SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES AND PREPARING MEALS
Now that you’re on your way to planning your meals, you need to purchase wholesome food and prepare it in wholesome ways. Fortunately, there are a lot of tasty tweaks to make recipes more nourishing. Unfortunately, there are a lot of traps in the supermarket that might have you giving in to temptation or purchasing food that’s only masquerading as healthful.
Savvy Supermarket Shopping
If you have fallen for these health traps, you’re not alone. Supermarkets are overwhelming, and grocery shopping is not always tons of fun. Here are five pieces of bad advice.
• Bad advice #1: Shop only the perimeter of the store. The outside aisles of the store are home to plenty of not-so-healthful choices including baked goods, hot dogs, and ice cream. And if you skip the inside aisles, you’ll miss a slew of wholesome items such as canned beans, vegetables, fruits, and tuna; whole grains like farro and brown rice; whole-grain breads and cereals; spices; tea bags; and nuts and nut butters.
• Bad advice #2: Avoid processed foods. This soundbite is much too broad to be useful. Toaster pastries are processed, and I don’t recommend adding them to your shopping list. But canned beans and tuna are also processed. So are cartons of vegetable broth and quick-cooking brown rice. These are health-boosting processed foods that can make getting a nutritious meal on the table easier, faster, and less expensive. Let’s not put toaster pastries and bologna in the same category as quick-cooking oats and canned salmon.
• Bad advice #3: Choose only foods labeled natural or organic. Unfortunately, natural doesn’t have a legal definition (at least not yet), but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering one. Organic has a lengthy legal definition, but even that is no guarantee of wholesomeness. An organic cookie (regardless of the type of sugar used) is still a cookie and should be eaten in moderation. And if the price of organic produce prevents you from eating ample fruits and vegetables, your diet is much worse off than if you ate the less expensive conventional fruits and vegetables.
• Bad advice #4: When in doubt, choose the one without. We touched on this in Chapter 3, but it’s important enough to mention again. Claims like fat-free, gluten-free, no cholesterol, no added sugar, and dairy-free seem to be on more packages than ever. Labels like these have the potential to confuse shoppers into thinking that a packaged food lacking an ingredient is more healthful than another packaged food with the ingredient. That just isn’t true. For example, unless you have a gluten intolerance, there’s no reason to avoid gluten. And choosing a gluten-free product often means choosing the one with more sodium; added sugar, calories, or saturated fat; and less vitamins and minerals. Putting emphasis on what is missing distracts us from what is present—basically vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other under-consumed nutrients. Putting strict avoidance on an ingredient can also lead you astray by causing you to miss out on some nutrient-rich foods. There’s nothing wrong with small amounts of added sugars, if a little sweetness helps you to eat health-shielding foods. If manufacturers didn’t add sugar to dried cranberries and tart cherries, few people would eat them and benefit from their disease-fighting phytonutrients.
• Bad advice #5: Skip anything with more than five ingredients. The number of ingredients has nothing to do with the nutritional value of a food. What those ingredients are has quite a bit to do with nutrition, though. A quick lunch of packaged black bean or lentil soup with its 10 or more ingredients is a pretty good choice when those ingredients are beans, vegetables, herbs, spices, and cooking oil. A better strategy is to look at the ingredients to see if they are ones you can feel good about.
And here are seven tips to make your shopping more efficient and healthy:
1. Shop with a list. If you can, prepare your list according to the layout of your store. You’ll shop faster and avoid some impulse buys.
2. Carry a handbasket. If you need just a few items, pick up a handbasket, so you can’t load up a cart with tempting foods you don’t need.
3. Read the fine print. Skip the bold letter front of package claims and head straight to the back to carefully read the Nutrition Facts panel and ingredients list.
4. Avoid foods with partially hydrogenated oils. If you see this ingredient, there is at least a trace amount of unhealthful trans fats present. The FDA will no longer allow manufacturers to use these unhealthful oils beginning in June 2018.
5. Ignore “made with” claims. The unanswered question is, “Made with how much?” Many packages tout made with whole grains or made with real fruit, but it could be just a pinch of whole grains mixed with a lot of refined grains or just a dot of real fruit mixed with a lot of added sugars and colors.
6. Beware of “specials.” Usually, you don’t need to buy the full amount advertised for a special. A sign may read “5 for $5,” but you can often buy just one for a dollar. Keep in mind, too, that often the specials are for items that we don’t need. If that’s the case, leave the food in the store.
7. Check before checking out. Double-check your list to be sure that you’ve picked up everything you need. Equally important is to give a final review for each item in your cart that’s not on your list. Ask yourself if those foods are going to help or hurt your healthful eating plan.
Reading a Food Label
Deciphering food labels is one of those skills that is more complicated than it seems.
Ingredients List
Ingredients are listed by quantity. The first ingredient identified is the one that is present in the greatest amount. Look over the ingredients to avoid anything to which you may be allergic or intolerant. There may be many sources of added sugars or sodium. You do not need to identify each source of sodium because the total is listed on the Nutrition Facts panel. As manufacturers roll out the new labels, the total amount of added sugars will also be easy to find on the Nutrition Facts panel.
