Santa knick-knacks

The time has come once again: Santa Claus is about to come knocking on the door with bags of delicious cookies for children and adults alike. This Health Tip explains how you can put together a healthy and varied combination of items for such a bag yourself.

The typical Santa Claus bag mostly has peanuts, milk chocolate, mandarins and some form of gingerbread. But there are also many other choices of things for such a bag: From the Swiss, to the healthy, all the way to the exotic version, anything goes when it comes to choosing items to include.

 

The healthy alternatives

Although the traditional bag already contains many healthy items, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Besides peanuts, consider also adding not only almonds, which help to lower the blood pressure and keep the appetite in check, but also macadamia nuts and walnuts, which are rich in valuable unsaturated fatty acids. And with fruit, too, there are many variations. A healthy Santa Claus bag can contain not only mandarins, but also apples, grapes, pears and oranges. Those who like a bit more variety and enjoy exotic things may consider adding some dried fruit, such as mango, coconut, pineapple and banana chips. When adding dried fruit, however, you need to be careful because they have lots of sugar and should therefore be consumed in moderation.

 

For adults

Adults, of course, also have a right to their own bag. Here you can include special types of teas, spices, small bottles of oil, and other healthy items from the delicatessen shop. This is bound to put a smile on any adult's face when the day arrives.

 

Chocolate with high cocoa content

And what if you can't resist the chocolate temptation? No problem at all. Simply exchange milk chocolate for dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa. While milk chocolate has mainly sugar and fat, dark chocolate has a lot of catechins, which protect the body against stress hormones and help to fight bacteria. So far so good. But don't forget that even dark chocolate is still chocolate, which means it still has lots of sugar. So, remember not to indulge excessively.


05.12.2018
In the event of further health-related questions, SWICA customers can contact the santé24 telemedicine service free of charge on +41 44 404 86 86. A telemedicine practice licence allows santé24 physicians to provide additional medical services in cases that are suited to a telemedicine approach. SWICA customers can also use the BENECURA medical app to carry out a digital SymptomCheck and receive recommendations about what to do next. During a subsequent phone call with santé24, customers can decide for themselves whether to release their information from SymptomCheck to santé24.