For those wishing to watch their figure over the festive season, nutritionist and chef Gurpareet Bains has just the menu – his guilt-free Christmas lunch contains just 930 calories, is gluten-free and packed with superfoods.The three-course meal, which features a starter of butternut squash and pear soup with lobster, turkey with all the trimmings and Christmas pudding, promises to leave you fuelled with goodness and energy thanks to its 11 portions of fruit and vegetables, more than double the government's recommended five-a-day.
The award-winning Anglo-Indian chef and bestselling cookery author, who first hit the headlines in 2009 after creating a cancer-fighting curry, boasts a host of celebrity fans including DJ Chris Evans and designer Vivienne Westwood.
He keeps the calorie content up to three times lower than a typical Christmas meal by replacing traditional, oily ingredients with healthy superfoods.
Mashed potato is replaced by mashed parsnip and sweet potato while other accompanying vegetables including kale, baby carrots and brussel sprouts are steamed to keep them super healthy. The turkey, meanwhile, is a breast poached in mulled wine spices with blueberry sauce. The menu, called 'Guilt-Free Gala' and containing just 19 grams of fat in its entirety, is topped off by a dessert of superfruit pudding with green tea and Chia seeds, dried mixed fruit and dried goji berries, served with mascarpone cheese.