Easy Food Switches You Can Make for Your Health

In January, most of us start out with resolutions to eat better, make healthier choices, or simply to add more fruits and veggies to our diets. It doesn’t take very long for life to get in the way of our best intentions, does it?

Between vacations that tempt us to eat (and drink) too much to summer barbecues and get-togethers that tempt us with potato chips and fried chicken, it can be more difficult than ever to make healthy changes to our diets.

There are some quick and easy switch ups you can make to your meals and snacks to make them healthier, and because this time of year makes it easy to find a variety of fresh fruits and veggies, you can let your imagination run wild. Try switching from potato chips or Cheetos to carrots or celery with peanut butter. You can buy baby carrots and already-prepared celery sticks to make it as easy as opening the fridge.

Do you love starting your morning with something sweet to accompany your coffee? Apples with peanut (or almond) butter, a dash of cinnamon and a drizzle of honey is a lot healthier – and more satisfying – than your average toaster pastry. Because it will keep you full longer, you may even find that mid-morning donut a little less tempting! The occasional handful of chips or donut isn’t bad. The key is balance.

One of the easiest switches you can make for healthier eating is from canned vegetables to frozen ones. I’m talking about the plain, unadorned frozen vegetables – not the kind with a butter or cheese sauce that bumps up the calorie count! Fruits and vegetables start to slowly deteriorate after they are picked. Frozen fruits, vegetables, and even fish are frozen almost immediately after being caught, cut or picked. This process suspends the depletion of all the nutrition contained within the food, preserving those essential vitamins and minerals. The deterioration doesn’t stop in fruits and vegetables that are canned, and the nutrients are filtered out even further when the canned food is processed with high doses of salt and water. Plus, through the canning process, salt and water changes the taste and texture, which is much less noticeable in the frozen variety. While there is always an exception, most vegetables can freeze just fine and retain their nutritional value.

Don’t get me wrong — I prefer fresh produce over frozen any day, but I like to eat seasonally fresh foods. For instance, I don’t purchase fresh corn on the cob in January, because who knows where it was shipped from and how long it has been stored? If a recipe calls for a vegetable or fruit that is out of season, I like to use the frozen organic option.

Most folks seek quick, easy meals that, whether they know it or not, often run high in calories and low in nutrition. With moderation and some easy switches that won’t take up any more time to prepare, you can eat better for your health.

Until next time, eat well!

Don't Fear the Freezer

Easy things get a bad rap. It’s as if to say, if you haven’t sweated and toiled and sacrificed for something, you haven’t earned it. “Don’t take the easy way out” — How many times have we heard that?

In the world of food, sometimes a healthy skepticism toward easiness makes sense. If you’re hungry for a snack, few things are easier to get your nosh on than a bag of potato chips or Cheetos. Here, though, what you’re saving in terms of convenience you’re more than giving up in nutrition.

There are “easy” foods that can be good for you. For snacking, an apple with peanut butter is a great combination that can be prepared in literally one minute. (While peanut butter is considered healthy as-is, you can up the health quotient even more by buying natural brands, which use less sugar.) In fact, nuts in general are an excellent, easy snack food, when eaten in reasonable amounts. Or if that sounds boring, try the spiced varieties available in bulk at your grocery store.

When it comes to cooking though, one of the easiest ways to find healthy, inexpensive ingredients is to visit the frozen-foods aisle. I repeat: Frozen foods — fruits, vegetables, fish — are your friend.

It’s curious how frozen food seems to get short shrift when compared to canned food. Maybe it’s because canned food has been available to consumers longer than frozen food. Or maybe it’s because freezers are relatively new conveniences (freezers weren’t mass produced until the end of World War II). Shoot, maybe people just don’t have enough room in their freezers because they seldom clean them. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, it’s a shame, because frozen food can be an economical, convenient, and healthy component in people’s kitchens, especially during the off-season for various types of produce. Before they are frozen, fruits and vegetables are picked at the height of ripeness, when they are most nutrient-rich and flavorful. In freezing, produce retains more of those nutrients than the fruits and vegetables that were canned.

Sometimes I’ll even use frozen vegetables instead of fresh. For instance, if I want to make a black bean and corn salad, I’ll usually use frozen organic sweet corn over fresh corn because it’s available year-round. I don’t buy fresh corn on the cob in January because I know it’s been shipped from who knows where (and who knows how long it was kept refrigerated). Frozen corn, on the other hand, is picked when it’s ripe — it’s the next best thing to eating seasonally.

Canned food has its place, but in most situations frozen is better for nutritional content, and it’s still relatively cheap, especially compared to fresh produce that’s out of season. Oh, and another frozen-food convenience: It’s typically already prepped and ready to go! Try it, and take the easy way out.