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Archive for the ‘Healthy Consumption’ Category

Everyone wants to eat healthy.

But everyone wants food that tastes good too. We don’t always equate healthy eating with good tasting food. People are often lured by fast foods, deep fried foods and foods that are high in salt, sugar or saturated fat.

But it is possible to prepare meals that are healthy and taste great.

It’s especially possible when herbs and spices are used in the recipe. Herbs and spices give a dish a more rounded fuller flavour.

When these are used, it also means that less salt, sugar and saturated fats will be used.

Cooking with healthy fats such as olive oil along with herbs gives a dish the best flavour and is also the healthiest.

It’s not complicated to do either. Many times we think cooking healthy foods is more complicated and takes more time than preparing a meal from processed foods.

Not true. You can prepare healthy foods fairly quickly, without sacrificing nutrition or flavour.

What’s important to understand is the effect that herbs and spices can have on food. By taking some simple basic ingredients and adding the right mix of flavouring, the dish is now elevated to something special.

Having an herbal blend on hand such as bouquet garni or herbs de province can also make meals special.

You take the blend and add it to a soup, sauce or other dish.

Another trick is to use herbs for a sauce such as Aioli Sauce or Sunflower Dipping Sauce. These can be used as dips or added to dishes or meals for extra flavour.

Eating healthy food with herbs is something that can be incorporated into anyone’s lifestyle.

Start by thinking about the flavours you like best from herbs and spices. Is it the piney flavour of rosemary? Or perhaps oregano’s strong flavour that we associate with pizza and spaghetti.

Or maybe it’s garlic that you love. What about the warm flavour of cumin?

When it comes to spices, most of us are familiar with cinnamon. But what about nutmeg, cloves and allspice or the liquorice-like flavour of anise? These spices and others can greatly enhance foods.

Next think about the foods or meal you love the most. Perhaps you enjoy certain ethnic foods like Mexican, Asian foods like Thai or Chinese, Mediterranean inspired foods from Italy or Greece. When you think about the range of herbs or spices used in these meals, you will be more inspired to cook them yourself.

Make a list of all the herbs and spices you enjoy and then stock your pantry. Purchase herbs in bulk from reputable health food stores to get the best prices and quality. Ask to be sure where the herbs originate from.

Remember that herbs and spices do a shelf life – they don’t last forever. Most should be used within a year of purchase. They should have a fresh scent. If they are looking brownish and there is no scent left, especially after crushing them, then they should be disposed.

One of the biggest misconceptions people have today is what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. Just because you exercise does not mean you are healthy. I hear much too often, oh, I can eat this because then I will work 30 or 40 minutes on the treadmill, jogging, walking, (fill in the blank with the exercise of choice). NO, NO, NO! Once in a while transgressions are one things, however, if you want to be healthy you need to eat healthy and exercise, the two go hand in hand.

Now, think about this, if you think this way as an adult, what are you teaching your children. Yep, that is it OK to eat junk food as long as you are active. Not only that, so many parents, say well my kids eat all this stuff but don’t gain any weight, so it is OK. NO IT IS NOT! While on the surface, you think it is, it is doing major damage to both yours and your child’s body. Think high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Remember folks the old adage “you are what you eat” applies here. We all carry over what we learn in our childhood into our lives as adults. You are setting the foundation here for a lifetime of bad eating for your child. Do you really want to do that? No, I don’t think so. So you need to set an example and start eating healthier and continue to be active. Right now the majority of children that are active are doing so through after school or organized sports activities that interest them. However, what happens when they get older, when these activities are no longer a part of his/her life. You got it, sedentary behavior because you didn’t provide the role model they needed for a healthy lifestyle. You need to provide them with other choices besides just sporting activities: walking, jogging, riding, jumping rope, aerobics to name a few.

It is one of your responsibilities as a parent to teach your children about healthy eating and the importance of activity not only as a child but as they grow into adulthood. So you need to be a good role model. We have discussed in other articles, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and walking from the far end of the parking lot. Joining a gym or having exercise equipment (bikes, trampolines, DVDs) in your home. One of the cutest things is for a young child to watch their mom or dad watching a video or working out on a piece of exercise equipment and trying to emulate them. What a perfect opportunity for you to show them how to dance, jog, jump rope so they can do something right along with you.

Next be sure you let them be active in the planning and preparation of meals. Let them give their input. Take the time to talk to them about the foods you are making and they are eating. And please don’t tell me you don’t have the time, make the time or in all honesty why did you have children!

Yes, we want our children to be active and involved. However, one big caveat here is to limit the number of activities your children get involved with. Too many children today join everything to please their parents and they are exhausted! So be realistic with their time just as you would be with yours. Be sure to emphasize to your child that they don’t have to be involved in everything. Emphasis that if they do too much they are going to make compromises in one or more activities and that isn’t fair to that particular group. Talk to them about down time. Be sure they know it is OK to relax. We need balance in our life and the only way to be sure we do is to do everything in moderation and get that down time for ourselves. Relaxing restores our balance which is so very important for healthy living.

