Choosing Healthy Foods

Many of you may have gotten some chocolates or yummy desserts for Valentine's Day. You might have a birthday coming up or a friend's or family's birthday celebration to attend, what about the cake? How about St. Patrick's Day around the corner with corned beef and hash? With special occasions, come special treats and, sometimes, less healthy meal options. Consider this: most special occasions are not all that frequent and only come around but once a year. When celebrating friend and family birthdays this comes about more often so what to do!? Think moderation! Making healthier choices, choosing smaller portions of less healthy food options and choosing desserts that are lower in fat and calories- that is a good idea. When you start to restrict and depriving yourself of foods that you want and enjoy you tend to want them even more. Again, think moderation when it comes to desserts in a healthy diet! There is nothing wrong with occasionally enjoying a calorie dense piece...

All of us belong to a cultural group and one’s culture most often influences daily food choices. Unfortunately, sometimes our favorite cultural dishes contain a great deal of fat and calories. One way to reduce fat and calories in these dishes is to swap out ingredients for ones that are lower in fat in calories. For example, if a recipe calls for cream or whole milk, choose low fat or skim milk instead. You can always use a little less of ingredients such as shredded cheese to cut back on calories and fat. Foods from various cultures can be healthy or unhealthy. To balance things out, some cultures choose their large meal early in the day and have a light meal at night. Other cultures may include foods that are high in calories but were brought up practicing portion control and not overindulging on these foods. There are many cultural cuisines that contain lots of healthy foods including fiber-rich grains, protein-rich legumes along with a variety of vegetables. When you make your fav...

Have you heard that eating late at night is bad for you? While the bigger impact usually comes from the type of foods we tend to eat late at night more than when we eat them, there may be some benefits to adjusting when we eat. Does meal time matter? Many of us eat in a way that has our meals getting larger as the day goes on – lunch is bigger than breakfast and dinner is bigger than lunch. New research suggests that this may not be the best way to eat to maximize health. Our bodies seem to react better to larger meals eaten earlier in the day than ones eaten later. A few benefits to the earlier meals include better blood sugar control and better weight management. We may even burn more calories after meals eaten earlier in the day. How does our body know what time it is? Our internal clocks, influenced by external cues like sunlight or darkness, make up our circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms can influence when we sleep, our body temperature and other important bodily functio...