Nutritious choices made simple®
Did you know that a USDA report concludes that eating just one meal away from home each week translates into 2 extra pounds of weight gain each year for an average adult? Yikes! And yet, it’s understandable to me, since most of us don’t eat as healthfully away from home as we do when we eat at home. It’s also known that meals eaten away from home are generally higher in calories and lower in nutritional quality than those prepared and eaten at home.
The bounty of berry season is upon us! Once you’ve had your fill of berries au natural, you might be hankering for a few new and interesting ways to try berries. Nothing is tastier than a pie or jam, but there are less sugary ways to enjoy these fruity gems. Here are a few easy, delicious ideas.
Lots of times we focus more on what to eat before we exercise and completely discount the importance of what we consume after a sweat session. Light workouts don’t require anything afterward but a glass or two of water. In fact, too much of a “recovery” meal would likely negate the calories expended during an easy workout. If you’ve had a moderate to intense exercise session, however, what you eat afterward is more important because you’ll need to replace what you’ve lost during your workout—primarily fluid and glycogen (a form of carbohydrate stored in muscles). If you exercise daily (as opposed to two or three times a week), your body needs more help in recovering because it has less rest time between workouts.
Whether you call it the “Paleo diet,” the “caveman” or the more preferred “ancestral nutrition,” you’ve no doubt heard at least a little about this style of eating. The basic concept of the Paleo diet (a term coined by Loren Cordain, PhD, founder of the “Paleo movement”) is that it’s based on foods that humans relied on prior to the dawn of agriculture and animal husbandry. In other words, the food products of more modern living—including grain-based foods, dairy products, legumes, certain vegetable oils and virtually all “processed” foods—are shunned in favor of foods that our hunter/gatherer ancestors may have subsisted on, namely grass-fed meat, eggs, seafood, nuts and seeds, and non-starchy fruits and vegetables.
It wasn’t all that long ago that anything coconut-related was considered a dietary “no-no.” The fact that we are taking another look at coconut oil is a testament to the fact that nutrition is a science, and science is continually evolving. So why does coconut oil still not earn Guiding Stars, like olive and canola oils?
I’m a dietitian and I love wild blueberries, salmon, almonds, quinoa and yes, I even like to use coconut oil on occasion. These foods are frequently touted as “superfoods.” But is it really necessary to call them that? I’m weary of the over-used term “superfood.” Selecting a few foods and assigning them “super powers” seems gimmicky to me, and not in the best interest of promoting overall good health. Nevertheless, it seems that the public never tires of hearing about the next great miracle food.
Have you noticed the proliferation of “gluten-free” stickers and labels on food products at your local supermarket lately? Whether you eat gluten-free or not, my guess is that you have noticed. Frankly, it would be hard to miss the huge impact that gluten-free foods have had on the supermarket shelves in the last year or so especially.
Spring is the perfect time for sprucing up your home, but have you thought about cleaning up your diet? By diet, I’m not referring to a weight-loss plan. Simply put, your diet is what you eat—the collection of foods that you consume each day. If you’re like most folks, there is room for improvement in your diet, and now is a great time for a fresh start!