Healthy Cooking by design

I’m a big believer in letting the foods we eat work for us, not against us - think of it as a beneficial sort of “food fight”.  Most of us know someone who has battled with cancer.  And that is definitely a battle we all want to avoid.  One wise thing we can do is create an environment in our body where cancer cells do not thrive.  Some keys to creating that environment are getting plenty of rest, eliminating stress, drinking water, and eating healthy foods.

There are certain foods that have anti-cancer properties.  The folks at Cedars-Sinai Medical put together this great little chart to highlight these foods, their health benefits, and some tips to incorporate them into our diets.  I hope you enjoy the chart as much as I did.  Happy food fighting!

I recently did a “Lunch and Learn” event using recipe “make-overs”.  We took several familiar recipes and gave them a healthy make-over by accentuating healthy ingredients, minimizing unhealthy ones, and strategically using others to our best advantage.  Our recipes lost hundreds of calories and significant amounts of fat.  For example, a Spinach Artichoke Dip appetizer from Chili’s, Ruby Tuesday’s, O’Charley’s, or Red Robin is between 905-1248 calories with 55-116% of your total recommended fat for the day.  Our make-over of that appetizer was 130 calories with 9% of your rda of fat.  While we were eating our great looking and tasting recipes, we learned how to apply the same tricks to give healthy “make-overs” to other recipes at home.

I think the saying “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down” is true.  I just tweak it slightly to be “a spoonful of something yummy makes the nutrition go down”.  At an event like that, people enjoy a healthy meal and realize that with a little knowledge of nutrition, some good ingredients, and a few tricks they can easily cook healthier at home.

If you have a group interested in having a Lunch and Learn event, feel free to contact me using the link in the sidebar or email me at healthycookingbydesign at gmail.com.

Many people choose a salad bar in a restaurant for a healthy meal.  Here are a few tips to make sure you enjoy all the nutritional benefits of a salad and avoid the high calorie pitfalls of restaurant eating:

Choose a green lettuce base (the greener the better), like romaine or spinach instead of iceberg.

Then go put your dressing on because the lettuce is the part of a salad that needs flavor and moisture.  Choose a low fat dressing and slowly drizzle to add what you need and no more.  (Remember that regular ranch dressing is 146 calories for 2 T, and low fat ranch is only 66 calories for 2 T.)

Pile on fresh vegetables (low in calories and high in nutrition) like broccoli, carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, bean sprouts, radishes, beets, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

Add 1-2 Tablespoons of things (higher in calories and high in nutrition) like garbanzo beans, soybeans, green peas, eggs, sunflower seeds, almonds, black olives, and marinated 3 bean salad.

Have 1 Tablespoon of things (higher in fat or lower in nutrition) like cheese, ham, carrot raisin salad, and pasta salads.

Consider skipping things (even higher in fat and lower in nutrition) like bacon bits, croutons, packaged crackers, and rolls.

Finally, for “dessert” go get a plate of fruit staying as close to the natural fruit as possible and avoiding heavy syrups and whipped creams.

Top it all off by drinking water or unsweetened iced tea and you have a low calorie, highly nutritious meal.

Now, I must give praise where praise is due.  My husband is actually the one who discovered the trick to add the dressing straight on lettuce.  We had been to a salad bar when he realized that the bland, dry lettuce is the part he doesn’t like about a salad.  And that if he put dressing directly on the lettuce, he would solve the flavor problem and not be using extra dressing to coat things that already had a good flavor.  Way to think outside the box honey!

Special thanks for the photo to cgrabig on flickr.

I was pondering earlier what I don’t want for Valentine’s Day.  At the top of my list were:

• Fresh flowers.  They can be expensive but disappear too quickly.
• Dinner out.  A long wait for expensive food that usually doesn’t “wow” me.
• The typical two-pound box of chocolates.  Because although the chocolates disappear quickly, the 3000 calories don’t.

Which made me think, “What could we get for Valentine’s Day that we could feel good about?”

• You could ask your sweetie for the Whitman’s 4 piece Sampler Box and enjoy every one of the 240 calories.
• If you get a large box of chocolates, pick your favorite 6 and eat them 2 pieces each day.  Two pieces gives you around 150 calories (unless they’re truffles which are 170 each piece) which you can burn in a 42 minute walk.  I never can decide if we should take the rest of the candy to work to let others struggle with overeating it, or throw it away but waste the money.  Whatever you do, get it out of your house.
• You could check out Weight Watchers chocolates by Whitman’s which have between 30 and 50 calories each piece with only 3 grams of fat.
• You could ask for a box of Cocoa Via chocolate covered almonds.  They use good dark chocolate to coat plain almonds for 140 calories per pack.  A pack could easily be your afternoon snack.
• You could try Sweet Riot’s chocolate-covered cocoa nibs from Whole Foods.  They look like chocolate covered raisins but are little pieces of the cocoa bean straight off the tree.  These little crunchy bitter bits of chocolate coated in chocolate pack tons of health benefits.  I will definitely be giving these a try.
• You could go for a fresh fruit bouquet (fruit on sticks).  Delicious cold fruit you don’t have to prepare at all. Eat all you want, guilt free - Yum.
• You could think of something meaningful to YOU for Valentine’s, and ask for that.  (Instead of letting society tell you that you want flowers and candy.)

My favorite Valentine’s Day gift has nothing to do with flowers, dinner, or chocolate.  My hubby takes me out and we buy some cute “Valentinesy-kind-of-mug” and go have coffee at Starbucks or Panera.  We talk and laugh and enjoy some time without the kids.  Then, each time I use that mug I remember the fun time out and that my hubby has learned to ask me what I really want, and then give it to me.  Now that’s a gift!