Shopping by the Aisles
A lot of people dislike grocery shopping. These tips for each section of the supermarket should help you make it a better experience and have you bringing home the best of each aisle.
Produce Section
Because vegetables and fruits should make up a large part of your diet, they should fill up your shopping cart, too. Most adults should aim for 1 1/2 to 2 cups of fruits and 2–3 cups of vegetables each day. Sadly, as a nation, we consume only 59% of the recommended amount of vegetables and 42% of our target fruit intake. Feel free to buy and eat a variety of fresh, dried, frozen, and canned fruits and vegetables. To get the most out of the produce section, you’ll need to shop regularly—at least weekly.
Many people ask what are the best or most healthful fruits and vegetables. Although some experts have tried to create a list, it’s really a question that has no good answer. Because each fruit and vegetable holds a unique array of nutrients and phytonutrients, our best nutrition comes from eating a large variety in ample amounts.
• Aim for every color
• Green: kiwi, grapes, bell pepper, celery, broccoli, avocado
• Red: cherries, watermelon, radish, tomato, bell pepper
• White/brown: banana, apple, pear, cauliflower, mushrooms, onion
• Yellow/orange: apricot, peach, orange, pineapple, bell pepper, carrots
• Blue/purple: plum, blueberries, blackberries, cabbage, purple onion
• Aim for a variety of types
• Melon: cantaloupe, watermelon
• Berries: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
• Stone fruits (also called drupes): apricots, plums, nectarines, cherries
• Pomes: apples, pears
• Citrus: orange, grapefruit, clementine
• Cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower
• Leafy greens: arugula, spinach, lettuce, kale
• Root vegetables: carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, parsnips
• Starchy vegetables: white potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, peas
• Buy produce at varying degrees of ripeness. If you and your family are fond of avocados and bananas, for example, pick up some ripe ones to eat now and under-ripe ones for later in the week.
• Pick up a few fresh herbs to liven up your meals.
• For convenience, buy ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook vegetables and salad greens.
• Buy the amount you truly need. You don’t need to purchase a bunch of bananas if you want only one or two. And you rarely need to purchase the full bag of grapes, cherries, and other produce packaged in open bags. As long as these items are sold by weight, simply pluck out the amount you want. If you want a very small amount of produce, make your selection from the supermarket’s salad bar. Store what you buy in sealed bags or containers in your refrigerator until you’re ready to cook it.
Dairy Case and Other Refrigerated Items
This area of the grocery store can be a calorie, saturated fat, and added sugar landmine. In general, you are better off looking for nonfat and low-fat dairy choices. These options are lower in calories (there are 150 calories in 1 cup of whole milk but 90 calories in 1 cup of nonfat milk) and provide less saturated fat. Some research suggests that dairy fat is less harmful than other saturated fats and some suggests that dairy fat is even beneficial. For now, because of the preponderance of the scientific evidence, major health organizations like the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association still recommend limiting saturated fats from all types of food. If you have a favorite whole-milk dairy food such as cheddar cheese or yogurt, eat it in small quantities and choose larger portions of other dairy foods in their lower-fat versions. To limit added sugars, choose plain yogurt, milk, and cottage cheese and review the Nutrition Facts label to select brands and varieties with only small amounts of added sugars. Flavored milk and yogurt may also be sweetened with artificial sweeteners.
They’re Filling, Low-Calorie, Nutritious, and Come in Lots of Varieties!
Yes, I’m talking about nonstarchy vegetables. They provide fewer calories than an equivalent amount of other foods—about 25 calories per 1/2 cup cooked vegetables or 1 cup raw vegetables. For this reason (and many others), I encourage you eat them throughout the day and not just at dinner. Take a look at this list of nonstarchy vegetables to see what a huge variety is available. And this is not even a complete list!
• Milk: Cow’s milk and soymilk are the only ones that provide a good dose of protein. If you like the taste of almond milk or other plant-based milk, they are fine to use in recipes and as a flavored beverage. Just don’t expect them to be the nutritional equivalent of cow’s milk.
• Yogurt and drinkable yogurt: Yogurt is made when live bacteria cultures ferment milk. Some yogurts are later heat-treated, killing the beneficial microbes. To identify yogurt with probiotics, look for the words live active cultures on the label. Choose lower-calorie and lower-added-sugar products. Strained varieties like Greek and Icelandic yogurt tend to be higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate (lactose) than traditional yogurt, but both kinds are nutrient dense. Because it is thicker, plain strained yogurt expertly replaces sour cream in dips and as a chili or baked potato topping.
• Cheese: Reduced-fat cheeses have come a long way from the days of those plastic-like slices that wouldn’t melt. You should find ample tasty and meltable varieties of 50% reduced-fat cheese and some even as much as 75% reduced-fat. When choosing full-fat cheeses, opt for strongly flavored ones like sharp cheddar, blue cheese, and feta to get a big flavor punch in a small amount.
