Try making small dietary changes, introducing more fruits and vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Cutting up crunchy bright coloured fruits and vegetables for snacks helps you get the fiber, water and antioxidants to need to stay radiant and energetic.
Eat more regularly throughout the day to assist in improving one's nutrition. Grazing, or eating six small meals as opposed to three large ones is an improvement in raising your metabolism so you can eat more and not gain weight. I always recommend this to my clients. It is important to leave 2 1/2-3 hour between meals however. With children, the Golden Rule is three meals and three snacks for them to obtain all the nutrients they need in a day, according to the DRI's.
Are frozen vegetables healthy, I am often asked. Not only are frozen vegetables healthy and packed with table-ready nutrients, they are frozen the day after picking, sealing in flavor and vitamins. Try to offer both raw and cooked vegetables as the basis for each meal; eat them fresh or steam them frozen to obtain the most nutrients.
Season dishes with herbs and spices instead of salt for delicious flavor. Get to know your culinary herbs by experimenting in the bulk food spice section. Ginger and garlic are pungent spices, warming to the body on cold winter days. Add these to soup or make into tea to keep colds at bay.
Exchanging ground turkey or chicken for hamburger meat helps lower the content of saturated fat in the diet, and is a heart-healthy option too. Try making your burritos, tacos and spaghetti with ground turkey as an alternative. This is a great invisible substitution.
Try to use healthy fats and sugars instead of refined clear polyunsaturated oils and refined white sugar, particularly in baking where it may well be invisible.
This is what I call an "invisible substitution."
How to use an invisible substitute in a recipe:
Substitute the following in a recipe, depending on whether it calls for a granulated or liquid form of sweetener, and a liquid or a solid fat. Determine whether you can substitute one for one. You can always call the nutritionist if you want to modify a recipe. Also, these days there are entire cookbooks developed for the use of these new wholesome sweeteners and fats.
Shop around. Look for ways to use Stevia, one of my favorite natural sweeteners that has 0 calories 0 carbs and 0 on the glycemic index and is an herbal product.
Good fats: olives, extra virgin olive oil, avocado, almond oil, sesame oil, coconut, virgin coconut oil; Udo’s oil, flax oil, borage oil, evening primrose oil, hemp oil, salmon oil.
Good sweeteners: raw cane sugar, evaporated cane juice, palm sugar, coconut sugar, brown rice syrup, natural maple syrup, dark molasses, raw honey, baking stevia, stevia, pure unsweetened fruit juice, sugar free jam.
Questions to ask yourself?
Will anyone notice this invisible substitution? (Do I need to say you are now eating a healthy food?)
Can it be exchanged one for one, or must the recipe be modified?
Can my kids taste buds grow to accept a sugar or fat alternative?