So let’s start today to show our children that Healthy Eating + Activity = Healthy Lifestyle!

Copyright 2005, DeFiore Enterprises

Holidays and birthday parties are casual occasions to celebrate with good-natured people. If you belong in a good circle of friends who value the essence of festivities and celebrations, you find yourself thinking of how you can contribute to make the affair memorable. Happiness matters when a party is held. As a host, you want to satisfy the guests by serving good food and beverages, playing great music and offering healthy snack gift baskets that they can take home with them for further indulgence. Perhaps, you want to play some games and trivia to take these items as prizes.

Healthy snack gift baskets can include some sugar-free chocolates and low-fat goodies, oatmeal cookies and low-caloric beverages. When it’s snack time, you are most likely to indulge in junk foods. Put together fibrous snack foods like baked corn chips or perhaps a Doritos chip that actually contains some fiber. Don’t go for bulky packaging because they might be too much to consume. When it’s too much, it becomes unhealthy. Some almonds and fruits can also make a good combo of snacks to serve. Your guests should leave the party avenue stomach-filled but with a guiltless feeling. Your family and relatives should not be clamoring about how unappetizing your snack choices are when going for a Sunday picnic at the nearest family park either.

Guiltless and flourless cakes are tempting to be placed in your holiday baskets on a Christmas season. Perhaps you could create something interesting by putting together peanut butter, jelly, loaves of wheat bread and sugar-free cookies inside the healthy snack gift baskets for the kids and parents at the Family Day Affair of your beloved child’s school. Kids and adults alike are fanatics of chocolates, so to retain the essence of healthiness, you can pick some less fattening brands that you can find on the Internet. You can do a little research on the ingredients of the foodstuff you’re selecting before you can finally purchase and package them.

If you don’t have spare time to personally package healthy snack gift items, you can just directly purchase them from the nearest department store or from a trusted online shop that offers pre-packed gift items for all occasions. Your goal is to splurge healthily and let everybody savor some guilt-free dried fruits, gourmet snacks and greaseless nuts. The gift of great food shared by many is incomparable and unbelievably awesome to celebrate. Make sure you load the baskets enough to satisfy the number of attendees in your afternoon party or family picnics. For healthy refreshments, you can pick some zero-calorie sodas like Coke zero or perhaps some fruit-based juices and iced tea. Water is the safest choice, though, but make sure you get distilled bottles.

Mexican cuisine is a style of food that began in Mexico, and is widely known for its vibrant flavor and amazing decoration. Rice, beans, tortillas, and a wide variety of spices are commonly used in many Mexican dishes, along with beef, pork, chicken, and a range of different peppers. Mexican recipes vary from region to region, but many of the same original ideas are still seen all over the globe today. Mexican cuisine is typically cooked in large amounts of grease and fat, making it one of the most fattening styles of food in the world.

Although authentic Mexican food can be unhealthy, there are many great recipes available for healthy Mexican meals. One ingredient that can easily be replaced is grease, which is usually a staple when making dishes prepared with tortillas. Many Mexican recipes involve frying tortillas, such as taquitos, tacos, and even tostadas. While the fried tortillas are usually the main portion of the dish, using oil to prepare them adds unhealthy fat and caloric intake. One alternative would be using soft tortillas, such as making soft tacos rather than frying the tortillas. There are also several recipes that involve tortillas without being fried, such as quesadillas or baked tortilla chips.

Another problem that can make Mexican food unhealthy is the amount of sodium in the dishes, which gives the food the strong flavor many love. The excessive use of salt and salt-based spices can be eliminated, but the flavor can still remain with the use of hot chili peppers and fresh vegetables such as onions and bell peppers. Rice can be prepared with low sodium chicken broth rather than using salt, and bean dishes can be prepared with the use of fresh ingredients as well.

Milk is another popular ingredient used in Mexican cooking, along with other high fat dairy products such as cheese and sour cream. While these are key ingredients in many popular recipes, the dairy products can be replaced with low-fat or fat-free versions in order to lower the fat intake. Using low-fat milk in a recipes rather than whole milk can reduce the caloric intake by almost half, depending on the amount of milk and other dairy products used in the dish.

Eggs are a main ingredient found in various breakfast dishes, and although they are healthy, many egg recipes are packed full of fat and calories. Huevos rancheros, a popular dish around the world, are typically prepared using whole eggs, oil, various salsas, and fried tortillas. Egg whites can be used rather than whole eggs, and tortillas can be prepared in the oven rather than in a frying pan with oil. Fresh salsas and peppers can be added in place of salt and seasonings, and the dish will still come out tasting amazing.

