to carry to the table to be carved,
and more pigs in blankets than you could
shake a stick at.
It would seem, then, that all this food
– far too much really, and yet we always
try to devour as much of it as possible,
complete with silly paper hats and terrible
jokes – has to be ever so bad for us. It’s
Christmas, after all, and we do tend to forget
about healthy eating for the day (or week,
or actually all of December). But although
Christmas dinner might seem like an
unhealthy pile of calories, it can actually
hold some rather healthy secrets.
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