• Butter and spreads: Use butter only now and then when other options just won’t do. A pat of butter here and there is just fine, but tablespoon after tablespoon is not. Spreadable butter-like options are more healthful choices. Look for one made with a liquid vegetable oil and with as little saturated fat as possible, and no more than 3 grams saturated fat per tablespoon. While coconut oil may be a suitable option for baking, it’s far too high in unhealthful saturated fats to be used often.
• Eggs: Eggs are one of only a few foods that are rich in cholesterol and low in saturated fats. Today we know that saturated fats are the bigger culprit in high blood cholesterol levels. However, this doesn’t mean that very high intakes of cholesterol are okay. Eggs are a good source of protein and several other nutrients, so feel good about eating an egg or two. There are many types of eggs on the shelves, all of which are good choices. If you’re not planning to fully cook your egg (like a poached or soft boiled egg), the federal government advises buying pasteurized eggs, which have been treated in a hot water bath to destroy illness-causing microbes.
• Dips: Making your own dips is often a good idea, but there are still some good choices to be found in the supermarket. Hummus is one of those. Carefully reading food labels will help you find others.
Deli Case
There’s no need to avoid the deli case. It can be a terrific option for getting a quick sandwich or no-fuss dinner together.
• Sandwich meats vary significantly in nutritional quality. Two brands of lean turkey breast may have very different ingredients lists. Look for a product that contains meat and spices only. Avoid meats with fillers that dilute the protein and other nutrients while offering little to the taste and texture.
• Sodium runs high at the deli counter. Look for lower-sodium products, which are frequently still as much as 300–400 mg sodium per serving.
• Limit ham, bologna, salami, hot dogs, sausage, and other highly processed meats because they are linked to an increased risk of colon cancer.
• A few lighter cheese options are light Havarti, Jarlsberg light, and Alpine Lace Swiss.
• A rotisserie chicken is a good option to get dinner on the table quickly. Just keep in mind that the sodium is likely quite high, so balance your meal with lower-sodium sides.
• Unless the nutrition information is available for salads and other sides, it’s best to skip them or limit them. Traditional macaroni salad, ambrosia, and others often have several hundred calories in a large serving. A few good options (but still watch your portion sizes) are bean salads, vinaigrette-based vegetable salads, and whole grain–based salads like those made with wild rice or quinoa.
Sugar or Alternative Sweeteners?
When you read food labels, you’ll notice that quite a lot of foods contain added sugars. You’ll find them in breads, yogurt, cereal, and peanut butter, in addition to the usual suspects like ice cream, cookies, and candy. A lot of people wonder if it’s better to use artificial or nonnutritive sweeteners instead of added sugars. Many people worry about making a safe choice. I think that either choice is fine—if the amount you use is small. The American Diabetes Association, FDA, and other health organizations have found artificial and nonnutritive sweeteners are generally safe. Additionally, a little sugar in a nutrient-dense food like yogurt is unlikely to hurt you. But if you consume sugary drinks or foods several times daily, then you will surely get too many calories or too few nutrients, or both. Artificial or nonnutritive sweeteners can take the place of sugar in some of your beverages and foods, but they will help you lose weight only if you cut calories at the same time. Small amounts of either added sugars or alternative sweeteners can fit into a health-boosting, wholesome diet.
Meat and Fish
When it comes to red meats and poultry, lean is king because the saturated fats in fatty meats are linked to both insulin resistance and heart disease. Fish is another story. Fatty fish are known to be a heart-healthy choice because they contain omega-3 fatty acids.
• The leanest cuts of beef have loin or round in the name, such as tenderloin and eye of round. The leanest cuts of pork have loin in their name.
• Buy only skinless poultry or dump the skin at home (before or after cooking) to save half the fat. But don’t feel that you are stuck with white meat only. Although somewhat higher in calories and saturated fat, chicken and turkey thighs are still nutritious choices.
• Choose ground meat that is at least 90% lean. Usually 90–96% lean works well in tacos, spaghetti sauce, and the like. Read labels for ground turkey also because turkey is often ground with the skin, which adds extra fat.
• All fish and other seafood are good choices. Pregnant women, breast-feeding women, women who might get pregnant, and children should limit albacore tuna and avoid fish that is highest in mercury: tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico, shark, swordfish, and king mackerel. Most often, choose fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which includes salmon, trout, bluefish, herring, halibut, sardines, and tuna.
Freezer Aisle
Stock up on wholesome freezer items when the price is right.
• Keep a few healthful frozen meals on hand for when you need a quick lunch or dinner. Use the following as a general guide.
• No more than 500 calories (400 or so for weight loss)
• No more than 3 grams of saturated fat
• 0 grams of trans fat
• No more than 600 mg of sodium, but preferably less than 480 mg
• At least 3 grams of fiber, but preferably 5 grams or more
• At least 14 grams of protein, but preferably 25 grams or more
• Enjoy a wide variety of frozen fruits. The ingredients list should have fruit only. Smoothies are thicker and creamier when made with frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit and ice. Berries, grapes, bananas, and others straight out of the freezer make a tasty dessert or cooling snack, too.
