Diana Wright, PhD, RD, began her career at University of California at Irvine Medical Center as a clinical dietitian. Diana soon moved to the academic setting after completing her PhD in Nutrition and Physiological Chemistry at UC Davis to pursuer her passion as a nutrition educator. She has taught a variety of university nutrition courses and has broadened her ‘classroom’ to include private, corporate and charitable nutrition program clients. In all her works, the common thread Diana strives to weave into all client interactions is the importance of centering our diets on fresh whole foods.
Buy Fresh! Prepare more home cooked meals! Amp up the amount of fresh veggies, fruit and whole grains you consume. Do you need to spice it up a bit? Add flavor while keeping the sodium content low in your new selection of healthy foods by using liberal amounts of herbs and spice like garlic, onion, basil, oregano, thyme and mint. Fresh is best, but the dried variety will do in a pinch!
Oh yes….I have a very specific answer to this question. Ready? Here is goes: ALL fresh veggies from Artichokes to Zucchini, with mushrooms in between are worthy choices. Keep your diet varied and you and your children will enjoy the true bounty of Mother Nature’s shopping cart.
Any dietitian worth her weight in dark leafy greens would offer kale, chard, collards or mixed dark greens as a good alternative to spinach. All are loaded with beta carotene (vitamin A), vitamin C, fiber, magnesium and long list of other health promoting chemicals. Plus some of these greens are downright pretty; chard comes with stalks in colors of the rainbow and kale is wavy with some so dark in color, that it is almost blue. Nutritionally, all deserve attention, so decide which you like best by trying them all. If you are lucky, you will be unable to choose your favorite, and want to add all to your diet on a rotating basis.
Nature’s sweetness in a snap pea is just an added benefit to this already nutrient dense food. Snap peas along with their high fiber, vitamin C and folic acid content add just a bit of sweet flavor to an already nutrient dense food. Kids and adults alike love them raw or cooked. If you get ambitious and try growing snap peas in your garden, be forewarned that most will be eaten straight from the plant with few making it to the mealtime table. Talk about fresh…yum!!!!
Free radicals sound like something straight out of the 60s! Actually we have been…. and always will be….exposed to free radicals simply as a consequence of our daily living. They do have the potential to be damaging to the body, so it is best to know how to arm your natural defense system to minimize their damaging effects. Filling your market basket with fresh, intensely colored fruits and vegetables is your best protection. Fresh is best, as these foods are packed with many health promoting, protective plant chemicals known as phytochemicals. They work most effectively to disarm free radicals when packaged as a whole food as opposed to taking a supplement. Try adding a salad to your dinner, make fresh fruit your new favorite snack or toss in a handful of dark leafy greens to your latest crockpot invention!
Obesity results when over time, we consume more Calories than we expend. Building up a savings is terrific when we are putting money in the bank and can watch our account grow. However a less rosy picture emerges when we are saving Calories as fat around our waist or on our hips. In a nutshell the solution is to…Eat less and Move more! While this may sound simple, we all agree that change is difficult to make happen. Start with a couple of small changes and strive to make them into habits (add a fresh fruit or veggie to your diet; incorporate a fifteen minute walk to your day). Once these habits are established, and then set new goals to tackle. With patience and persistence, you will have the entire family living a more healthy life.
We are all familiar with the rainbow of no Calorie sweetener packets that adorn the table tops of most restaurants. Saccharine, sucralose and aspartame, in the pink, yellow and blue packets, respectively, have all been thoroughly tested for safety and approved for use by the FDA. However there is no good evidence that using no calorie sweeteners results in weight loss! So, if your concern is to drop pounds safely, start by replacing sugary beverages with water and high sugar treats with the natural sweetness of fruit!
First of all, if your son’s growth is on target and he is generally healthy, put away your worry hat. Your job as a parent is to provide your child a choice of healthy foods at mealtimes. It is your child’s job to decide which, and how much of each food to eat (www.ellynsatter). Involve your son in helping you identify, shop for, prepare or even grow, new fruits and veggies he is willing to try. Next, be ready to model the behavior you want to see from him. If you want him to try new foods, then you need to be willing to do the same. Finally, be patient; don’t try to force change. The old adage, ‘you can take the horse to water, but you can’t make him drink’; well, this true with kids….in spades! With continued exposure to a variety of foods your son’s diet will eventually reflect an interest in a variety of foods too!
The easy answer for most of us is simply to eat more fruits and veggies than we do now! The new USDA dietary guidelines suggest that you make half of your plate be fruit and veggies! (And no, this does not include fries and ketchup!) For those of you who want a bit more precision of measurement, the average size of an adult woman’s fist is about one cup. Generally one cup raw or cooked, fruit or vegetable is considered a serving, with four to five cups recommended daily for an adult and slightly less for children.
However, why not just forget the daily counting and measuring? Simply add a salad at lunch, pile up some produce on your sandwich or add a handful of greens to your stew, soup or sauce for a boost in your veggie intake. Slicing up some fruit to top your cereal or yogurt, or snacking on piece of fresh fruit for an afternoon lift, is a sure way to add a load of healthy nutrients to your diet!
Good carbs, bad carbs who might the villain be? Let’s shift our focus from good or bad and introduce a new character to the scene; the dastardly, insidious, nutrient-empty calorie called…..added sugar. Try to keep added sugars to a minimum of 10% or less of your Calorie intake. This would be 50 grams (about 10-12 tsp.) of sugar for a 2000 Calorie diet. You will find added sugar in most cereals, energy bars, sweetened beverages, yogurts and many other processed foods, including items like catsup and salad dressings. Your defense is to read labels and look for words like corn syrup (or any syrup for that matter), dextrose, maltose, fructose and of course, all forms of sugar (white, brown, raw, powdered etc.) to identify added sugar. The tricky part is that labels do not differentiate between the processor added sugar and the carbs added to foods as they are produced in nature. Both lactose in milk and fructose in fruit qualify in this category and, assuming you tolerate these foods, are nutrient dense additions to your diet.
Staying hydrated is important for many reasons, but boosting your metabolism is not one of them. The best way to keep your metabolism (loosely defined as the rate you burn Calories) fired up is to avoid meal skipping and be physically active every day.
Here are my top five preventative measures to take, to achieve and maintain optimal health. (Just for the record, number 3-5 are not in any order of importance.)
*See www.choosemyplate.gov for more info on points 3 and 5 and other healthy eating ideas.
