Healthy Eating Ideas
At the onset, we’d like to emphasize that food should not be strictly
looked at from a budgetary point of view. If you are amongst those who
use coupons cut from magazines and local newspapers to subsidize your
food costs please don’t – at least not unless the item for which you
plan to use the coupon coincides with an item on the new diet menu. A
healthy eating diet will always ask you to plan your meals. Such
planning needs to be done from a nutrition and health point of view, not
on the basis of coupons that might be available.
Healthy eating idea: 1. Shop on your own or with your spouse
Notice what happens when you take kids or teenagers with you for
shopping? They tend to pick up all kinds of unhealthy stuff. It’s best
if you create a shopping list based on your nutrition requirement. Leave
the kids at home. You might want to pick up one or two items the kids
love but limit the quantity. For example, instead of buying a dozen bags
of chips buy just three for the week and slowly reduce that to one per
week. Your shopping list should include foods like Chicken, turkey,
fish, peanut butter, salad leaves, whole grain bread, lots of fruits and
vegetables, low fat milk and cheese.
Healthy eating idea: 2. Stock your refrigerator with healthy snack food
Whenever we are hungry, the first thing we do is rummage in the
fridge. If we can’t find anything there we look for cookies or chips or
whatever else we can lay our hands on. So our Healthy eating idea # 2 is
depending on the requirement, make a couple of turkey or chicken or
tuna sandwiches and store them in the fridge. Similarly you can add some
saffron or strawberry to milk and store a jar of it in the fridge.
Inform your family members about the sandwiches and milk shake.
Healthy eating idea: 3. Grill or roast don’t deep fry
De-skin all your meat and remove any visible fat before cooking.
Rediscover the joys of barbeque. If you haven’t already done it yet
switch over to quality non-stick frying pan. A major advantage of
non-stick pans is that food requires less oil for sautéing or seasoning.
Also keep an oil spray bottle handy. When you need to make an omelet,
just lightly spray the non-stick pan with oil.
Healthy eating idea: 4. Reduce red meats and increase beans and legumes
You can vary your source of protein by incorporating beans and
legumes in your diet, i.e. all your protein need not come from meat
products. Most beans can be soaked in water overnight so they sprout the
next morning. Sprouted beans are even more nutritious.
Healthy eating idea: 5. Eat fish regularly
Americans do not eat fish as much as red meats. Gram for gram, fish
is leaner and healthier than any meat. Additionally, fish also contains
Omega-3 fats which are good for your heart.
Healthy eating idea: 6. Select your fruit for their water content
Fruits such as oranges, melons, Kiwi, bananas, berries, grapes,
apples etc. are high in fiber, water and nutrients. Fresh fruits pack
more nutrients per calorie than any other food. Also, because of their
high water content, you enjoy the feeling of being ‘full’ after eating a
relatively small quantity of fruit. This in turn helps you avoid
snacking on junk foods.
Healthy eating idea: 7. Switch to portion control plates and scoopers
Notice how family members heap food on to their plates? Rather than
eating just one favorite type of food, they should be encouraged to have
one or two servings of each. You can achieve this by using quality
portion control plates and scoopers. Quality portion control plates have
food demarcations on them making it easier to not only limit the amount
of food we consume, but also to eat the correct quantities from each
food group i.e. Fruits and vegetables, milk, meats, etc.
Healthy eating is not a fad; it’s a common sense requirement. Go for it.
