Healthy Start into the new Year: Nutrition Tips for Bartenders

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The job of a bartender is far from normal: Late nights and crazy shift patterns are often combined with unhealthy nutrition. Iain Bell gives tips and recipes to establish healthy habits in our everyday life. 

As a bartender within hospitality, we are in both unprecedented and uncertain times. For the first time ever, we are seeing massive growth in total sales of alcohols across the categories and incredible growth of brand new markets. Our customer base and habits have changed as we strive for a “reset” in an uncertain working environment and increased pressure. Many of us are now working harder and longer in a booming global sector with less people behind it. It would appear all very positive and exciting, but we are striving to both survive and thrive. It would seem impossible to believe but now more than ever in such extenuating circumstances, we must start showing a more inward and professional understanding of the very nature of being a bartender and how to live a better, healthier existence. This is a unique opportunity to alter our working culture.

Boosting Mental State and Happiness

Part of our basic plan is to generate better motivation through easily achievable goals. A boost in our mental state and happiness are truly essential as part of this approach. Some easy quick fixes are to feed our gut microbiome with the essential elements to chemically produce serotonin – our happy chemical. What is surprising is that 95% of human serotonin is produced in our gut. Only 5% in our brain.

Poor diets such as convenience products, alcohol, and a low intake of fresh fruit and vegetables are regular behaviours to the detriment of a positive mental state and our ability to offset anxiety and depression. Try to take a 4K approach on board:

Kefir, kombucha, kimchi and (Sauer)kraut. Regular consumption of these will allow the trillions of microbiomes to manufacture a better, natural chemical state. All are inexpensive and easily accessed. If your nutrient pathway is a non-fussy fast track affair-throw some in the blender and blitz it

Mixed Fruit Smoothie

·        1 cup Frozen mango

·        1 cup frozen mixed berries

·        1 cup kefir yogurt (natural or fruit flavour)

·        3 cups coconut or almond milk

·        1 cup nut and seed mix (almonds, pumpkin, sunflower)

Blitz all the above. Drink to start the day or place in a thermos and consume chilled all day long even on shift. Energy, fibre, good fats and gut foods – easy!

Liver Detox/Flush

A real winner in giving your liver a chance to boost cellular regeneration, reduce stored fats and start to give you a real all over mind and body lift:

·        2 oranges

·        2 lemons

·        25 g fresh root ginger

·        15mls extra virgin olive oil 

·        1 pinch cayenne pepper

·        2-3 cloves of fresh garlic, de-skinned

Juice the citrus (Mexican elbow/hand juicer), add all the ingredients and blend for 30 seconds. Consume immediately and engage the process morning and night for 3-5 days. Make it fresh twice a day. Within the chosen number of days have zero alcohol, indulge in fruit, vegetables and 3-5 litres of water per day. Avoid red meats, high fat dairy and all convenience/processed foods.

Prepare to feel amazing.

Expect to have clarity of thought, lose 2-3 kilos of adipose fat and above all give the body’s filter a chance to become more efficient. You should see a healthier pink tongue with less ‘coating’ of white/yellow ‘gunk.’ If you want an iron boost add a handful of fresh parsley.

Super salad

Grab a supermarket bag of rocket and watercress salad. Tear the leaves to pieces and place in an airtight container or plastic bag. Next day the oxygen delivering ability of the salad has become extremely potent. It will give at least 20% more oxygen into the blood. Eat about 2-3 hours before a shift

Add:

·        Mixed seeds and nuts (pre toasted)

·        Generous squeeze of fresh lemon juice

·        Extra virgin olive oil (monounsaturated)

·        Grilled mackerel fillets or tofu

Nutrition in the “Fast” Lane

If we look at the very nature of our work, it can be pretty full on and relentless. Although the need to nutritionally “pre-load” our system delivers a better energy outcome, what about a no food or fasting approach? It works wonders with the busy bartender as adopting a regular fasting regime allows us to rest our digestive system. It has now been shown to positively impact our health on a multitude of levels: thinking and memory, physical performance, healthy heart and blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and obesity. There are three main approaches:

Daily time restricted fasting

There are 24 hours in the day, and you eat all your good within a restricted eight-hour window each day. Again, this can suit our industry after a late shift. We wake mid-morning and eat one meal then another before shift at 6pm. Adjust the 8-hour window to suit on shift days and try another fasting form on a day off.

5:2 Fast

You eat normally and of course healthily for five days in the week and complete full fasting over two days with one 500 kcal meal on each day. This would be an opportunity for a real super salad with a vegan or sustainable fish emphasis.

Alternate Day Fasting

One day a normal healthy diet, the next day one meal below 500 kcals and repeat. This has been shown to be far more effective than trying to battle with a diet to drive weight loss. Try to vary your low-calorie meal each day for variety and improved nutritional success.

Fasting would appear to be particularly challenging but it is incredible how your body can adapt to the structure, and you start to feel energised and more alert.

Drive Change: How to establish healthy Habits

Central to change process is altering habit to modify behaviour. Strategies for success are to take small steps, over a few weeks as any type of behavioural adaption needs at least three weeks to bear fruit. Engaging and involving your peers are all part of the process. Whether you are a bar back or front of house you share your mission to encourage others to follow suit. This is the way of wellness, the way we have always supported each other and driven a dynamic bartender culture. It shows gratitude feeding into our community and creates a culture of well-being to achieve anything from weight loss to better energy and improved sleep. There are no risks – only rewards. You will live and feel the benefits of nutrition through the worst weekend shifts, the clarity of thought and the end to “hangxiety” (anxiety caused by hangovers) and poor mental health.

Baby Steps to a healthier Life

Start with your nutrition journal on your iPad or phone, take pics of great recipes and new improved food shops, prepare your life nutrition station as you would at the bar with your mise-en-place.

The better version of you is just around the corner. Stop thinking about your well-being as something you should do, rather something you must do. Get rid of the Bartender survival diet and switch to the Bartenders thrive nutrition and wellness.