• Keep several types of frozen vegetables on hand, since they are as nutritious and sometimes even more nutritious than fresh options. Vegetables should be the only ingredients. Heat them for a quick addition to your meal. Add them to soups and stews or mix them with whole grains for a hearty, nourishing side dish.
• Frozen shrimp and individually wrapped fish fillets defrost quickly under running water, and using these items can help you get a meal together quickly.
• When choosing ice cream and other frozen desserts, it’s smart to buy items in individual servings. Try popsicles, ice cream bars, ice cream sandwiches, and individual slices of pie or cake. Read labels carefully to make sure these treat foods fit your health goals.
Breads
Whether it’s sandwich bread, a pita for scooping hummus, or an English muffin for breakfast, most of your breads should be made of whole grains. Head straight to the ingredients list. Ideally, you will see whole wheat, whole oats, whole barley, brown rice, or other whole grain as the first ingredient. Enriched wheat flour is just another way to say white flour. Another way to identify whole grains is to look for the Whole Grain Council’s yellow-gold Whole Grain Stamp on the front of the package. One version of the stamp identifies products that are 100% whole grain. A second version identifies products that contain at least one-half serving (8 grams) of whole grains.
• Don’t let color confuse you. Some breads are brown because of molasses or coloring. And some light-colored breads are made of white whole-wheat flour, which has many of the same nutrients as other whole-wheat flour. White whole-wheat bread, however, does not have the same phytonutrients as traditional whole-wheat bread. Still, it’s a wholesome choice, especially for people who prefer softer breads.
• Look for small rolls, pita breads, sandwich bread, tortillas, and bagels, particularly if you’re watching your weight. A reasonable serving is 1 ounce, and you should be able to find ample choices for 70–90 calories per 1-ounce serving. Be cautious when selecting bagels. Even small ones can be more than 3 ounces, and large bagels could weigh as much as 5 ounces—the equivalent of 5 slices of bread.
• There are no hard and fast rules for choosing breads, but a good rule of thumb is to select products with at least 1 gram of fiber for every 50 calories. Even more fiber is better.
Crackers, Cereals, and Packaged Snacks
Use the same guidelines as above for selecting whole-grain products. And again, look for at least 1 gram of fiber for every 50 calories. If your cereal has 150 or so calories in a serving, it’s good to have at least 3 grams of fiber.
• When comparing various flavors or brands, be sure to take note of the serving sizes. They may not be the same.
• Choose brands with fewer grams of added sugars. You’ll find this information on the Nutrition Facts panel on the new food labels.
• Quick-cooking or long-cooking hot cereals are typically a better choice than instant hot cereals because the instant varieties tend to be much higher in sodium.
• Be on the lookout for junk food masquerading as healthful. A “breakfast cookie” is usually just a cookie with a bit more fiber or vitamins. Depending on how they’re made, kale chips might top the scale on sodium and saturated fat. And cereal bars made with real fruit might actually contain more added sugars and flavors than real fruit.
• A few good choices in the snack aisle are nuts; dehydrated beet chips; roasted chickpeas; popcorn; whole-grain crackers; fruit leather made of 100% fruit; dried fruit; bars made of whole grains, dried fruit, nuts, and spices and little or no added sugars; and chips in 1-ounce packages.
Packaged and Canned Foods
Despite their bad reputation, canned foods are not necessarily overly processed or unhealthful. In fact, canned and other packaged foods can be quite wholesome and helpful in preparing tasty, convenient, affordable, and speedy meals. I’ve known people to avoid packaged groceries only to rely on less healthful fast food and other takeout when they’re short on time. Use the same guidelines described for other types of groceries: carefully review serving size and calories; compare brands for sodium, saturated fat, and other nutrients of concern; and generally, select items that more closely resemble their natural state. If your family isn’t ready for all no-salt-added canned goods, ease them slowly toward less sodium. Combine packages of regular canned vegetables with one without added salt. The result is much less sodium without much notice.
• Beans: Keep these on hand for stews, soups, and salads. If buying beans with added sodium, drain and rinse them before use to wash away about 40% of the sodium.
• Lentils: You might find bags of uncooked lentils near canned and uncooked dry beans, or your store may keep them near the rice and other grains. Uncooked lentils are a type of fast food. Unlike dried beans, they don’t need to be soaked before cooking. Plus they cook fairly quickly. Red lentils can make it to the table in as little as 15 minutes. Green and brown lentils may cook for as long as 45 minutes. All lentils are powerhouses of nutrition. They give us resistant starches, fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and plant proteins. For extra ease, look for canned lentils.
