Your Guide to Healthy Eating - Planning Healthy Meals Part 1

You've missed the previous parts? Introduction , Chapter 1

Planning Healthy Meals

   Planning healthy meals can be difficult, especially if you are cooking for a family who is stuck in a rut of unhealthy meals.  With some basic nutrition knowledge, however, you can have your family eating healthy without them really even realizing it.

   The key to creating healthy meals is to plan.  Plan your week’s meals ahead of time and ensure you have all of the necessary ingredients.  Don’t put off preparing healthy meals because you don’t have a tomato.  Plan your meals out and go grocery shopping.  While shopping it is important to get only the foods that are on your list and stay away from the cookie and ice cream aisles to limit temptation.  This will also allow you to keep your food costs to a minimum because you are buying less expensive whole foods instead of processed foods.

   Huge time savers such as slow cookers and microwaves are also helpful and everything that comes out of the microwave doesn’t have to be unhealthy.  A slow cooker will allow foods to cook all day while you are at work.  When you get home, you have a delicious and healthy meal waiting for you.

   On the weekends you can prepare meals ahead of time and put them in microwave safe dishes.  When you have busy nights such as evenings that are full of sports games or practices with your children, all you have to do is pop their healthy meal into the microwave.  There are several mircrowavable healthy meals that you can make at home and save for the rest of the week.  These are also good if you are a single person living alone and have a hard time cooking for just one person.  Divvy up the meals for the rest of the week. 

   When you are planning meals for the week, create a chart of each day’s meals and your daily schedule.  This will help you decide which days are best for certain meals.  For example, maybe you have time to cook something extra special on Friday nights, but the rest of the week is so hectic you don’t know if you are coming or going.  You can place those special recipes you have been wanting to try on Friday and then come up with healthy alternatives for your busy days. 

Getting the Family Involved


   Eating healthy is a family affair.  It is important to get your spouse and your kids involved.  This allows you to ensure that each day someone has something that is his or her favorite being served.  This may mean that Friday nights are special pizza nights, but the rest of the week is healthy.  It is important to plan meals with everyone’s input to ensure that everyone’s tastes are involved.  You also do not want anyone to feel as though they are being deprived of something they like.

   It is an even better idea to get everyone involved in cooking.  This allows the children to learn their way around the kitchen and what foods are healthy for them to eat.

Get Prepared

   Cooking in large quantities is an excellent way for you to have healthy foods at your fingertips.  Cooking large amounts of soups, casseroles, chilies and pasta will save you a lot of time during the week.  You can even make double or triple batches of certain staples in your diet.  This will allow you to freeze them and use them later.  This saves you both time and money.

   When you freeze your leftovers, be sure that you label your containers with freezer tape and permanent marker.  This will allow you to rotate items wisely and keep the older foods near the top.  This also allows you to avoid waste by not having to throw out foods that have expired.

   Stock up on meats when they are on sale and then divide them up into individual serving portions for your family.  For example, if you buy 5 pounds of ground beef, separate it out into 5 one-pound servings for your ground beef recipes.  You can also divide up your chicken breasts, turkey, steaks, roasts and pork chops.  If you are going to have pork chops one night, all you have to do is pull them out of the freezer and allow them to thaw while you are at work.  When you get home you can cook them up on the grill and saute up some fresh veggies. 

   A well-stocked pantry is also important.  Keep a good supply of the staples such as canned veggies, fruits, soup stocks, etc.  These will help you prepare your meals much more quickly, especially when combined with your stocked freezer.  This also allows you to save time and money.

Other items that you can stock up on include:

• Whole grain cereals
• Pastas
• Tomato sauce
• Baked beans
• Canned salmon
• Tuna
• Whole grain breads

Eating for Maximum Nutrition

   In the past several years there have been a lot of fad diets hit the market.  This is mainly because people are recognizing that it is time to start eating better and living a more healthy lifestyle.  We all know that you need to eat fruits and vegetables, but we are far too often choosing the wrong items.  For example, avocados may look like a healthy food, but they are actually full of fat and calories.  Bananas may seem healthy, but they have a lot of sugar.  It is the healthy balance of these items that we are looking for. 

   The key to changing your diet is to recognize the areas that you need to change and then work on those areas.  For instance, some people simply need to add veggies to their diet and cut back on meats.  Others need to cut back on sweets and add fruits and vegetables.  Some people could do themselves a lot of good by eating a breakfast so that they do not overeat later in the day.  These are little changes that can be made if you get motivated to do it.  The key is to make small changes so that they are seamlessly incorporated into your life.

   Eating healthy also means different things to different people.  A healthy runner who runs a 5K every other weekend doesn’t have the same nutritional requirements as an office worker who sits at a desk all day and needs to lose 20 pounds.

   A good place to start is to begin by changing your diet up by adding variety.  Make smarter choices when shopping and try to avoid the sugary temptations that lurk in the grocery store.  If you eat out a lot, you can still make better choices.  Limit your salad dressing and eat more veggies and skinless chicken.  It is also a good idea not to eat your whole plate but to take a portion of it home with you for later.

   Eat more highly nutritious foods rather than high calorie foods.  You will be amazed at the difference this can make at your first sitting.  Most fatty foods are full of empty calories.  This means you are eating foods that have a lot of calories but they don’t fill you up.  By eating foods that have calories you use, you are feeding yourself useful energy without overeating on unhealthy foods.  The produce section of the grocery store contains a lot of healthy and filling foods that are not full of empty calories.

   Don’t be afraid to try new things.  Your tastes change as you grow older.  You actually begin to like foods that you despised as a child.  Some people think that they don’t like foods, but they have never eaten many of what they say they don’t like.  Produce is relatively cheap.  So you are not losing too much money if you by some fresh spinach for a salad and find out you still don’t like it.  If you do like it, then you found something healthy that you don’t mind eating and it’s relatively inexpensive.  Talk about a win-win situation!

   You don’t have to give up your Saturday night steak.  Just work on it a bit to make it healthier.  Cut off the excess fat that you don’t need and don’t slather your potato in all the “fixins.”  Try a little bit of butter or even a little cottage cheese