By @Deb_Lowther
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| Water with frozen lemon wedges |
Learning healthy eating habits is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your family. Understanding that healthy food matters and
healthy choices do taste good is vital to maintaining a healthy
lifestyle for our children as they grow.
There are many easy and beneficial changes you can make now that will create healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime.
Don’t
reinvent your grocery shopping list all
at once, try some of these simple changes to make your daily diet
include healthier foods. Take recipes you love like pancakes or
spaghetti and look for ways to make them healthier by adding fiber from
whole grains or nutrients from vegetables. Without even thinking about
it you will start enjoying the benefits of healthy eating.
7 Ways to Start Eating Healthier
Water
- Drink it.
Drink
lots of water. Replace pop, juice, flavoured waters, fizzy drinks
– all of it – with water. If you need something to jazz up boring water
add cucumbers, frozen lemon wedges, or strawberries. Even try freezing
berries or lemon into ice cubes and pop in your glass when you refill.
A pretty drink tastes yummier.
Peanut Butter
- Go natural.
Natural.
As in one ingredient on the label. Peanuts. Yes it tastes different
without the hydrogenated oil and added sugars but add sliced bananas or
apples, a trickle of maple syrup or honey and your kids will love
it. Peanut butter is a healthy protein to add to any snack but only
when it is natural.
Grains
- Go for whole.
Whole grain
bread, whole grain pasta, whole grain cereal, whole wheat flour, and
brown rice. Remove white starchy everything from your pantry. Add
whole grain oats to everything you bake, make kids lunches with whole
grain bread, use
whole wheat flour in waffles or pancakes, top whole grain cereal with sweet fruit instead of buying sweetened cereals.
Almonds
- Go Nuts.
Full
healthy monounsaturated fats, almonds are a great snack. Buy them dry
roasted or make your own if plain blanched almonds do not
have enough flavour. Add to salads, grind up in your morning smoothies,
crush to coat fish or chicken and serve with cheese and orange slices
to add protein to snack time.
Salad Dressing – Say Yes to Yogurt.
Switch
to yogurt or vinegar based dressings. Yogurt based creamy dressings in
the refrigerated section of the grocery store have only 1-2 grams of
fat per tablespoon compared to a whopping 7 tbsp in most ranch
dressings. Better yet, make your own dressing with rice wine
vinegar, balsamic vinegar, a little extra virgin olive oil and use
Dijon, lemon or pressed garlic for flavour.
Speaking of Yogurt – Buy Wise.
The
yogurt isle is quickly becoming the most confusing stop in the
grocery store. Beware of ‘fat free’, as it usually means artificial
sweeteners and flavours have been added to keep the taste after they
have removed all the fat. Try Greek yogurt that has more protein, less
sugar and all the calcium and add your own berries or honey to flavour
and sweeten naturally.
Add Vegetables – To Everything.
I
am long past pureed baby food, but having a stock of pureed squash,
zucchini, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli and carrots in my freezer makes
it easy to turn everyday mac n cheese into a healthy meal or otherwise
guilty brownies into a healthy snack. Toss in puréed squash and zucchini to spaghetti sauce or even when
baking your favorite muffins and a 1/2 cup pureed cauliflower goes great in scrabbled eggs or quiche!
The
idea of healthy eating as a lifestyle is not to restrict what you can
and can't eat but to improve the ingredients of your everyday food
and drinks and turn them into healthier meals the whole family will
enjoy.
More about Deb: Deb Lowther is a mother of 3 young daughters who,
when not running after the kids, is running in the trails. She contributes
Family Health articles to many websites and magazines and ensures her own
family has fun while eating healthy & staying active. Find more
inspiring tips on her website http://www.raisinghealthykids.co and follow
her on both Twitter @Deb_Lowther and Pinterest.
