Eating For Health

Many of us are trying to cut back on calories and thus cut back on fat calories.   But do you need some fat?   The answer is yes.    Fat is important for many reasons but one is that fat soluble vitamins need some fat to be absorbed.   Thus, you may not want to use a fat-free dressing on your salad but a dressing with some fat.   If you want to cut back on fat calories, you can choose the light or reduced fat version of dressing and not the fat-free version.    In the classes I teach, many students come up with a snack for kids of carrots and Fat-Free Ranch Dressing.   Carrots are a healthy food but serving it with Fat-free Ranch means you won’t be absorbing all the nutrients in those carrots.   Not to mention the child will be hungry in no time as carrots are low in calories and Fat-Free Ranch also is low in calories.   Are there health benefits to using salad dressings with some fat such as regular Ranch or Light Ranch ...

Everyone says to “eat healthy” but many people aren’t quite sure what this means.   To some it means Pop Tarts and Sunny D as these foods are “fortified” with vitamins.   But they are not really healthy foods as they are full of sugar, white flour and few nutrients.   Eating healthy means including nutrient dense foods in your daily diet.   Not exclusively, as we all like our treats.    But our meals and many of our snacks should be focused on nutrient dense foods.    The January 2015 edition of Environmental Health had an excellent article, Make your Diet More Nutrient-Dense.   The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics refers to these foods as nutrient-rich foods. What are nutrient-rich or nutrient-dense foods?   These foods contain the most nutrients per calorie.   Usually they are the least processed foods and foods not diluted with a lot of added sugar or added fat. What foods are considered nutrient-rich? Whole...