Monday Healthy Eating, Feb. 14th edition

Nope, no Valentine’s Day post.

This week’s tip is really about a healthy lifestyle as much as it is eating and diet:

Surround yourself with positive influences, in every way, that mirror what you want to be.

What does that mean? It means that if your friends sit around and play computer games all day and eat chips and get upset you won’t do the same, pressure or taunt you to eat junk or make fun of you for going to the gym, you probably need to get some new friends. I know this sucks, and I am not saying give up friends totally; but, I am saying find additional, alternative people who value what you are trying to do and will help you keep on track. If you want to eat right and lose weight, find people who eat right and are a healthy weight or are losing weight on a healthy plan, and form a support network. If you want to be more physically fit, find people who are working on that goal or already there, too.

Surrounding yourself with negative influences can make it incredibly difficult to stay on track. It is hard to add people to friend groups, but it’s important to give yourself the best chance to succeed. If you want to lose weight, ask the person who’s done it how they did it, not the person handing you the box of Little Debbie’s.

Monday Healthy Eating: Jan. 11, 2011

Don’t eat in front of your TV, your computer, your video game console, or your book. When you eat, eat like an adult: at a table, with silverware and a napkin, taking time to enjoy your food. And, like our grandparents taught our parents, teach your kids to eat like an adult.

Why? Because study after study shows that eating while distracted means poorer food and eating choices, including overeating and empty calories.

Make your dinner time a dinner time, and your TV time a TV time. Don’t let the two intersect, and don’t let your children do it, either. Kids eat up to twice as many calories when they eat in front of the television as they do when they sit down to eat undistracted. Adults aren’t much better.

Plus, and this is important to me as an avid food lover, you should be enjoying your food, not just swallowing it. The more time you spend savoring your food, the quicker your reach satiety, so you’ll not only enjoy your food more while eating less.

Keeping It Low

There’s a lot of advice on how to keep your food budget low: buy in bulk, watch for sales, use coupons, etc. Most of it is fine advice, and I do use some of it; but, I also don’t use a lot of it. So, how do I keep our food budget low while eating really great, sustainable foods if it’s not intensive couponing and vigilant watch on sale papers? Here’s what I do, what I don’t do, and why.

What I Do:

1. We don’t eat meat like Americans. As a country, we eat far, far too much meat.  So, instead Thadd and I elect to do vegetarian meals several nights a week, and rarely eat whole cuts of anything. We use meat in a dish, not as a dish. I take that savings and put it into buying local, sustainable meats; or, short of that (usually if I can’t get it for some reason), I’ll opt for organic. When you eat a lot less of it, it becomes reasonable to purchase.

2. We recognize the difference in food as sustenance, and food as indulgence.

Sustenance (albeit yummy sustenance), Kale & Grapefruit Quinoa salad with veggie frittata:

Indulgence, roasted orange-cranberry sauce with port:

This means that we eat a lot of meals that aren’t our “favorites,” but are just fine, filling, and fairly tasty. Too many people have come to believe that everything they eat must be their favorite food. Since our bodies are designed to like high-calorie foods the most (hey, years ago we needed all those calories!), this means expensive and crappy food is topping the American “wish list” right now.  I am not saying we eat tasteless goo or anything, but we do often eat simple, inexpensive meals because they’re healthy and it’s in our budget.

3. We buy frozen veggies. Fresh vegetable are nice, but when we can’t get veggies locally (and we can’t necessarily put up everything to survive on all winter, though someday we hope to do so), we often buy frozen. They’re typically cheaper–organic frozen is often less expensive than non-organic fresh–and they’re usually healthier. Frozen fruits and vegetables are typically picked when ripe and flash frozen, so they have more nutrients than their fresh, green-picked counterparts. Since frozen rarely cooks up like fresh, these often get used as part of entrees, instead of just as sides. If I am making miso chicken, I’ll  toss in a bunch of frozen spinach at the end, for example.

