Archive for May, 2010
This is meant to be a kind of quick and dirty guide to what you should eat. There may be a lot of options out there for people who would like to read a healthy eating guide, but this is probably one of the more concise guides out there.
If you want to eat healthier, there are a few simple things that you can do. One of these is to remember that it is best to eat everything in moderation. You don’t want to focus on just one or two foods, no matter how healthy they might be. You need variety in your diet, and most people do better if they allow themselves a small treat or two as well. Depriving themselves just leads to binging, which isn’t good.
It is important to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, especially those that haven’t been overly processed. Fresh or frozen is definitely better than canned, but canned is better than not eating them at all. You want to try to eat as many different colors of fruits and vegetables as possible since the differently colored fruits and vegetables tend to have different nutrients.
As with fruits and vegetables, you want to try to eat food that hasn’t been overly processed in general. It is better to eat foods with fewer ingredients and more natural ingredients. If you see things like partially hydrogenated oil, or high fructose corn syrup, or anything with a number in it, it probably isn’t a really healthy food, so you shouldn’t eat a lot of it.
You want to eat plenty of fiber, so foods made with whole grains, especially if they are one of the first few ingredients, are great options. Fruits and vegetables, as long as they haven’t been turned into juice, also have a good amount of fiber, and so do beans.
Organic food has less pesticide residue and no chemical additives, so it is also healthy to eat organic if you can afford it, especially when you are eating foods higher up on the food chain, like meat, or some of the fruits and vegetables that have been found to have the highest levels of pesticide residue, such as strawberries and imported grapes. This can be expensive though, so most people can’t afford to eat just organic food.
When you are eating foods that contain fat, those with monounsaturated fatty acids, such as olive oil and nuts, are the best choices as they have a lot of health benefits. It is best to avoid saturated fat and trans fats as much as possible since these have a negative effect on your health. This concludes our short healthy eating guide.
People who want to be able to eat healthily like to be able to find out the nutrition information for the food that they are eating. This is what makes it so important to be able to find fast food nutrition facts. Even people who generally like to eat healthily eat fast food from time to time, either by choice or out of necessity. In order to be able to balance your day’s food intake so that you don’t get too many calories and so that you get close to the right amount of various nutrients for the day, it is important to have this sort of information.
The internet is a great resource for fast food nutrition facts, so if you know you are going to be eating at this sort of restaurant you should go online and check out the nutrition information so that you know what are the best options available. There are websites that are dedicated to this type of information where you can find nutrition facts for a number of different restaurants, and you can also find this information on many restaurant’s websites. Some of the newer menu items might not be included in the listings, but at least you can get a good idea. Restaurants with nutrition info online include Wendy’s, McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Outback Steakhouse and Starbucks coffee. For those who like to be able to bring their nutrition information with them, there are guides that usually include at least some menu items from fast food restaurants in them that you can buy. These are usually small books, so they can’t include every item, and they aren’t updated every year.
Unfortunately, you are going to avoid soda, or pop of any kind. Yes, unfortunately this includes the favorites Pepsi and Coca Cola.
If you can’t find the nutrition facts for a fast food restaurant, you can either avoid it or try to use common sense to figure out which items might be the best, though sometimes this can backfire. Try to keep away from anything fried, and stay away from sauces and cheese if you are trying to limit calories and fat. If you get salads, don’t use all of the dressing and don’t get salads topped with a lot of fattening cheese and meat toppings. You could decide to just order the fall back healthy turkey burger!
There has been much media hype about “super fruits” that contain large amounts of a wide variety of nutrients. These fruits supposedly do all sorts of good for the body, from aiding weight loss to anti-aging and more. However, super fruits are often exotic and expensive. How does the individual with little expendable income respond to these costly health trends?
A simple Internet search finds websites that have created fresh fruit nutrition fact labels which look just like the ones on packaged products at the grocery store and are equally easy to read and understand. These labels reveal that there are several popular, common, inexpensive fruits which may qualify as super fruits in their own right.
First, consider the ever-popular oranges. One cup of orange sections (about one large orange) contains zero grams of fat and 17 grams of sugar. Its glycemic load, a number which expresses how much a food spikes blood sugar, is a mere 6. (One’s daily total glycemic load should be 100 or less.) A cup of orange sections offers reasonable amounts of fiber and protein, 4 and 2 grams, respectively.
It’s commonly known that oranges are high in the antioxidant Vitamin C; one cup of orange sections supplies 160% of the daily recommendation of Vitamin C (as well as significant amounts of folate and potassium). What’s less known is that it has an Inflammation Factor of 9, with one’s daily target being 50 or higher. Thus, oranges are mildly anti-inflammatory, a property not often seen in other fruits because their antioxidant content is insufficient to offset their sugar content (antioxidants are generally anti-inflammatory, but sugar is inflammatory). We can’t forget how important this fruit is in the food pyramid. Apples and the almighty cherry need mention too.