• Fish and other meats: Make a quick sandwich or salad with tuna and salmon in cans or sealed pouches. To get a little extra calcium, choose salmon with the bones. To limit mercury (see page 112), opt for light tuna more often than albacore tuna. Feel free to select tuna packed in water or in oil. You’ll likely use less mayonnaise or other binder if your tuna is oil-packed. Sardines are another good choice to add to salads or to place on top of crackers. Canned chicken is convenient as well, although it tends to have additives that may affect flavor and texture in desirable or undesirable ways. If you prefer to keep chicken on hand for those times when you need an impromptu speedy meal, canned chicken will serve you well. If you have the time to stop at the store, a rotisserie chicken is also a good option.
• Tomatoes and tomato sauce: Tomatoes are so versatile! Use them in soups, stews, casseroles, pasta dishes, and with beans, lentils, chicken, fish, beef, and more. Try mixing up lower-sodium and regular products.
• Tomato paste in a tube: These handy tubes deliver as little or as much as your recipe requires. Once opened, store them in your refrigerator until next time. This product is terrific when you are eating more vegetarian meals because tomato paste provides a strong meaty flavor to beans and other vegetables.
• Vegetables: Canned green beans, jarred roasted bell peppers, and marinated artichoke hearts are just a few options. Buy canned vegetables for a side dish, to add to recipes, and for salads and sandwiches.
• Fruits: No-sugar-added selections are best. If you can’t find canned fruits with no sugar added, eat the fruit and leave the heavy syrup behind.
• Soups: The sodium content can be sky high in soups, so compare labels. Pick up some prepared broth as a base for soups and to cook brown rice and other whole grains. Try simmering your whole grains in half water and half broth to boost flavor and moderate sodium. Keep a few cans of bean or lentil soup on hand to serve as part of a meal. Typically, broth-based soups are a better choice than creamy soups.
• Nuts and nut butters: Ideally, peanut butter, almond butter, and others should have no ingredients other than nuts and salt. All nuts are good for you, so aim for a variety. When choosing nuts, oil-roasted and dry-roasted are too similar nutritionally to make a big difference. Choose the one you prefer. Ground nut flour is nutritious and tasty in cookies and cakes, but the calories are high, so watch how much you eat. Powdered peanut butter is made from roasted peanuts that have been pressed to remove a lot of the fat before grinding into a powder. The result is a lower-fat and lower-calorie product that you can add to oatmeal, smoothies, and Asian sauces.
• Whole grains: There’s a whole world of whole grains out there. If you haven’t tried many, I encourage you to challenge yourself every couple of weeks to pick one new whole grain or new way to eat it. Common whole grains are brown rice, wild rice, corn, popcorn, as well as products like pasta and bread that are made with whole-wheat flour. Less commonly eaten, but typically available, are quinoa, black rice, red rice, sorghum, farro, buckwheat, barley, and wheat berries. You can eat any of these in place of pasta or plain rice, add them to soups, mix them with vegetables, or use them as a foundation for a grain-based salad. To save time in meal preparation, pick up some quick-cooking or ready-to-eat whole grains. Quick-cooking whole grains may have been parboiled to reduce cooking times. Ready-to-eat whole grains are often sold in microwavable pouches and can be heated in 90 seconds or so. Double-check the sodium content to make sure it’s at a reasonable level. Combinations of whole grains or whole grains and beans are also on the shelves. Again, look at the Nutrition Facts panel and ingredients list to assess the quality of the product. When it comes to pasta, whole-wheat pasta is a good choice. Like reduced-fat cheeses, they have gotten much tastier in recent years. You might want to try other whole-grain pastas, too, especially if you are intolerant to gluten. Look for pastas made from quinoa, rice, or buckwheat.
• Bean-based pastas: You can find pastas made of chickpeas, edamame beans, black beans, and others. Typically, they are higher in both protein and fiber than traditional pastas, but they are not usually lower in calories.
• Cooking oils: Liquid cooking oils are best for regular use. Canola oil has the lowest saturated fat content and the highest omega-3 fatty acid content. Olive oil has the highest amount of monounsaturated fatty acids. Extra-virgin olive oil has unique phytonutrients that may reduce inflammation. There is some controversy about extra-virgin olive oils and whether or not some products actually meet the high quality standards of extra-virgin olive oil. If you are concerned, look for a bottle with a quality seal such as the one from the California Olive Oil Council or the International Olive Oil Council. Save walnut oil and flaxseed oil for salads and other uncooked uses. They are not stable enough for high heat.
• Vinegars: Pick up a couple of different types to boost flavor in your cooking and to create tasty, healthful vinaigrettes. Having at least red wine vinegar and white wine vinegar is helpful. My favorite specialty vinegar is aged balsamic. There is nothing quite like it, with its sweet taste and thick, syrupy consistency. It’s perfect for drizzling over salads and fruit and for making all types of sauces. In a pinch, you can use regular balsamic vinegar by reducing it on the stove, first by bringing it to a boil and then simmering it until it’s reduced in volume by half or more.