4. We eat soups and casseroles a few times a week.

If it’s soup, there’s usually some form of bread on the side, but not always.  I’ve had people say “oh, but my husband/wife/children won’t eat those! It’s meat and potatoes every night–so how can *I* save money?” Um..you can’t. Not if you still want to eat healthy. Look, here’s the truth, which I’ve said before hundreds of times here: people are spoiled and they need to get over it. A few mealtimes roll around and what’s on the table is a soup or casserole or go hungry, and the household will get the idea. Refusing to eat healthy, well-prepared, and flavorful foods just because they’d rather be eating something else is childish. I’d rather be a millionaire, but I can’t stop working just because I’d rather not. If it’s a spouse, well, I’m not going there–that’ll have to be figured out between the couple. If it’s the kids, then it’s time to pony up to the Parent Table and put your foot down.

5. Legumes are a main ingredient several times a week.

Beans, split peas, lentils…all great sources of lean protein that you can prepare a hundred different ways. And, even the organics are fairly inexpensive.

6. No processed or convenience  foods. Processed foods are expensive (even if they look cheap, just look at their cost-per-pound–it’s always higher than whole foods), and lack nutrients.

7. Meal planning. I harp on this here, I know, but it really is probably the #1 thing we do to keep our budget low. Eating spur-of-the-moment, as most people do, is a recipe for disaster. Good, fast, cheap: pick two (saying courtesy of Thadd, who I believe got it from the military folks he worked with). If you want good, healthy food fast, you’re going to pay through the nose for convenience food. If you want cheap food fast, you’re going to pay the price by eating empty calories. So, the other option is good and cheap, which means it’s not fast. Planning for this is the only way to make it work.

8. Shop at my local Amish & Mennonite stores. They have the best prices and quality of grains, spices, cheese, and a lot of the produce we use fresh. Spices are often 1/2 to 1/3 what they are at Kroger or FoodLion, and they have just as large a selection of organic spices. Same thing with grains. Plus, they’re local, and that puts dollars back into our community (and, they’re great people, who are happy to do special orders, etc.).

9. Shop with a list (which was made using our meal plan). Stick to that list.

10. We keep a pantry stocked with basics. This lets us throw something together on the night that nothing went right, and to purchase items either in bulk or when we caught them on sale at the store.

11. Eat leftovers.

We do this a lot. In fact, we do this almost every day, and it’s actually part of our meal plan. We make sure to cook enough several days a week for us to eat lunch from, so no buying lunch out.

12. Make your own beverages. If you just have to have that specialty coffee or tea, make it at home. Shop craigslist or FreeCycle if it requires special equipment.

13. Keep snacks readily available.

We keep nuts, yogurt, some veggies & hummus, and the like on hand to munch on. This keeps us from doing something dumb, like ordering pizza, if we get home late and need to wait for dinner.

14. I use my slow cooker several times a week.

There are few things in life more useful for saving us time and money than our slow cookers. I have a few cookbooks (though I want more), am a regular visiter at A Year of Slow Cooking, and often just throw stuff for soup in and call it good.  I love coming home to a good-smelling house and a yummy dinner.

15. Choose foods that will keep us fuller, longer.

Whole grains and protein are they key. In the morning, we usually eat fermented oats or steel-cut oats from the slow cooker. Sometimes, we do eggs and homemade toast. We don’t do pop-tarts, freezer waffles, or the like. Not only are those foods far more expensive than our options, but both of us would be hungry within an hour.

16. Store foods when they’re in-season.

Drying, freezing, canning. ‘Nuf said.

What I Don’t Do:

1. Use coupons. About 95% of the foods we eat never have coupons. The other 5% have them so rarely that buying a paper to get them isn’t worth it. If I happen to get a store coupon for something like $1/off fresh produce, I’ll obviously use it; but, generally the things that have coupons in my area are unhealthy and expensive.

2. Shop a bazillion stores to save 5 cents. Stores here are fairly far apart, so unless I happen to be going somewhere else in that direction, driving to more than 1 store rarely pays for itself in actual money saved, not to mention I don’t have hours upon hours to drive.  Since we get all our meat, eggs, and milk from farms, there’s rarely enough price difference to warrant driving around. I do shop at a local health food store (which is also where I pick up our milk share and chickens), and the Mennonite market, in addition to Kroger. The health food store I shop at not only because I am already there, but because in this very culture-deprived town, it’s the only place I can get a lot of the ingredients I use (red lentils, etc.). The Mennonite store is a stock-up for me, when I need grains, spices, and cheese (which we freeze).

