Thursday, September 2, 2010

My Favorite Ways to Make Meals Healthier.

Hello everyone,
I am writing this post to tell all of you, my loyal blog readers, a couple tips on how to make meals healthier. I will give you a couple meals I like to make and what I do to take off the extra calories. And I will also give you some tips on how you can make your meals healthier for your own family:)

1.One of my favorite meals is pasta. Any way you make it is good for me:) But I know it is not the best for me to eat. All the starch and extra calories in the sauce cannot be good for me. So, when I make pasta, I try to use either wheat pasta or multi-grain pasta. It does help to get the fiber. And I also like to not add sauce to mine. If I do add sauce, I normally put the spaghetti on my plate and then add the sauce after that. It helps to only add a spoonful or two of sauce. You know exactly how much you are putting on your pasta. I also like to put meat in my pasta and I use ground turkey instead of ground beef. Way better than beef!!

2.I eat a lot of meat. This is one great way to make your meals healthier. But it is sooo easy to destroy the goodness of the meat, whether chicken or fish, by dipping it in sauce. It can be BBQ sauce, ketchup, whatever! It can totally destroy your meal. So, I always make sure to use lots of spices and salt free mixes whenever I cook my meat. It is a lot healthier and you are not adding salt to your meal.

3.Cut back on the butter. Most of the time it doesn't need the butter I put on it. I enjoy a piece of toast in the morning. But if I can put half the amount of butter on it, or none at all and just enjoy a little bit of jelly or jam, it is better than the cholesterol.

4.Whenever I have pizza, I really love cheese on it. I mean, who doesn't love all that cheesy gooey mess:) But I have found that it is better to do even half the amount of cheese or to just do the sauce. It will go a lot better than you think.

5.Use ground turkey whenever you can. In our family, they normally don't even notice it is turkey instead of beef. Throw in some spices and make it taste good. I use it instead of ground beef in meatloaf, pasta sauce, hamburgers, etc.

6.With 3 men in our family, they like their meat. Especially hamburgers. One tip I have for hamburgers is one, use ground turkey. But we tried a dry soup mix packet once and have loved it ever since! Seriously, it is delicious and then we don't even need to add any dressings. No ketchup or mustard, mayo or pickles. This adds enough flavor that I don't add anything to it. So it cuts down on the calories.

7.With the delicious taste of cake and ice cream, who wants to pass on it. I never would:D But I found that I can even go low fat and low sugar on these as well. I tried an all natural, low fat, cake mix. I thought it wouldn't even taste any good. But it really did! I didn't even tell the family and they noticed a slight difference but not much. And this also works for ice cream! Again, a slight change in taste but not much. The ice cream bars are even better because you can take just one and go on your way without having to watch how much you scoop into your bowl:)

8.A big tip I have found is watching my portions. I have such a tendency to have two helpings of whatever we eat for dinner. It really is a big deal! It is better to have leftovers on your plate then to eat it all and then add another portion. It is really something I have tried working on.

9.Another big thing I am working on is baking instead if frying. I do this a lot with my meat and it comes out a lot moister and better for the whole family!! Throw it in the dish, add some spices and water, then put it in the oven. This also comes in handy for helping cut down my time in the kitchen:)

10.I have also started eating a lot more fruit. Add it to your yogurt in the morning. Throw it all in the blender and make a smoothie. They are delicious and so healthy for you! So long as you don't add all the sugars. I used to make smoothies and add orange drink mix, pancake syrup, etc. Then I stopped myself while I was doing it one day and thought of the extra sugar and calories I was adding. So I tried it without the syrup and used real orange juice. It tasted just as good or even better!! It also helps to put a piece of fruit in my water to add some flavor. I don't have all the calories that are in the flavored waters at the store but it still tastes good.

So, I have shared with you some tips I use to make my meals healthier for me and my family. It all really does count in the long run. Think of all the calories you can shave off and how you will feel so much better knowing your family is eating right. Tell me any ideas you have for making meals healthier? Do you have any tips for me to add to my list? Let me know in a comment:)

I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and WeightWatchers SmartOnes blogging program, making me eligible to get a $50 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here

1 comment:

JC said...

I like the ground turkey idea, thanks for sharing with us.

PS. I sent you an email :)

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