Eating For Health

So many people think eating healthy means they need to cut some foods, especially desserts, out of their diet.   But I am a big advocate of adding healthier foods to your diet.   I like my desserts and I am not cutting them out of my diet.   But I also have a very healthy diet.   One can add some very simple healthy habits to their day and start to eat healthier.   One very easy way to eat healthier is to add a handful of nuts to your day.   Why a handful?   Because you don’t want to eat the entire can and a handful provides a lot of nutrients without piling on the calories.   I always tell the students in my class that Dr. Oz recommends a handful of nuts a day for good health. What is so healthy about eating some nuts every day?   Healthy fats – yes, nuts have fat in them.   But the different fats in nuts are heart healthy fats.   Nuts provide the good omega-3 fats but are low in the saturated fats that are linked to heart disease.   In fact, the Mayo Clinic notes: “Eating nuts as pa

Yogurt was so popular for many years.   And rightly so as it is a very healthy food to add to your diet.   However, in the past year or so, my husband has noted the shelf space for yogurt is getting less and less.   And the flavors we used to love are getting harder to find.   This means the popularity of yogurt is waning but this is not good news for people’s health.   Not only does yogurt provide a good source of calcium, it also provides vitamin D, a vitamin so many Americans are low in.   Recently I was talking to a health care professional and she stated how many of her patients are deficient in vitamin D.   Guess those patients aren’t drinking cow’s milk, eating yogurt and going outside.   Yogurt also provides an excellent quality protein. Consumer Reports has an excellent article on yogurts .   Why is yogurt so healthy? Calcium – Children and adults need bone-building calcium every day.   Easy to do if you drink milk at meals or have some real cow’s milk yogurt in place

Fall is the season for apples.   And apples are nutritious and an easy way to add some fruit to your day.   Health professionals, even some nutritionists, used to put down apples as they thought apples provided little nutritional value. But with more research, they now know that apples contribute a lot of nutrition. Nutritional value of apples Calories – apples are low in calories and have no fat and no added sugar.   Some people say apples have “too much sugar’.   Not true.   Health professionals want us to cut down on added sugars, not the sugars naturally present in fruit like apples.                 1 apple provides about 95 calories Fiber – so many Americans have diets low in fiber.   Eating more fruits and veggies, especially raw fruit like apples, can add some fiber to your day.   The white part of the apple provides soluble fiber.   Soluble fiber helps lower your cholesterol, especially the “bad” cholesterol called LDL cholesterol.   This is why foods with fiber are

Many times, I hear people say it costs too much to eat healthy foods.   Yes, buying fresh fruit and vegetables can cost more.   But saving money by buying fake foods like fake juice, think Sunny D, is not a healthy choice.   Fake juices don’t provide the nutrients that real juice does.   WebMD has an interesting article on “ Cheap, Healthy Foods ”.   There are food choices you can buy that are healthy but won’t cost too much.   I have had students say they can’t afford to buy fruit.   I then bring in a 6-pack of small raisin boxes that cost 99 cents.   One box of raisins a day (about 17 cents) and you added a fruit to your day.   An easy, inexpensive way to add fruit to one’s and an easy to carry snack, or addition to one’s lunch.  So easy to pack - bring a box with you for a healthy snack.   What does WebMd suggest?   Lentils or beans – One half cup serving of lentils costs about 20 cents, one half cup beans about 10 cents a serving.      Lentils and beans are both good protein so