3. Buy things because “they’re on sale,” and I “might need them later.” If it’s not on my list or on the “stock up” list (we keep one of these, and have a certain amount each week we spend to do this), I don’t buy it.

4. Keep a garden. I’d love to do this, and I think anyone who can, should. We did do some herbs and greens this year, but we just don’t have a reasonable place to put indoor pots (by which I mean, a place we can keep them that my cats won’t eat them). Since we live in a rental that has really poor soil and very limited sun, and we don’t want to invest a pile of cash in doing what it would take to set up a box garden since we’ll likely only be where we are a short-ish period of time, we do without the savings. The time it would take us to recoup our outlay means we probably wouldn’t, so for us, it’s not a great option.

What do you do to eat healthy on a budget?

 

 

 

Related Articles

• 10 Winter Dinners from the Slow Cooker Recipe Roundup (thekitchn.com)
• Chef Eric Akis gives slow cooker recipes a contemporary tweak (canada.com)
• Karen Kelly: Changing the Food Landscape, One Person at a Time: Part One (huffingtonpost.com)
• In Praise of Frozen Vegetables (theatlantic.com)

Monday Healthy Eating, Nov. 22

Image via Wikipedia

Stop eating refined sugars. Right now. Cold Turkey. For at least a week.

Why? Because sugar is addictive. The blood sugar spikes it causes in your body become self-perpetuating cycles that cause hunger even when your body does not need food. I hear lots of excuses why someone can’t do this, but the most common is they “just can’t,” and they’ll “cut down.” Here’s the truth:

This doesn’t work.

Every time you eat sugar, you start the cycle again, so you need to go through the withdrawl before you add any sugar back in, otherwise it’s very difficult for most people to actually kick the habit, just like it is with smoking, caffeine, or ay other addiction. It sucks. You’re going to crave sugars, badly, for several days, and you’re going to want to eat every chocolate bar, cinnamon roll, and blob of ice cream you see. How do you deal with this? Well, the reality is you’re mostly going to have to use your willpower, but there are some things that can help you keep your resolve:

-Remove temptation.  No one cares if you’re strong enough to resist that Snickers bar you’ve got in the freezer. No one is going to be all “Oh my goodness, so-and-so is such a great person for having tempting treats all over and having the willpower to not eat them!” And, if they do, they’re ridiculous. Recovering alcoholics aren’t given kudos for going into bars when they’re first sobering up. Just get rid of the stuff.

-Buy some berries and apples. The still have sugar, but it’s chemical configuration helps keep it from spiking your blood sugar in the same way as processed sugars do. Eat these when you get a sugar craving. Really, it’s unlikely you’re going to eat enough of either of these things to equal the piece of cake sitting in the break room.

-Eat real, nutritious food at reasonable times. Letting yourself get hungry is a recipe for disaster, so keep some munchies like roasted almonds (or pecans, or roasted soybeans) and hard cheese on hand, but make sure you’re also eating real meals. This includes breakfast–no skipping!

-Be active. Activity can decrease your desire for sweets, so go outside and take a walk, or get thee to a gym and pump some iron.

-Drink water. Flushing out your body is important when breaking any addiction.

After a week, try for two. I know, it sounds impossible, but it’s not. Once you’ve done that, you’ll likely find you don’t really crave sweets anymore. You can add a treat you really like back into your diet–but keep it a treat, not a regular thing.

Why should you do this at all? Well, there’s myriad reasons, really. Sugars, especially refined sugars, aren’t particularly good for us. They raise the chances of many health problems, including insulin resistance leading to diabetes, obesity, some cancers, contributes to psychological issues such as ADD and sleep deprivation, and a host of other things. However, the biggest reason is also the simplest: they’re empty calories, and we eat far too much of it.  Cutting out the sugar helps get us on track to a healthy weight and lifestyle.