• Condiments: Sodium and added sugars are the likely traps here, so give the labels a careful look. Soy sauce is especially high in sodium. Choose a lower-sodium version, but compare brands first. Although it’s quite high in fat, mayonnaise is made of healthful liquid oils like canola oil, so there’s no need to avoid mayo. To save calories, choose a reduced-fat version and keep your portion small. Both Dijon mustard and horseradish add pizzazz to salads, vegetables, beef, chicken, and more. So does sriracha or other hot sauce. Jarred or refrigerated salsas also add interest to a variety of foods when you don’t have the fresh ingredients on hand or the time to make your own. Salad dressings vary hugely in calorie content, with some as little as 50 calories per 2-tablespoon serving and others offering up three and four times that amount. If you’re not up to whisking your own dressing, choose one that’s lower in calories, saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars. Avoiding dressings that include cheese or bacon is a good start. There’s no need to pick fat-free dressings, since some fat helps you absorb more nutrients from your other foods. Just be sure your choice is rich in healthful unsaturated fats and not the unhealthful saturated type.
• Herbs and spices: Herbs and spices are a necessity, starting with salt and pepper. For better taste, choose a coarse salt like kosher or sea salt. Because the flakes are larger, they have less sodium by the spoonful. These salts are not lower in sodium, however, than regular iodized salt when you measure them by weight—only when you measure them by the spoonful. Black pepper is tastier when freshly ground, so a peppermill is a good idea. But it’s not always convenient when you need more than just a bit. For that reason, I buy high-quality coarse ground black pepper in a jar. If you like spice blends, read the labels carefully to pick up salt-free versions. For example, some brands of lemon pepper list salt as the second most prevalent ingredient. Surprisingly, the pricier specialty stores are often the least expensive places to buy spices. That’s because you can often buy them in bulk and purchase only a spoonful or two. If you’re trying out new seasonings or need just a bit for a special recipe, visit a store that sells them in bulk. Save your empty spice jars to store your bulk seasonings.
• Beverages: When it comes to beverages, the biggest problem for much of America is the amount of calories and added sugars in their glass. Generally, I recommend water as the go-to beverage. But, of course, other drinks have their place. Look back to the section on dairy to review options for milk and milk alternatives (page 107).
• Fruit juice: Although it gets a bad reputation, 100% fruit juice usually provides the same phytonutrients present in whole fruit. Typically, the only thing lacking in juice is some or all of the dietary fiber. The problem comes when a person drinks a large amount. A small orange is the equivalent of only 1/2 cup orange juice. Too often, someone drinks a large 12-ounce glass or 20-ounce bottle of juice, which is the equivalent of three to five small oranges. For many of us, that’s just too many calories in a drink. A 4-ounce glass of fruit juice provides health-boosting phytonutrients and can fit perfectly into a balanced diet.
• Vegetable juice: Tomato juice and vegetable juice blends like traditional red V8 are loaded with nutrients, are low in calories, and are very filling. Compare bottles for sodium. If the low-sodium variety lacks taste, mix the low-sodium and regular varieties together or amp up the flavor with lemon juice, black pepper, horseradish, and a celery stick.
• Sodas: Most of America’s added sugars come from sodas, energy drinks, and sports drinks. Few people other than individuals who exercise intensely benefit from sports drinks, and no one needs sodas or energy drinks. A 20-ounce bottle of regular soda has about 15 1/2 teaspoons of sugar! If you want a cola, ginger ale, or any other soda, it’s best to have the diet version with no sugar and no calories.
• Seltzer water: Pick a few varieties to give you a fizzy drink without the calories and sugar. Flavors range from traditional lemon or lime to more exotic blackberry cucumber and kiwi watermelon. Double-check labels to make sure they are calorie free or nearly calorie free. You can also make your own calorie-free soda at home with a countertop soda maker.
• Tea: Choose tea bags or loose tea, but skip bottled teas most of the time—even the calorie-free varieties. Drinking tea is associated with diabetes prevention, reduced risks of heart attack, and perhaps even improved brain health, greater bone formation, and cancer protection. Black, green, white, and oolong teas come from the same plant and contain health-shielding phytonutrients. Drink the one you prefer, or drink a variety. Bottled teas contain little, if any, phytonutrients. Herbal teas come from other plants. Many of them have also been studied for their disease-fighting properties. Hibiscus tea, for example, may help reduce blood pressure. Consider that some herbs interact with medications, are not recommended during pregnancy, or could have undesirable health consequences. If you have any concerns, bring them to your health care provider.
• Coffee: As you saw in Chapter 3, drinking coffee is linked to less risk of type 2 diabetes. In the supermarket, choose any kind of coffee you prefer other than prepared or instant coffees with added sugars or cream. Regular, decaf, plain instant, whole bean, or ground coffees are all fine. Remember to brew your coffee with a paper filter most of the time to remove the cholesterol-raising compounds.
Cooking for Health
Without a doubt, when you prepare your own meals, you have the most control over your nutrition as well as the taste of your food. To make the most of your time in the kitchen, you’ll need basic cooking skills, a collection of recipes, techniques to modify less healthful recipes, and perhaps a few specialty kitchen tools.