With the rising incidence of obesity occurring, it is best to find healthier alternatives for many popular dishes. Because Mexican food is well known for its high fat and calorie total, it is important to try low-fat and fat-free alternatives since they still contain the bold flavor most Mexican cuisine is known for. A delicious meal doesn’t have to be full of fat, and healthy Mexican food can still taste amazing with the help of low-fat ingredients and fresh vegetables and spices.

Getting your children eating healthy food can sometimes seem to be a struggle. They see so much junk advertised on television that they think it’s normal to eat it.

Sugar gets everywhere and is probably one of the things that you consider when you’re looking at the ingredient of the food you serve to your children.

For instance, sugared water – also known as Cola – isn’t a drink that you’d normally make at home. If you were making a cup of coffee of tea, it’s highly unlikely that you’d add 7 teaspoons of sugar to it. Yet, if you are buying a commercially produced, non-diet, soft drink that’s the quantity of sugar you’d get per can.

So how do you start your children eating healthy food?

Start with weaning them off added-sugar drinks. Diet drinks have their own issues, so the ideal drink is water. Failing that, try a freshly squeezed fruit juice. Even this small change, from a high sugar added soft drink at the burger bar to water or orange juice can be a good start. After all, no matter how hard you try to get your children eating healthy food, there will still be times when they end up at a burger bar or a pizza restaurant.

When you are at the supermarket, watch out for added sugar. Be especially aware of products that shout out from the label that they are low on fat. Often the fat has been reduced, only to be replaced by sugar.

Remember that sugar often comes in different names on a food label. Watch out for these “alternative” names:

Fructose Glucose Corn syrup Brown sugar Dextrose Galactose Honey Maltose Maple syrup Molasses Sucrose

Once you start looking, you’ll be surprised how often several of these appear in the same product. No wonder it’s not easy to get your children eating healthy food.

After cutting down on unnecessary sugars, your next point of attack in your quest to getting your children eating healthy food is probably fried food. Weaning your children off fried food, or at least reducing the number of times a week that they eat food that has been fried, should be next on your list.

Often, developing healthy food habit is not as restrictive or as confusing as several individuals imagine. The first and foremost principle of healthy nutrition is simply eating a wide range of foodstuff. This is more important, since varied foodstuff make varied dietary contributions.

Secondly, vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains are necessary, since these foods are high in carbohydrates, fiber, minerals, vitamins, and low in fatty substances and are cholesterol free.

It is also better to balance between calorie expenditure and calorie intake. That is, avoid eating more foodstuff than what the body can consume. Otherwise, there is a possibility of gaining additional weight. Therefore, the more the active an individual is, the more he can eat and uphold this balance.

It does not mean that aforementioned three fundamental steps suggest an individual to sacrifice the favorite food. As long as, an individual’s diet is rich in fiber and nutrients and well balanced, there is nothing improper.

Individuals also can view healthy foodstuff as a chance to expand range of alternatives by trying some healthy food such as vegetables, fruits or whole grains. A healthy nutrition does not have to imply eating foodstuffs, which are unappealing or bland.

Benefits of Healthy Food:

Nutritious and healthy diet is very much significant for maintaining a healthy body. Healthy diet involves timely and regular food, snacks, nuts and juices. A balanced meal and appropriate food habits are essential for leading a healthy life. In due course of life, everyone forgets to take essential nutrition for proper body function, hence fall under several life-style diseases. Hence, it is necessary for an individual to understand and know about the benefits of healthy food such as vegetables, fruits and nuts.

Below discussed are some of the benefits of healthy food:

o Beetroot: It has good amount of potassium, manganese and foliate. It also contains fewer calories and helps to cure skin problems.

o Cauliflower: It is extremely nutritious and is much effective in curing several ailments. It is rich in folate and apt for pregnant women.

o Mangoes: They are very popular and largely available fruit. They are rich in potassium and good for healing wounds.

o Nutritional Values of Banana: It aids in the healing of anemia, depression, brainpower, blood pressure and constipation.

o Egg: It is nutritious and healthy food. Eggs lecithin prevents the absorption of egg’s cholesterol and other sources as well.

Overview:

Research has witnessed that, those who eat less processed food and saturated fatty items live longer and healthy life, and are very less prone to disease and illness. Good health food along with proper exercise gives tons of energy and makes feel stronger and healthier.

Good health food can assist individuals in maintaining a healthy weight. The phrase Healthy Weight is not only important for those individuals who are overweight, but also for individuals who are underweight as well. With eating healthy food, individuals can control their body weight without being underweight or overweight.

Healthy livelihood is all about understanding the body requirements and rendering it with good supplies for proper body function. Unhealthy eating habit can affect the individuals’ body severely, hence intake healthy foodstuff to avoid such consequences.