Related Articles

• Dr. Frank Lipman: No Sugar: 19 Tips to Overcome Sugar Addiction (huffingtonpost.com)

Monday Healthy Eating, Nov. 15th

Get rid of the “diet” food. Study after study shows that people who eat real food are more satisfied and actually eat less than those who are eat highly processed “diet foods.” Why? There are several reasons:

1. Real food is more satisfying, so you can eat less and still feel sated.

2. Many diet foods contain ingredients that actually make you hungrier, thirstier, or change the way your body metabolizes things.

3. People tend to consume larger amounts of diet foods because, psychologically, that seems reasonable because there are (in theory) fewer calories. They often end up eating more calories than if they’d eaten something higher in fat or calories.

This doesn’t mean that opting for the highest-fat foods is a good idea. Drink a lower-fat milk (preferably grass-fed, if you have the option), opt for leaner proteins, and use good oils for cooking (EVOO is excellent, and coconut oil is great for you–just don’t use a ton!). Eat butter instead of margarine, just use less.

They key to being healthy and to maintaining a good weight isn’t diet food. There needs to be portion control, exercise, and healthful fruit, vegetables, and lean protein. Toss out the “low fat” Oreos, and just eat fewer of them less often.

Monday Healthy Eating

Today’s healthy tip:  Keep a food journal.

I know, this seems like a big pain the butt, and it kind of is, at least initially. But, it’s incredibly effective, too. In fact, it’s one of the most effective ways to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. If you’re a techno-file, there are all kinds of apps for your Driod, iPhone, or whatever PDA you’ve got.

So, why does this work? Because if you’re not doing it, you have no idea what you’re actually eating; and, believe me,  it adds up. A food journal is one way to be accountable. Your choices are there, in black-and-white, staring you in the face.  It helps you realize that you didn’t just eat one cookie, you ate one cookie at dinner, one as a snack, some sugar and that CoffeeMate hazelnut creamer in your coffee, just a taste of that birthday cake at the office, that Starbucks’ Double Mocha (skinny, of course) on the way into the office… And, suddenly you’re aware of the several hundred calories a day many of us get and never know it. It’s harder to rationalize just “one small slice” when you have to write it down next to all the other “small” things.

You can count calories in your journal, if you want to. I recommend it as a starting point for at least the first two or three weeks. Once you figure out how much you’re eating, it’s up to you whether ton continue with the calorie counting or just adjusting your eating habits as necessary. But, don’t stop keeping the journal. I recommend also jotting down a quick bit about your daily activities (exercise, etc.), and mood.

Even if you’re not trying to lose weight, a food journal can help you stay on track with healthy eating and exercise.  A food journal, in combination with your mood and exercise blurbs, can motivate you to get out and get active, to change up your activities, to make healthier eating choices, and to be aware of how what you eat and what you do affects how you feel. It’s an incredibly useful lifestyle tool all around.

I keep mine on Fitday.com. You can keep yours in hard copy on paper, on your PDA, or online. Whatever works best for you, and makes it the easiest for you to maintain.

Related Articles

• 7 Reasons Why Keeping a Food Journal Helps (dirjournal.com)
• Is your coffee creamer silently killing you? (nutrition.suite101.com)
• How Many Calories Are In That Coffee? (newyork.cbslocal.com)
• Tracking What I Eat (DanielOdio.com)
• Michael A. Snyder, M.D.: Healthy Eating: 10 Tips to Help You Eat Smarter (huffingtonpost.com)

Monday Healthy Eating, Oct. 25, 2010

Today’s healthy eating tip:  Make convenience foods yourself ahead of time, so there’s no excuses!

Right now, I have apple-pomegranate-nut granola bars whipping themselves up in my dehydrator.  They took me a grand total of about 2 minutes to mix up, another 30 seconds to spread on the dehydrator sheet, and now I do nothing with them for the next 4 or so hours when I turn them off to cool down.  They’ve got very little sugar, tons of fiber, protein, and omega fatty acids, and no additional fat or preservatives. And they cost pennies each. Which makes them pretty much the antithesis of store-bought granola bars, which are loaded with empty calories from sugar, unhealthy fats, and things you can’t pronounce.

