Main Dish For 1200 Cal DASH diet: Tilapia With Relish

Whether you are on 1200, 1600 or 2000 calorie DASH diet, you are allowed to eat fish, so today I am going to show you a low calorie low fat recipe which consists of foods that lower blood pressure.

For the low calorie DASH diet, non fatty fish is a great choice, especially if you love fish. If you are eating it only because of the recent hype about need to eat fish for its omega-3 content, I will show you better ways.

Get Most Omega-3 From Plant Foods, Not Fish

There are a lot of plant foods that provide omega-3s so we don’t need to participate in depleting oceans and making another type of fish go extinct just because we want to compensate lack of omega-3 in our diets. Many doctors are promoting krill oil, wild fish oil, and eating more fish. I wonder whether they ever thought of the devastating impact of this advice on our ecosystem?

It is proven that it’s not the amount of omega-3 that matters, but the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in your diet. And we eat many times more omega-6 that we are supposed to. So while healthy ratio is 4:1, a typical North American consumes 20:1 of omega-6 to omega-3. This is because most oils used for cooking are high in omega-6.

On the DASH diet, you eat so little omega-6 fat, that getting your omega-3 from your diet becomes very easy.

There are three types of omega-3: DHA, EPA and ALA. Plant sources contain ALA, which converts into DHA and then EPA. Some dietitians say not everybody is efficient in this conversion, so some people would be better off using omega-3 from animal sources. But most healthy eating vegetarians and vegans are doing OK on plant sources. So, you can try to balance your omega-3 intake, too.

Plant foods High In Omega-3

• Flax seeds – widely available in the health food stores.
• Chia seeds – more expensive.
• Brussels sprouts
• Purslane
• Sesame seeds ( Yey! Tahini and hummus are so good for you!)
• And the champion, the superfood of omega-3 and great source of plant protein, hemp seeds ( or hemp nuts). Hemp seeds provide perfect ratio of omega-3 to omega-6

But back to the recipe.

Baked Tilapia Or Haddock With Pineapple Relish

Back to the baked fish. Tilapia and Haddock are safer choices – non fatty and not too toxic. I make this recipe for dinner and serve it with spinach coconut rice. It’s a restaurant quality meal: refreshing, sweet and spicy, full of colour and taste. And it is good for you. You need veggies and fruit and fish on the DASH diet.
If you check out similar recipes on major recipe sites, you will notice how little oil I use.

Ingredients

• 1 sprinkle oil
• 1 tsp Costco lemon and pepper seasoning ( or 1/2 tsp coarse black pepper and squeeze of lime)
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 4 (6-ounce) tilapia fillets or 6 haddock fillets
• 1 cup chopped fresh pineapple chunks or canned crushed pineapple
• 1 medium chopped onion
• 1/3 cup chopped plum tomato or use canned tomatoes in tomato juice
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 4 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
• 4 lime wedges

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 410 degrees. Cover baking sheet with aluminum foil. Make holes in it if your fish fillets are thawed and still contailn a lot of water.
2. Place fish fillets on the baking sheet, and sprinkle evenly with cayenne, black pepper and lemon seasoning over it. Bake for 15-20 minutes
3. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Chop onions, and fry them, frequently stirring. In two minutes, add pineapple and let onions cook until they lose their potent taste.
4. Combine pineapple, onions, chopped tomatoes, lime juice and cilantro in a large bowl, stirring gently. Serve pineapple relish with fish. Garnish with lime wedges.

It takes 20 minutes end to end to make dinner with this recipe.

---