Healthy Food & Snacks

There is this misconception going around that eating healthy food means one has to eat raw, tasteless vegetables and fruits. Well, this article will throw that misconception out of the window and show you how healthy food can be absolutely delicious and so mouth-watering, you won’t even know that it’s health food.

In today’s world of fat-laden fast food and processed food, it is pretty easy to grab these to satisfy one’s hunger. However, that’s not a great thing for your body as it only serves to clog your arteries and add to your body fat. You certainly do not need to put in too much junk in your body. It’s like putting sand into the gas tank of your car. One day, your body will break down from all that junk.

Now, many people gave the excuse that they can’t stick to healthy food because it is boring, tasteless or even downright nasty. Well, this is not true. There are plenty of healthy recipes abound that are easy to prepare and yet are tasty and great for your body. Even if you don’t have the time to cook, there are plenty of crock pot recipes for you to simple dump in all the ingredients, set the pot and in several hours’ time, you have your food. Easy and simple.

If you are curious about what kind of healthy foods that are not boring and tasteless, an example would be very low fat brownie. Yes, you can even eat desserts as long as it’s prepared healthily and with less sugar and fats. If you have heard of quinoa, the super grain introduced by the Incas, these can also be cooked healthily and be a great addition to your diet!

So, it does not have to be salads all the time. There are plenty of great low fat, low sugar, low sodium and yet delicious recipes out there for you to try. Sure, you can indulge in sinfully high calorie desserts every once in a while but if you make it a habit to consume healthy food all the time, you will find that you have more energy and the pounds will slowly drop off too.

With all the talk of healthy eating and losing weight nowadays, we really need to stop and give some thought to the fast food industry and processed ready-made foods. One really needs to be aware of the fat, calories and sodium that are lurking in these products.

As a parent, you are approached by your hungry child wanting food and NOW!! You also should be conscious of your own eating habits. If you are eating healthy you will also want your children to eat healthy. It is a “family” situation.

A package of cookies, or chips are a lot easier to put out when you are involved in an already busy schedule. But what are these items doing to the health of your children? Even if they do not have a weight problem, this is not healthy food fare. Good nutritious foods should be our first thought. Packaged foods that are readily accessible lack wholesome goodness. Here are a few suggestions for quick snacks:

* Apple wedges are tasty dipped in peanut or almond butter.
* Carrot sticks or cucumber slices are yummy dipped in a lite salad dressing.
* A whole wheat tortilla spread with a bit of peanut butter and small amount of natural fruit preserves and then rolled up will satisfy a hearty hunger.
* Keep frozen banana chunks, fruits and berries in the freezer. (Alton Brown on the Food Network recently shared a tip. Take the bananas out of the skin and put them in a plastic bag in your freezer. You will not end up with the dreadful black bananas) Put the fruit with juice, soy milk or skim milk in a blender and blend up a delicious fruit smoothie/shake. read more »

Even a light form of a hydration drink, G2, for example, still has 25 calories per 8 ounce serving (there are 2.5 servings per bottle, so that’s still about 65 calories a bottle). That may seem trivial, but if you work out 5 days per week and drink a bottle each time, that’s over 325 calories a week that could be put to a lot better use in my opinion.

For me, a hydration drink has to have zero calories. I used to drink Fruit 2O’s hydration entry but it’s now impossible to find anywhere, so I gave up. I would sometimes use the old Powerade Option low calorie hydration offering after that disappearance, but even though it was a big bottle, that was still 40 calories. Then Powerade Option vanished. I actually contacted Powerade to find out what happened. They were kind enough to write back with the news of the introduction of Powerade Zero. At first it was only available at convenience stores on a supplied list; now I am pleased to see that Powerade Zero is showing up in supermarkets at a discounted price as low as 50 cents on sale in my area.

Powerade Zero comes in three flavors–Mixed Berry (which is a beautiful blue color like Classic Blue Windex), Grape and Strawberry. To me, even though I am not big on strawberry flavor, that flavor was surprisingly the tastiest. The bottle is a little tough to hold at a wide-mouth 32 ounces, and you must slow down your speed to a crawl on a treadmill to take a sip. The other day I lost the cap over the second floor balcony of my gym! read more »