What’s this got to do with anything? Well, we’re all busy. Most people these days work at least one job (those lucky enough to have jobs in this economy), usually all adults in the house need to work, kids have school and a bazillion activities, and things sometimes get out of hand. This is when you’re likely to stop by McDonalds to get the kids (or yourself) a quick snack, or grab some mac-and-cheese out of a box. If that’s rare treat, then that’s totally okay. If it happens a few times a week, it’s a problem. So, this has to do with avoiding that problem.

One way I stay on track is to take a few minutes to set up conveniences foods when I have the time. The granola bars happened today both because I need them for my clients and because I had 5 minutes to spare. I keep a list of recipes on-hand, and some basic ingredients, and whip up some easy, healthy food for the pantry of freezer whenever I can squeeze it in, and it means I don’t have to resort to fast or processed foods.

You do have the time. Watching TV for an hour tonight? Take 5 minutes before your show or on a commercial to pop up some stove-top popcorn (don’t use microwave–it’s expensive, and it’s awful for you, even the “low-fat” stuff), toss it with some spritzed olive oil and your choice of spices (favorite combo of our are garlic, salt, and smoked paprika) and let it cook while you watch your show (eat some if you like, of course). Toss it into individual serving bags, and you’ve got a crunchy, low-cal, high-fiber snack for the week.  Sitting at the computer playing on Facebook? While you’re waiting for your updates, mix up a healthy meatloaf (black beans, lean ground beef, oats, an egg, spices, red & green pepper, onion, and whatever chopped veggies you want to toss in) and toss it in the oven. If you want, you can divide it up into individual serving sizes in small pyrex dishes to make lunches easier. Some of my favorite conveniences foods to whip up in a jiffy:

-Mini meatloafs

-Mini healthy muffins (there are even some decent mixes out there, and I add fruit and nuts if I use them)

-Mini frittatas

-Seasoned popcorn, pumpkin seeds, or nuts in individual packages

-Boiled eggs

-Dehydrator granola bars

-Cheese cubes (way cheaper to make these yourself than buy the pre-cuts)

-Homemade hot pockets (I use leftovers for filling), with a fat-free, whole wheat dough. You can even buy fairly healthy whole wheat pizza dough at some stores, and use that.

-Soup in the crockpot. There’s nothing faster: just throw in some beans, some broth, and a some veggies. If you want fancy soup, throw in some spices and canned tomatoes. Let it cook for a few hours, and you’ve got something easy for the week, or to throw in individual portions in the freezer for those lunches or dinners you just don’t have time to cook.

There’s more, I’m sure, but these are what I can think of off the top of my head. None of them takes more than a few minutes, and those few minutes save me hundreds of calories (and preservatives) every day.

To get started, just get a piece of paper and write down out what you tend to need convenience foods for: breakfasts, snacks, lunches, etc., and what kinds of things you’d like to have on-hand. Make a list and stick it up somewhere you can see it, and next time you have a couple of minutes, use those to help you make good food choices when it would otherwise be inconvenient.  There are tons of recipes on the internet for fast convenience foods, including some great whole-grain cookies (these are my current obsession)!

Planning is everything in making healthful choices, but you have to start in small steps. You’ve already started meal planning (right?), and this is just an extension of that, really. We’re all busy, and we all want those few extra minutes to do something else; but, it’s about priorities. “Convenience foods,” many of which aren’t food at all, are one of the biggest culprits behind obesity in this country, especially childhood obesity. You’ll feel better eating better food, and it only take a few times making healthy items for later before you have a nice little stash to choose from. Once that happens, you have to take those few minutes less often to replenish it.

 

Related Articles

• Make healthy lunches kids will want to eat (canada.com)
• Healthy back to school snacking (thismamacooks.com)
• The Minimalist: Granola Bars, Unwrapped (nytimes.com)
• Quick Healthy Meals for Busy Families (webmd.com)
• How Food Affects Your Brain 10 Facts We Now Know (losethattyre.co.uk)

Monday Healthy Eating, Oct. 18, 2010

Again, just under the wire. I was gone the latter part of last week and all weekend, and didn’t get to blog.  But, here it is, still on Monday!

