Essential nutrients in some Yuletide foods

Elements of historical winter celebrations have been kept alive through current celebrations including Yule, winter solstice festivals and Christmas. Our ancestors had great reason to be aware of the changing seasons. With winter comes colder and darker days, especially at higher latitudes, which affects daily life and essential tasks like food gathering and production.

Feasting is a common way to celebrate this time of year.^1,2,3 Like other winter customs, popular recipes and foods eaten during Christmas, Yuletide and winter in general reflect both ancient traditions and newer influences.^4,5,6 There is usually a lot of sugar involved, but do these feasts also provide the essential nutrients?

The following foods are a representation of foods commonly eaten in my family, with Irish and Polish backgrounds, as well as some other foods of European origin. These of course are by no means a complete representation of foods eaten during winter celebrations.

The winter brings cold temperatures, frost and shorter days.

Homemade decorations can be made from dried orange slices and spices such as star anise and cinnamon sticks.

Yule logs are traditionally set aside to be burned on the fire over Yuletide or Christmas.

Barszcz with uszka

A clear beetroot soup, barszcz or borscht, served with dumplings is a popular Polish Christmas Eve dish. Uszka (‘little ears’) are small versions of pierogi (made with flour, water and salt) commonly filled with mushrooms, cabbage or potato. While most likely having much earlier origins, one of the earliest written mentions of pierogi are of a sweet variety in the Compendium ferculorum, known as the first Polish cookbook published in 1682.⁷

The barszcz is made by boiling the beetroots , other vegetables, like carrots, and spices in water and then straining to remove everything but the liquid. Nutrients like fiber will be removed with the vegetables but water soluble nutrients that are not damaged by the boiling will remain.

Roast turkey & vegetables

A simple but hearty roast is the star of many winter feasts. The meat, often a turkey, can be lathered in butter with garlic studding the skin. The stuffing, inside the turkey, can be made with pistachios, sage, rosemary, garlic, onions, thyme and breadcrumbs. Alongside the meat, vegetables are served. Some can be roasted like potatoes, onions, garlic, parsnip and pumpkin, while others can be boiled like garden peas and brussel sprouts. Finally, a rich gravy made from the turkey giblets, the juice from the roasting turkey and more herbs such as sage, thyme, rosemary and garlic, and some cranberry sauce adds the final touch.

Wassail

The wassail bowl is a British folk tradition during the time of Yule. The word, wassail, comes from the Norse and Old English drinking salute - ”Was hael“ meaning “good health”, which has been used in England since at least the time of Vortigen, in 449.⁸

The drink is usually hot and spiced ale or apple cider. An example could be made with apple, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, and ale.

Glögg

Similarly, glögg is a traditional hot and spiced Nordic drink served during the winter. It can be made of red wine, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, orange, orange peel and something to sweeten it like honey or sugar.

Yule log cake

The Yuke log cake is name after the Germanic midwinter celebration, Yule. The cake is meant to represent the wood that is put aside to burn on Yule. It has all the usual chocolate cake ingredients: eggs, sugar, cocoa and vanilla extract for the sponge; sugar, butter, vanilla extract and dark chocolate for the icing; and egg whites, sugar and salt for the meringue.

Gingerbread

Gingerbread comes in many different forms during wintertime celebrations. Gingerbread biscuits, in the shape of men or animals, gingerbread houses or gingerbread cakes are a few types of this dessert.

A recipe for classic gingerbread biscuits could include these ingredients: ginger, cinnamon, cloves, honey, butter, brown sugar, flour, egg, sodium bicarbonate, egg white, icing sugar and vanilla extract.

Mince pies & fruit cake

Dried fruit is another food that makes a few different appearences during this holiday, including minced dried fruit in mince pies, dried fruit in Christmas puddings and fruit cakes with marzipan icing.

A typical fruit filling or cake could be made with many spices such as nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon; fruits like currants, sultanas, raisins, prunes, dates, cherries, apple, cranberries, apricots, orange juice, orange rind, lemon peel, lemon juice; nuts like almonds, pecans, walnuts; brandy, eggs, flour, butter, brown sugar and honey. A pastry of a minced fruit pie will include ingredients: flour, butter, eggs and sugar. Lastly, the marzipan on a fruit cake needs ground almonds, eggs, sugar or honey and almond extract; and the icing needs egg white, sugar and sometimes lemon juice.

Lussekatter

Lussekatter, Lucy‘s cats, or saffron buns are a traditional Swedish dessert baked during the Christmas period, Yuletide or the winter solstice. To make saffron buns one will need: milk, raisins, saffron threads, yeast, sugar, butter, egg, salt and flour.

Murzynek

Murzynek is one of my favourite desserts that my Babcia would bake whenever I visited her. It is a chocolate cake... but not just any chocolate cake. I have yet to get the recipe from my Babcia, but it, as you’d expect, involves chocolate, flour and butter. Some of the best things about the cake are the walnuts that she includes throughout the sponge, the fact it isn’t too sweet (compared to other chocolate cakes) and the texture of the surface of the cake (there is no typical icing).

Have we consumed our essential nutrients after this feast?

After entering our ingredients of our winter celebration foods into the Nutrient Journal calculator, we can see that most of the essential nutrients have been accounted for in some quantity. The exact amounts that one consumes, obviously, depends on the recipe and how much of the food is eaten.

Molybdenum does not appear at all in the foods. This is, however, because the data is not yet available and not necessarily because the foods don’t include it. Iodine only is present during this feast if iodised salt is used.

Biotin, choline, vitamin D and alpha-linolenic acid appear only in lower amounts. This too could be simply the result of incomplete data and not because the foods are lacking those nutrients.

Despite the above, and even though other factors such as bio-availabilities and anti-nutrients haven’t been considered, one should not be concerned over getting the essential nutrients at a winter feast!

References