Healthy eating at Passover

The Jewish festival of Passover, called 'Pesach' in Hebrew, normally falls around Easter time and lasts for eight days.

Passover is a time of large family meals and home cooking, with food playing a central role in the celebrations.

But even if you want to eat healthily, it can be difficult at this time of year, because there is just so much food around. Many traditional foods can also be high in fat, particularly saturated fat, added sugars and salt.

So here we show you how you can take part in all the festivities while reducing the amount of fat, added sugars and salt you eat.

What’s it all about?

Passover celebrates the biblical freeing of the 'Children of Israel' from slavery under the Pharaohs in ancient Egypt. They left in a big rush so the bread dough didn’t have time to rise, which meant they had to eat their bread 'unleavened'. It is this unleavened bread, or 'matzo', that is eaten to this day at Passover.

A large festive meal called a 'seder' is celebrated by most Jewish people on the first night of Passover, and by many again on the second night. It's a major eating occasion. Family and friends gather to recount the story of the Exodus from Egypt and eat symbolic foods (some of which are featured above on the 'seder plate') including hard boiled egg in salt water, bitter herbs, charoset (ground nuts, grated apple, cinnamon and wine) and of course, matzo.
Matzo is usually made from wheat, but it can be made from rye, barley, oats or spelt. It comes in many forms – in large sheets (pictured left), small crackers and as matzo meal and cake meal. During Passover, matzo in all these forms, is used to replace all bread, flour and grain products. No other food made (or derived) from fermentable grain can be eaten.

Foods that can become leavened or fermented include bread and all the usual crackers, cereals, cakes and pastry products. These are also called 'chometz'. Any unopened foods containing chometz are usually put well away from food to be eaten at Passover.

Food that meets the Jewish dietary laws is called 'kosher'. However, not all kosher food is kosher for Passover. This is because it may contain chometz. The more traditional or observant person will only buy foods with a 'Kosher for Passover' label.

Avoiding chometz, eating matzo, and attending the seder are central to Passover.

Healthy matzo toppers

When you’re tucking into your matzo, you might think you’re just having a light snack, but some traditional matzo toppings can be high in fat, particularly saturated fat, added sugars and salt.

So try to think about the toppings on your matzo and the amount you’re eating. Get into the habit of serving your matzo with a salad, a bowl of soup or some crunchy raw chopped vegetables. This makes it more filling and nutritious.

Try these:

• drained canned tuna in water with reduced calorie mayonnaise
• flaked fresh salmon and chopped vegetables
• chopped herring
• roast turkey or chicken without the skin
• deli-smoked meat – but remember it’s salty, so eat in small amounts and watch out for the salt in all the extras such as pickled cucumber
• egg and onion or egg mayonnaise – use a reduced fat mayonnaise or low-fat dressing


• reduced fat cheese
• cottage cheese
• thinly sliced boiled gefilte fish (traditional minced fish usually made into balls or fish cakes) and chraine (horseradish and beetroot). Some boiled gefilte fish and chraine are pictured above

Top tips for healthy eating

Here are some practical suggestions to help you eat healthily this Passover:

• Eat slowly and try not to overeat at meals. If you feel full, then there’s really no need to have seconds, is there? Try to prepare a realistic amount of food so that everyone can enjoy a little more. You don’t need to cook enough for two meals for everyone!



• Eat regular meals. Regular meals and healthy snacks help you to cut down on the cakes, biscuits and other less healthy foods that are plentiful at this time. Eating regularly in the daytime might also make it easier for you to eat a little less at your evening meal.

Get the balance right

The eatwell plate is a guide to the amounts of foods from the main food groups we should try to have each day. Although the eatwell plate shows many foods that are chometz, you can still use it during Passover as a guide to how much of what you eat should come from each food group.

• Try to fill up on fruit and vegetables. Eat lots with every meal and as snacks. You could prepare a fruit salad as a delicious end to a seder meal – you’ll already have eaten well and you’ll need to save some space for the ‘afikoman’ (the piece of matzo that is traditionally the last thing eaten in the seder).



• Or you could cut up some vegetables and have them easily to hand in the fridge. Having these healthy snacks at the ready could help reduce the temptation to have another slice of cake or chunk of chocolate!



• It’s a good idea to cut down on all fats, especially saturated fats, because too much saturated fat can increase the amount of cholesterol in the blood, which increases your risk of developing heart disease. Choose lower fat foods where possible. Examples include skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, low-fat cheese and yoghurt and lean meat and poultry.



• Watch out for hidden salt in foods especially in stock cubes, soup powder, pickles and salted meat and fish. It’s easy to eat too much salt without realising it because it’s often hidden in these foods.



