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healthy eating

Food

Healthy Food Must Haves

January 21, 2014

I love trying new healthy foods but there are certain items that pretty much stay on my grocery list. One because I love them, and two because they’re so versatile. Check out my healthy food must haves below:

A few of my must haves

  1. Sweet potatoes – The possibilities are endless for a sweet potato. You can stuff it with lean meats or vegetables, make home made fries with it or hummus, or have it as a side with some seafood and a salad. Get crazy!

  2. Goat cheese – I love goat cheese. If it’s savory, chances are I’m putting goat cheese on it. I use this for egg white omelets, sandwiches, sweet potatoes, pasta dishes, salads, and roasted vegetables.

  3. Kashi Cereal – I have the same thing for breakfast every morning. A bowl of Kashi cereal. The kind I eat has 10 grams of fiber, 13 grams of protein, and only 160 calories in one serving (1 cup, dry). You just can’t beat that!

  4. Vanilla Almond Milk – I use this for my cereal every morning. It would also be great for smoothies and as an alternative to dairy milk in muffin recipes.

  5. Trader Joes Rolled Oats & Chocolate Chips Fiberful Granola Bars – I LOVE THESE BARS! I have one each morning with my bowl of cereal. It has 9 grams of fiber and 120 calories per bar. Add that to the fiber count from my cereal and I’ve already had 19 grams of fiber before 9:30. Most people don’t get that much fiber in an entire day! Did I mention these taste so good?!

  6. Chicken Sausage – Most of the items on this list I’ve been eating for a while but this is a more recent discovery, and I can’t imagine going without it. You can use it to make a loaded sweet potato, eat it with spaghetti squash, or make a chicken sausage dog.

  7. Chobani greek yogurt – The people at Chobani know what they’re doing. Their greek yogurts are so decadent and they truly taste like dessert. One serving usually has at least 10 grams of protein. My favorite is pineapple, but I also love apple cinnamon, mango, and their key lime flip.

  8. Bananas – I love my fruits – pineapple, pomegranate, and peach (pretty much any fruit that starts with a “p” and is a little tart), but bananas are my staple. They’re so simple, and you can eat them in a bazillion different ways. On their own, in smoothies, dipped in dark chocolate to satisfy your sweet tooth, or make some whole grain whole wheat banana bread when they get extra ripe.

  9. Spinach – You can use spinach as the base of a salmon and goat cheese salad, in a grilled chicken sandwich, a vegetarian lasagna dish, or in a banana pineapple smoothie.

What are your healthy must haves? Tell me below in the comments!
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Food

An Extra $1.50 a Day

December 7, 2013

According to a recently published review, that is the difference in cost between the healthiest and unhealthiest diets. That translates to about $550 per year. For lower income families this can present a real challenge to choosing healthier food items, but for others, not as much. When you consider the health implications of an unhealthy diet, like diabetes and heart disease, that amount pales in comparison.Now, I do not presume to know people’s financial situations, and I’ll be the first to acknowledge that choosing a healthier diet can often mean parting with more money, but there are ways to offset these costs. Here are a few things to look into:

How often do you eat out? I’m not just talking about going to sit down restaurants. I’m also talking about going to fast food restaurants or picking up something from the deli section at your grocery store. Often times you’re paying $10, $20, or more for one meal, when that amount of money could have gone towards groceries that would have produced multiple meals.

Plan ahead. This goes hand in hand with eating out. When you don’t plan ahead you find yourself picking up meals at the last minute. If you decide what you’re making for the week, buy the necessary groceries, and make those meals, then there will be no last minute Mickey D’s drive bys.

Are there any farmer’s markets nearby? Farmer’s markets are great for a number of reasons. One, the produce is local, fresh, and often cheap. Two, there is usually a much better selection than what you’d find at a grocery store.

Buy in bulk and freeze. Pretty self-explanatory. If you see a good deal on bell peppers (and there’s no limit per customer), buy as many as you want and freeze the ones you’re won’t immediately use.

These are just a few of the suggestions I could think of to help make a healthier diet more accessible. Do you all have any more ideas on how to offset the costs of healthy eating? Share them in the comments!

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Book Reviews

Book Review: Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy

November 23, 2013

A few years ago when I was looking for a simple, straightforward book about healthy eating, I came across Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy by Walter Willett. I’m so glad that I did. This book is filled with solid advice based on tons of peer-reviewed scientific research. And if you care about credentials, which you should when it comes to your health, Willett’s are top notch. He’s not your next-door neighbor who lost 30 pounds by going on a cabbage diet, and then decided to write a weight loss book. He’s chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and a professor of epidemiology with an MD and a DrPH (doctor of public health).

Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy

This book gives it to you straight, talking about the things we do and don’t need for our body to function optimally. In the first chapter, Willett states that a healthy diet, regular exercise, and not smoking can eliminate 80 percent of the cases of heart disease in the US and the majority of cancer cases. Think about that for a second. That’s huge! This is empowering because these are factors that we have some control over.

Key points from the book:

  • You weigh what you weigh because of your diet, your genes, your lifestyle, and your culture.
  • Where you store fat can affect your risk for certain diseases. Fat around the chest and waist may be more problematic than fat around the hips and thighs.
  • Learn to be a defensive eater (e.g. slow down when you’re eating, practice putting the fork down before you feel stuffed, and against your parent’s warnings spoil your appetite before meals – you may end up eating less).
  • When in doubt go Mediterranean (plenty of veggies, moderate amounts of whole grains, and minimal red meat)
  • Not all fats are created equally. Some fats are better for you (e.g. monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats), while some fats are bad for you (e.g. saturated and trans fat).
    • Slight Tangent: Food products that contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fat are allowed to list their trans fat content as 0 on nutrition labels. Sneaky bastards, right?
    • Tip: Check the ingredients on the label and look for “partially hydrogenated oils.” These are the primary sources of trans fat in our diets. If you see it listed, drop the item, and slowly back away.
    • Good news: The FDA is currently considering banning partially hydrogenated oils from food. Until then though, check the labels!
    • Tangent Over
Avoid the refined, snooty carbs. You want your carbs unpolished because these types offer more fiber and nutrients, and have been linked to a lower risk for many diseases including heart disease and diabetes.

Eat the rainbow when it comes to fruits and vegetables. More colors mean more nutrients.

For anyone wanting to know about the basics of healthy eating, I highly recommend this book. It contains a lot of useful information on everything from nut consumption to choosing a multivitamin. At the end it also has a list of several healthy recipes to try.

You can get it from Amazon or check it out from your local library. Let me know if this review was particularly helpful and I’ll try to do more of them. Enjoy your weekend!

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