All-Star Summer Sausage Subs

August 3rd, 2011 by Paul Doucette in Eating Well

My wife and I are always on the lookout for healthy alternatives to foods we like. In looking for alternatives to the traditional Italian pork sausage, we switched to turkey sausage. Even though it is a much healthier alternative to the Italian pork sausage, it still contains too much sugar and sodium to be really healthy. We also tried some of the chicken sausage that was available at the time. Again, it was better than the Italian pork sausage, but still had too much sodium to really be considered healthy.

Snacking 101

July 27th, 2011 by Allison Stowell in Eating Well, Health and Wellness

I’ve been writing and thinking about healthy snacking a lot lately. This is partly because the summer is just a “snacky” time, as long road trips and full days outdoors encourage snacking (plus the heat usually zaps our appetite for big meals). Healthy snacking sounds like an oxymoron, but the reality is snacking can be a good thing. I am finding more and more, however, that people just don’t know how to snack.

Assemble Your Way to Quick Nutrition

July 21st, 2011 by Erin Dow in Expert Chef

I’ve touched on many Asian cuisines over my years as a chef, and when I’m choosing a restaurant, places that feature the fresh flavors of Asia are hands-down my personal favorite. As a chef, I’ve learned the hard way that the only way to really mess up a stir fry or a noodle dish is to cook it too long. But really, the only way these dishes can be cooked too long is if the prep work isn’t done ahead of time. The focus on fresh and minimally-adulterated ingredients means the main goal when preparing Asian dishes should be to prepare everything quickly, but that can seem frustrating when the ingredient list seems so long. Assembly line-style preparation is the key to enjoying your favorite Asian dishes without tearing your hair out. There’s a reason why you don’t see chefs at Chinese restaurants chopping vegetables and meat to order: it’s already done.

MyPlate & YOU

July 13th, 2011 by Lori Kaley in Eating Well, Health and Wellness

While the MyPlate icon is more intuitive than the previous MyPyramid which showed what we should eat on a daily basis using a triangle, the plate could still use some interpretation and education to make sense out of the recommendations regarding what to eat. First of all, what foods are included in these groups? It was not exactly clear even to me as a registered dietitian, so I dug a bit deeper and reviewed the contents of the MyPlate website. While knowing which foods are within each section of the icon is important, the real opportunity to eat healthy is to choose the most nutritious options from each of the food groups.

Tackling Childhood Obesity

July 6th, 2011 by Allison Stowell in Family, Fitness and Weight Loss

There are few topics that paralyze me the way childhood obesity does. I know…I’m not supposed to “take it home.” As a clinician, it is my job to be just that…clinical. But how can I, when I am facing a 70-pound second grader and a parent that doesn’t know where to begin?