• We should all be trying to eat fewer foods containing added sugars, such as sweets, cakes and biscuits, and drinking fewer sugary soft and fizzy drinks. Having sugary foods and drinks too often can cause tooth decay, especially if you have them between meals.

Check labels

When you're shopping for food, if you compare brands you can choose foods that are lower in total fat, saturated fat, added sugars and salt.

You can use the following to help you work out if a food is high or low in fat, saturated fat, added sugars and salt.

If the amount per 100g is in between the figures given below, then that is a medium level.

Remember that the amount you eat of a particular food affects how much fat, saturated fat, added sugars or salt you will get from it.

Fat
High is more than 20g fat per 100g
Low is 3g fat or less per 100g

Saturated fat
High is more than 5g saturates per 100g
Low is 1.5g saturates or less per 100g

Salt
High is more than 1.5g salt per 100g (or 0.6g sodium)
Low is 0.3g salt or less per 100g (or 0.1g sodium)

Added sugars
Have a look for the 'Carbohydrates (of which sugars)' figure.

High is more than 15g sugars per 100g
Low is 5g sugars or less per 100g

This is the amount of total sugars in the food. It includes sugars from fruit and milk as well as the sugars that have been added to the food. You can check the ingredients list to work out if the food contains lots of added sugars.

If you can only see a figure for 'Carbohydrates', and not for 'Carbohydrates (of which sugars)', this figure will also include starchy carbohydrates. You can still check the ingredients list to get a feel for whether the food is high in added sugars.

Try to ‘break even’

Passover is a time for fun and festivities, but putting on weight needn’t be part of the celebration. The extra calories from the larger meals, cakes, biscuits, chocolates and other delights eaten at this time of year can show on your waistline.

So aim to ‘break even’ in terms of your weight: if you weigh the same at the end of Passover as you did at the beginning, that’s an achievement. Here are a few ideas to help you break even:

• Enjoy your favourite festival foods – but not in large amounts all the time! Eat more of the fruit and veg, cut down on fatty foods and avoid going for second helpings.



• Be as active as you can and keep up your usual sporting or other physical activities when possible. Go for an afternoon walk after yom tov (festive) meals or for an early evening walk on other days. Keeping up your activity can really make a difference and help slow down any weight gain over Passover.

Eggs and more eggs

Passover seems to be a time when lots of eggs are eaten. They might be used to start the day in a steaming plate of matzo brei (fried matzo with egg), in all that lovely baking, and in the traditional and tasty ‘egg and onion’ and chopped herring.

You don’t need to worry because there is no recommended limit on how many eggs we should eat, and eggs are a good choice as part of a healthy balanced diet. However, it is a good idea to eat as varied a diet as possible, which generally means not eating too many eggs – but Passover is only once a year!

Eggs do contain cholesterol, and high cholesterol levels in our blood increases our risk of heart disease. But the cholesterol we get from our food – and this includes eggs – has less effect on the amount of cholesterol in our blood than the amount of saturated fat we eat.

Healthy lunch and snack ideas

Passover seems to be a time when some people complain of being hungry, even though meals tend to be larger than usual and there’s lots of food around.

Stop yourself feeling hungry by eating meals regularly throughout the day and try our suggested snacks for in between meals. If you eat little and often during the day, you’ll find that it’s much easier to limit the amount you eat at the main evening meal.

Healthy snacks

Here are some ideas for a healthy snack to keep you going during the day:

• fresh fruit salad and yoghurt
• stewed dried fruit with natural yoghurt and flaked nuts
• rather than going for almond macaroons (traditional at Passover), 'Pesach biscuits' and a slice of sponge cake, choose just one and maybe only once a day. Pad your snack out with some fruit
• a sheet of matzo and low-fat soft cheese topped with some chopped banana or strawberries. There’s usually a good variety of lower fat 5% fat cheeses available at your local kosher deli
• matzo crackers and low-fat soft cheese with a thin covering of jam – you could pretend it's cheesecake!
• bowl of soup and matzo crackers if you're really hungry
• carrot, celery, pepper and cucumber sticks with a low-fat dip (such as tomato salsa) and a few matzo crackers
• bowl of salad with low-fat or fat-free dressing and a few matzo crackers

Healthy lunch

Here are some options for a healthy lunch:

• jacket potato and cottage cheese, tuna or meat sauce served with mixed salad in a reduced fat dressing
• large bowl of mixed vegetable soup with matzo
• roast chicken with jacket potato and cooked vegetables

Or if you don't fancy a hot meal, you could go for:

• potato salad in reduced fat mayonnaise served with salmon, tuna or lower fat cheese. Dish up with a large mixed salad and a few matzo crackers followed by low-fat yoghurt and fruit
• matzo (go easy with the spread), with a healthy topper – see our suggestions above

Above all have a good time and try not to overeat! Happy Passover.