One should not underestimate the importance of a fruit’s Inflammation Factor in qualifying it as a super fruit. Inflammation increases one’s risk of heart disease and diabetes, two of the deadliest non-communicable diseases in the U.S. There are two other common fruits besides the orange which are anti-inflammatory: pineapple and cantaloupe.
The nutritional values of pineapple and cantaloupe are surprisingly similar to the orange’s. One cup of pineapple or cantaloupe chunks contains zero grams of fat, 16 grams of sugar, 2 grams of fiber and 1 gram of protein. The glycemic indexes of pineapple and cantaloupe are 6 and 5. A cup of pineapple chunks supplies an impressive 131% of one’s recommended Daily Value of Vitamin C, with cantaloupe not far behind at 108%. However, their Inflammation Factors are particularly impressive: 65 for pineapple and 76 for cantaloupe.
One doesn’t have to search the world or spend a lot of money to find super fruits. With their low glycemic indexes and high antioxidants, nutritious oranges, pineapples, and cantaloupes can help one maintain weight and overall health.
Being conscious of your own health is paramount in order to decrease the onset of diseases and enjoy good quality of life as long as possible. There are many ways to live a healthy lifestyle including incorporating healthy eating plans into your daily life. These type of plans are not hard to design, as long as you have access to the proper resources.
One of the best resources available for reference is the United States Department of Agriculture which gives information on how much food should be eaten from the basic food groups on a daily basis, otherwise known as the food pyramid. For instance, for optimum health, each day a person should eat a certain amount of food from each of the following groups: Fruits, Vegetables, Grains, Meat and Beans, Dairy, and Oils.
It is important to understand that healthy eating plans are not a one size fits all concept. The amounts that you will need to eat will depend on a variety of factors such as age, weight, height and daily level of physical activity. You can easily design a plan with these factors as a basis by simply typing in your information on the USDA website. You will then receive a plan that will tell you the amount from each food group you should consume each day.
You can even find out different ideas for fulfilling your daily requirements from each group by checking out the Tips section foe free. For instance, if you want some ideas on incorporating grains into your diet, you can use whole wheat pasta when you make spaghetti or macaroni and cheese. Or, you can choose to snack on popcorn, which is considered a whole grain, as long as it has no added salt or butter. Some great ideas for incorporating dairy into your diet are to make a low fat yogurt smoothie with fruit by using your blender, or to top your vegetables with shredded low fat cheese. Your best choice of meats are those that are lean cuts. Red meat, poultry, pork or fish are all good choices. If you are a vegetarian, you can use beans in place of meat. You can even make your own hamburgers from beans. Oils can be added to your diet by using low fat mayonnaise or by eating certain low fat nuts or avocados. With a little planning, you can enjoy a diverse and healthy eating plan each day.
There comes a time each day, at least once, when a person may desire to have a snack. There is nothing wrong with this behavior, however, the healthier the snack, the better it will be for the person. There are many different healthy snack recipies to be had that you can use to make your very own snacks that are low in fat and calories. One thing to keep in mind is that natural foods will most likely be the most healthy.
For ginstance, one simple thing that you can do is make a fresh fruit salad. You can include grapes, bananas, apples, kiwi or strawberry. Some fruits are seasonal, so you may be able to include different fruits at different times of the year. Another healthy snack recipe is to make your own trail mix. Making your own trail mix is simple and easy. You can incorporate almost anything as long as it is low in fat, calories and sodium. You can include whole grain cereal, raisins, a small amount of dark chocolate chips and some healthy nuts that are unsalted. These snacks are especially beneficial for teenagers or the athletes out there.
Making a list of snacks makes it easier when deciding what to eat. Now it doesn’t need to include things like grilled chicken or turkey meatloaf, but you are getting the idea of what a helthy snack is.
Another recipe for a healthy snack is to make your own potato chips. You can do this by cutting up an Irish potato or a sweet potato into thin slices. You can bake them in the oven until they become crispy, and then season them with a salt free seasoning blend.
Unsweetened applesauce, with a bit of cinnamon and shredded wheat squares makes a snack reminiscent of apple pie. You can even choose to place a small dollop of fat free whipped topping atop the concoction. Along the same lines, you can take a container of low fat or fat free yogurt and add the shredded wheat squares to it to get a combination of calcium and whole grain.
There are literally hundreds of healthy snack recipies that you can utilize to satisfy your snacking urges. You can be as simple or creative as you please when making something to snack on. Just make sure to choose food items that are low in sodium, sugar, fat and calories in order to make the best choices.