Get Confident and Competent in the Kitchen
The best way to learn to cook or to improve your cooking skills is to cook. It’s okay to feel nervous or even have a sense of dread. Just get in the kitchen and get messy. I promise that you’ll find something about it that you like. For a faster and more structured path to success, check out local colleges, community centers, and cooking schools to see what cooking classes are offered in your area. Some places will have cooking classes geared to healthful eating or plant-based cooking. Others are more general. Here are a few resources to improve your kitchen skills.
Online cooking schools
• America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School offers classes in basic skills such as knife skills, food safety, and how to use herbs. Other classes include the essentials of eggs, classic sauces, and comfort food makeovers. Most of their classes do not show techniques specifically for healthful cooking.
• The Roubxe online cooking school is more expensive than America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School, but it offers programs in general home cooking as well as plant-based cooking.
Cookbooks
• The Perfect Diabetes Comfort Food Collection by Robyn Webb, MS, is not just for people with diabetes. The book starts with nine basic recipes, including lasagna, stir fry, and meatloaf, and teaches you how to make healthful variations. You’ll learn tips for preparing lasagna with 10 variations, tacos with 10 variations, a burger with 10 variations, and so on.
• Cooking Light Way to Cook comes from the people behind Cooking Light magazine. Through 200+ recipes, you’ll learn to steam, sauté, stir-fry, oven-fry, braise, and more. You’ll also get detailed instructions on how to cut and clean leeks, slice beef into strips, seed a chile pepper, and perform many other confusing kitchen tasks.
• Cooking Light Way to Cook Vegetarian covers preparation techniques and recipes for eggs, tofu, tempeh, and a variety of beans and grains. Other techniques include assembling a strata, marinating tofu, and blanching vegetables.
• How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman is one of the fattest cookbooks on my shelf. Its 900+ pages are filled with recipes as basic as baked potatoes and roasted chicken and as complex as Barley “Risotto” and Chicken with Indian Spices and Yogurt. Although the recipes are not specifically created with health in mind, the book is thorough with its useful descriptions of how to buy and use various types of food and perform basic cooking techniques. Bittman covers cooking soup, vegetables, thin fish fillets, thick fish fillets, and more. It’s a worthy guide despite the hefty number of recipes to avoid, such as fried chicken and hot cross buns.
• How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman covers just about everything meatless including soups, eggs, tofu, pasta, grains, and legumes. Some recipes are too rich in saturated fat or calories (largely from cheese), but with more than 2,000 recipes and recipe variations, there’s plenty to choose from. Also more than 900 pages, this book will teach you to grill and season two dozen vegetables, make fondue from chickpeas, create a variety of veggie burgers, and more.
Other publications
• Cook’s Illustrated magazine comes out six times a year and includes detailed recipes, cooking tips, and equipment reviews. This magazine will help you develop new skills, although the recipes are not specific to healthful eating.
• The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg will help you boost your good cooking skills with new flavor profiles. There are no recipes in this book, so you are expected to already know how to cook. But use this book to up your game. Simply look up a food you want to cook and find suggestions for flavor matching from expert chefs. For example, you’ll see that plums work well with arugula and prosciutto or matched with ginger and raspberries. Brussels sprouts taste great with lemon juice and thyme, and clams pair nicely with basil, garlic, and tomatoes. The Vegetarian Flavor Bible by Karen Page similarly matches flavors with non-meat foods.
Expand Your Recipe Repertoire
In Chapter 5, you were advised to start a healthful recipe collection. It’s smart to add to the collection on a regular basis. The resources above are filled with recipes and recipe ideas, but if you just can’t decide what to prepare, try to expand on your family favorites. If your family enjoys tacos, why not look for recipes for fish tacos, taco soup, and other foods along that theme? Chili fans? You should be able to find healthful recipes for chicken chili, black bean and butternut squash chili, three-bean chili, lentil chili, and so many more. In fact, later in this chapter, you’ll see recipes for taco soup and lentil chili. If you have other favorite flavor combinations, look for ways to use them in different types of foods. You can borrow the ingredients of a Margherita pizza (tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese) to create a salad or sandwich. Or use Greek salad staples (cucumber, onion, feta cheese, and olives) to spice up chicken or fish or to create an omelet. The possibilities are endless. If you try something new and love it, share a photo or a link on social media. Tag it with #LifestyleReset and @NutritionJill.
Strategies to “Healthify” Your Recipes and Meals
In addition to the resources above, I have several strategies to make my meals more healthful. On the following pages are 17 recipes to illustrate these strategies.
Up the Veggies
Because nonstarchy vegetables are low calorie and filling, they can help you eat a larger portion of more nutrient-dense food for fewer calories. You can trim your starch and meat servings by putting twice as much broccoli and green beans on your plate. You can try cauliflower “couscous.” Plus, you can add more vegetables to existing recipes. Load up pasta and potato salads with tomatoes, broccoli, chopped red onion, and carrots. Layer thinly sliced zucchini in place of some of the noodles in your lasagna, or stuff more veggies than meat and cheese into your sandwich.
