Choosing Healthy Foods

Salt is found in more food products than you may realize. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that American's should consume fewer than 2,300 milligrams (mg) per day of salt (this is slightly less than 1 teaspoon of salt). Adults age 51 and older, African Americans of any age and people with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease should reduce their sodium intake to 1,500 mg a day. These new dietary guidelines emphasize the importance of making meals and snacks from scratch versus choosing processed foods too often. The most common salts available are table salt, sea salt and kosher salt with the major differences among these being taste, texture, and processing. Kosher and sea salt have a larger course grain providing more air space, which in turn provides less sodium when used in place of table salt. The chefs in our kitchen across campus use kosher salt in their recipes to provide an overall reduced amount of sodium. Using items lik...

with Northeastern campus executive chef Tom Barton Building flavors and making sure our foods are seasoned properly is a large part of what we as chefs and cooks do and part of that is using salt. Teaching someone how to season is not easy as all of our palates our different; what is enough salt for one might be too much for another. There is much in the news about our salt intake and how we must take steps to reduce it and if you are a label reader then you already know there is sodium in many of the foods that we eat, especially those that are processed or pre-prepared. We definitely support the notion of using fresh herbs and spices to add flavor rather than increasing the amount of salt to most preparations; however, as a chef I have to say, when used properly, there is no substitute for salt. As a cook coming up through the ranks I learned that salt should be added throughout the cooking process, not all at the beginning or all at the end. Over-seasoning tends to occur when salt i...

If you follow food trends, you’ve surely noticed that plant-based foods, recipes and restaurants have been getting a larger share of the spotlight lately. Does this mean that more of us are becoming vegetarians? Should we be? Why more plants? Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts and seeds are key features of some of the healthiest diets in the world. Plant based foods are a common theme in the Mediterranean Diet, the DASH Diet and most dietary guidelines. The balance of health promoting nutrients with moderate calories and less of the stuff we should be limiting make plant based foods an easy fit for most people. Looking beyond personal health, to the health of our planet, plant based foods tend to more sustainable and less taxing on the environment. What is a flexitarian? Or a pescatarian? With the expansion of plant foods on our plates has come an expansion of how we refer to the way we eat. Vegetarian still refers to people who don’t eat meat, fish or poultry, but the...