Today’s healthy eating tip: Spice It Up. As Shepard Book once said, “A man can eat gooey protein his whole life as long as he has rosemary.” Or something like that. The point is, spice is life. Oh, wait, that’s Dune…

Sci-Fi quotes aside, spices of all kinds are a necessity for my healthy eating plan, and they should be for yours, too. Spices allow you to create new and interesting things from around the world! (Now, before we get started, step away from the salt shaker. Salt is not, and should not be, your primary spice.)

So, what do you do with spices? What kinds of spices should your kitchen have? How do you learn  what spices go with what food? Answers: Put them in everything, all that you can get your hands on, and trial and error.

There are the top spices, the easy ones that add something to many different kinds of dishes, and ones that no kitchen should be without: quality peppercorns, rosemary, basil, sage, nutmeg, cinnamon, oregano, sea salt, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, paprika, and probably a few others I am missing. You can toss these into almost anything (nothing makes a cream sauce pop like a hint of nutmeg), and they work with a variety of cuisines from Mexican to Italian to Creole. This is where trial and error start. Always start with a little spice and go up, because it’s easier to add more than to figure out how to counteract the overwhelming sweet basil in your tomato sauce.

Now that you have the basics, here are some of my less-well-known (at least among many Americans) spices: fenugreek (Ethiopian food), smoked paprika (Mexican, Ethiopian, Indian, etc.), black smoked sea salt (I put this in everything from eggs to caramel–seriously, this stuff would make cow dung taste good), cardamom seeds (great for scented rices and desserts), and mixed peppercorns (a deeper pepper flavor).

Really, just experiment. Spices help keep food fun, and let you create a whole variety of dishes with rich flavors that don’t have rich calories! Many spices have also been shown to have medicinal properties. Tumeric, for example, can help fight diabetes. Spices can also save you money–making your own BBQ rub, cider mulling packet, or taco seasoning is much cheaper than buying the premixed packets. And, by making your own you can skip the icky additives like MSG. So, swing by the baking isle and pick up something new.

Related Articles

• Skip Expensive Spice Mixes and Make Your Own [Saving Money] (lifehacker.com)
• 4 Spices That Should Be in Every Woman’s Kitchen (self.com)

Monday Healthy Eating, October 11, 2010

No one wants to hear this, and no one wants to do it. So, I’m going to give you two options, but you have to pick one of them to eat healthfully.

Option 1: Read labels.

Option 2: Cook everything from scratch.

I, personally, mostly do Option 2, with a little of Option 1. I don’t make my own mustard, but I do read the label. It’s up to you which you chose, or how you combine them, but there’s no easy way out of this one. The good news is that reading labels gets much less onerous as time goes on, because you begin to know which brands have the ingredients you prefer (or don’t have the ones you’re trying to cut out), so you don’t have to read those as often.  But, you do still have to read them occasionally, because formulations change.

Why read labels? Largely because if you’ve never done it you’re going to be appalled at what you’ve been eating. Once, of course, you know what “that” its. If you’re eating most store-purchased ice cream, for example, you’re eating guar gum. Do you even know what that is? I didn’t. It’s a thickener, used to keep ice cream thick but soft at deep-freeze temperatures. As weird things in your food goes, it’s not particularly offensive, but it’s also not necessary if you’re eating…well, real ice cream. If you’re buying most canned or jarred tomatoes sauces, you’re eating high fructose corn syrup, same thing with BBQ sauces and even hot dogs. In many of these, it’s the first or second ingredient (including in several hot dog brands–why do you need sugar in hot dogs!?).

Once you see what’s in the food, then you’ve got to come home and look it up, because honestly I still don’t know what 90% of that stuff is and I do this for a living. Which is why I take option #2 most of the time. It’s easier.

Some of these things, like HFCS and MSG, have pretty well-known side effects and long-reaching nastiness like links to cancer and obesity, some add extra calories, some haven’t actually been studied. Essentially, it comes down to this: you can’t eat healthy without the information to make appropriate decisions, and the only way you can get that information from a box, bag, or a can you didn’t prepare yourself is to read the label and see what’s in it, how many calories it has, and how those fit into your eating goals.

