Pablo Ojeda, nutritionist: “No diet in the world works, what works is giving options and letting everyone paint their own picture”

This is explained by the dietitian-nutritionist Pablo Ojeda: «Making a good shopping list is the most difficult thing there is for a simple reason: people have the word diet associated with a diet, with eliminating, restricting, prohibiting, and there are many myths about it. The reason is that a healthy diet is a series of foods, some preparations, it is not just grilled chicken fillets with a salad. “What is most difficult for us is to demystify that eating well is joy, that it is not a diet,” he says.

What makes us have such a bad relationship with diets? The nutritionist emphasizes the word “redesign”, since “diet” comes from the Greek ‘díaita’, and means “life regimen.” «No diet in the world works, what works is redesigning. What you need to know is that two or three times a week you need white meat, a couple of times a week we need oily fish, and from that generalized structure, build your diet,” he emphasizes.

«You paint your painting and you have to be clear about the colors you should use. That is nutrition: giving people colors to paint their pictures and not giving them the pictures already painted because then it is certain failure,” he emphasizes.

The importance of fats

Over the years, and thanks to his experience in the field, he has learned how to make a good shopping list. For example, he assures that eggs are always found in them, a staple “of which one is very afraid”: “You can eat eggs and you should eat eggs; It is the best protein that exists in the world, it is the worker who builds and if we do not have these workers, which is a very high quality proteinin the end we cannot destroy the number one chronic disease after 50: sarcopenia, which is the destruction of muscle mass».

Fats, which are talked about too much right now, are important in our health too. As Pablo Ojeda guarantees, you don’t have to be afraid of fats, “they are wonderful, like extra virgin olive oil, avocado… What you have to be afraid of is where those fats are. And that is looking at the product. The same happens with the monosodium glutamate. This is very bad in a fried potato, but tomatoes have it too…” According to the expert, therefore, we have to understand that what is important is often not the nutrient in isolation, but rather where that nutrient is found and where I plan for that nutrient.

As for looking at the labeling, Pablo Ojeda is clear: “I only look when I have doubts.” He explains that “to buy fruits and vegetables you don’t have to look at anything”, but he does when it comes to preserves, for example. In this case, he assures that they always tend to be good because it is processed, not ultra-processed: «We confuse ultra-processed with processed. A processed food is one that has had some procedure, but is still the original food. Liquid has been put into a preserve, it has been boiled, it has been frozen, but it is still chickpeas or beans. On the other hand, in an ultra-processed the matrix is ​​no longer what it waslike for example, a cupcake.

More problems in consultation

If all the evils were not knowing how to make the purchase correctly, look at the labeling or not and differentiate the nutrients that the body needs… but the truth is that Pablo Ojeda affirms that today there are still people who do not know where to start taking care of themselves and have a bad relationship with food: “We all want to take care of ourselves and eat well, and although we know that we have to exercise to feel healthy, from my experience I assure that Most of the time the relationship we have with food is not adequate.

Where does one start to have a good relationship with food? Pablo Ojeda believes that with commitment to oneself: «We do not commit to ourselves. You commit to your friend and you never fail her; You commit to your family and if you have to leave anything, you go to death with them; You commit to your work and you don’t fail… And the only person you don’t commit to is yourself. “We would solve many problems if we committed more to ourselves and said no more times.”

Hello Fresh

Now knowing what to put in the shopping basket and committing to ourselves to learn to eat better, it’s time to cook! The truth is that today there are hundreds of blogs showing original and healthy recipes to prepare a thousand times. «If you simply take a piece of aluminum foil, put on it a piece of hake that they already sell frozen, a little bit of oil, salt and put a carrot or leek crudité and put it in the oven for 10 minutes, you have a wonderful papillote in 10 minutes» says the expert, who assures that the problem lies, again, in the commitment to oneself.

In this sense, Pablo Ojeda has become an ambassador of Hello Fresh. He claims that he “did not know about these home recipe kits but that he found them very interesting because there are many people with planning problems, who don’t like cooking” and that he had already had this idea before: “I discovered that at first what What I wanted was to create a habit of entering the kitchen and having that personal responsibility that was food”, but realizing that this is up to each individual, the most that can be done is to offer healthy options adapted to each user, as is the case of Hello Fresh, so that we let’s nourish better.