Use Lower-Fat Dairy and Meats
A simple way to cut calories and saturated fat is to remove poultry skin, select the leanest cuts of red meats, and swap full-fat dairy products for nonfat and lower-fat versions.
Cook Meats with Acids and Moist Heat
Eating huge portions of meat, even if the meat is very lean, is not smart eating. First, if we fill our plates with steak, chicken, fish, or other animal foods, it leaves less room for vegetables, beans, fruits, and whole grains—the very foods we know help prevent chronic disease. Also, meats are a main source of harmful compounds called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). These are a group of compounds present in a host of foods, but fleshy animal products are a major contributor. In small amounts, AGEs do not harm us because the body’s defense mechanisms take care of them. In large amounts, however, they cause increased inflammation and insulin resistance. Not only do meats naturally contain AGEs, but AGEs are produced when meats (and cheeses) are cooked, especially with high heat and in dry conditions. You can inhibit the production of these undesirable compounds when you cook with moist heat (stewing, poaching, steaming) and when you marinate meats in acids or otherwise cook with acids like citrus juice, vinegar, tomato juice, and wine.
Eat More Legumes
Chapter 3 identifies key nutrients in beans, peas, and lentils and explains how this family of nutrient powerhouses can help prevent type 2 diabetes. If you don’t eat a lot of beans now, aim for one small serving a couple times per week. Start by adding them to salads and soups and tossing them with rice and other grains. Move on to making them the center of a recipe and eating them instead of meats. In fact, I’ve found that lentils beautifully replace ground beef in a variety of dishes, as you’ll see in the lentil chili later in this chapter.
Make Simple Substitutions
Experimenting in the kitchen will help you find more healthful and lower-calorie substitutions for common foods and ingredients. This chart also gives you a few ideas.
Simple Swaps
Kitchen Tools Worth the Space
Cooking is easier and more fun when you have the right tools. The appliances and utensils you’ll need depend so much on the types of foods you prepare and your style of cooking. There’s no ideal list of tools, but below are several that are typically useful. Give careful thought to how you’ll use each item before you decide if it’s worth the expense and space.
Rice Cooker
A rice cooker is an ideal appliance to cook any number of grains including oats, quinoa, wheat berries, farro, freekeh, and, of course, rice. It frees up your stove for other cooking, and it turns itself off when your grain is ready to eat.
Slow Cooker or Crock-Pot
Slow cookers are handy for stews, soups, beef roasts, and even casseroles and side dishes. As long as you plan ahead, you can come home at the end of the day to delicious smells and ready-to-eat food.
Multi-Cooker or Pressure Cooker
These handy appliances cook food quickly. An multi-cooker typically functions as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, and a rice cooker. A pressure cooker has just the one function.
Immersion Blender
Immersion blenders are also known as stick blenders and are very handy for a quick smoothie. These devices let you blend right in the pot for a pureed soup or vegetable.
Industrial-Strength Blender
This pricey piece of equipment is a huge workhorse in the kitchen, especially if you use a lot of whole foods and cook mostly from scratch. It turns nuts into nut butters, vegetables into soups, beans into purees for veggie burgers, and chicken and vegetables into chicken salad lickety-split. These blenders make beautiful smoothies, too.
Food Processor
Use a food processor to quickly slice, dice, and shred food. If space is tight, consider purchasing a mini–food processor.
Panini Press
You’ll turn an everyday sandwich into something delicious and nutritious when you slip some reduced-fat cheese along with fruits or vegetables and fresh herbs between two slices of whole-grain bread and press it until warm and toasty.
Hand Juicer
Trim salt and make flavors pop with a squeeze of fresh lemon or other citrus. Try citrus juice in soups and stews and over vegetables, whole grains, meats, and more.
Other Favorite Kitchen Tools
Here are other tools that you’ll likely use on a regular basis: measuring cups and spoons, digital food scale, heat-resistant spatulas and spoons, tongs, nonstick baking mat, a salad spinner, colanders, digital timer, digital thermometer, cutting boards, kitchen shears, vegetable peeler, and a vegetable steamer.
Recipes
You’ll find 17 recipes below to serve as inspiration in your own cooking. In each recipe, I point out the changes I made to make the dish more wholesome than a traditional version. Sometimes the calories, saturated fat, or sodium is reduced. Sometimes health-shielding ingredients are added. And some recipes involve a combination of techniques, but none is truly unique. I include them and point them out, so you can get ideas to tweak your own favorite recipes. You will see these same strategies to “healthify” recipes in plenty of cookbooks and magazines. If something seems a bit strange, keep an open mind and try it when you know there will be plenty of other foods to enjoy. That way, if you end up not liking a recipe or a strategy to healthify, you and your family won’t go hungry. Chances are, though, you’ll find a new way to boost nutrition that you can use every time you cook.
At the end of the chapter, I’ve included some sample menus, also to serve as inspiration when meal planning.
Cheers to happy, healthful eating!
Enjoy the following recipes:
Citrus and Herb Chicken Thighs
Southwestern Macaroni and Cheese