Related Articles

• EatingWell: Beware: Misleading Ingredient Names Explained (huffingtonpost.com)

Monday Healthy Eating–Under the Wire!

Technically, it’s still Monday, so this counts. Thank you  all for your patience as I work through some family medical issues.

Today’s healthy eating is a small step to a larger goal. The ultimate goal is to learn to cook flavorful, healthful meals that you and your family will eat. Seriously, almost anything you cook from scratch will be better for you than something form a fast food place or a box, even if it uses nothing but butter, cream, and lard. Ever looked at the back of one of those fast-food boxes with the nutrition panel? I have, and I am still stumped. I have actually tried to pack that many calories into a hamburger, and failed. To this day I haven’t figured out how they even get the calorie-to-ounces ratio they achieve. It’s like the literally inject straight calories into their buns or something. Anyway, the point here is that it’s hard to do worse than processed food, so cooking from scratch is your biggest help in eating right.

That, however, is a pretty big goal, and it’s easy to get discouraged. So, just learn to cook one new, healthful meal each month. That’s not so bad, right? At the end of the year, you’ll have 12 new, healthy meals. That’s almost 2 whole weeks of dinners, or 1 week of dinners and lunches!

Where to start? The easiest place to start is with an old favorite.  Take a dish you and your family already eat, and see what can be improved upon. Use the internet (Google is your recipe friend) to search for healthy recipes, or even just for a healthy alternative.  Just changing an ingredient or two, or switching from canned vegetables to fresh or frozen, can make a huge difference in calories.

Some examples:

Your favorite: Mom’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

The switch: Lean ground beef instead of fatty (grass fed if you can), rolled oats to add some bulk, dice in some green peppers and onions, and tomato paste instead of ketchup on top. Whip up sweet potatoes with some cream of tartar, and if you need some moisture use a bit of chicken stock or skimmed milk. You’ve saved a boatload of calories, and added a lot of vitamins and fiber!

Your favorite: Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread.

The switch: Whole wheat noodles instead of white. Or, if you’re really adventurous, baked spaghetti squash (cleaned from it’s shell, it’s like noodles!) A can of diced tomatoes tossed into the blender with some herbs (fresh or dried garlic, oregano, basil, and maybe a splash of red wine) and blended to whatever consistency you like.  Whole wheat bread sprayed with olive oil, sprinkled with garlic powder and a freshly ground sea salt, then under the broiler just until brown.  Serve with a green salad if it’s the right season, or toss some kale, chard, or frozen green beans into the spaghetti.

You get the idea. Switch Greek yogurt for sour cream or cream, blended cottage cheese for ricotta in stuffed shells or lasagna, add a few veggies here or there…this doesn’t have to be complicated.

What if you don’t cook? That’s a different story. That means there’s no “old standby” favorites to start from, and you’ll have to learn from scratch. Don’t worry–in some ways, that’s actually easier, because it means no bad habits to unlearn, right?

So, how do you get started if you don’t already cook? Start simple. Possibly whole wheat pasta tossed with rosemary olive oil and vegetables, or maybe a quick stir fry over brown rice. It can even be something like chicken salad over greens, or you could do a breakfast (I like fermented oats, which I know sound awful, but are dreamy). Don’t go crazy until you’ve got one or two simple, easy, go-to recipes down. Once you feel like you can maybe do more, then absolutely do more!

Related Articles

• Meatless Monday: Here’s How You Can Do It (biggreenpurse.com)
• Menu Plan Monday 9/27 (frugalupstate.com)
• Telling people to eat more vegetables has been a miserable failure (futurepundit.com)
• The October edition of the This Mama Cooks! healthy food and diet posts carnival (thismamacooks.com)
• 5 Recipes, 1 Ingredient: Whole-Wheat Pasta (healthnews.ediets.com)
• Weekend Menu Planning: Try Something New with Eggplant (blogher.com)
• Meg Wolff: A Plant-Based Meal Inspired By Bill Clinton (huffingtonpost.com)
• Creativity in the Kitchen (groupon.co.uk)