loading...
Canwest News Service
1. Plan your work, work your plan
Making weekly menus will help ease your busy schedule and enable you to try new recipes.
2. Write it down
A grocery list will keep you on track in the supermarket. Find nutritious ingredients for your menus and avoid "impulse buys," such as chips and sweets.
3. Be bold!
With fruit and vegetables, the general rule is the darker the colour, the higher the nutrients. Buy in-season produce for the greatest flavours. Frozen fruit and vegetables are economical options, as are canned versions -just watch for syrups and salt.
4. Prepare your kitchen
Inexpensive tools make low-fat food preparation a breeze. Look for a vegetable steamer, a pan with a rack that lets fat drip away from meat, and sharp knives that make it easy to trim fat and slice meat thinly.
5. Skip the fat
Use cooking methods that don't add extra fat to your meal. instead try steaming, baking, broiling, grilling, microwaving and barbecuing your food.
6. Revise favourite recipes
Look for ways to eliminate high-fat ingredients. Reduce the amount of meat in casseroles by adding brown rice, bulgur or tofu. Use smaller amounts of stronger cheeses to get the same flavour of larger amounts of milder cheeses.
7. Spice it up.
Kick up the flavour of your dishes with parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.
8. Try vegetarian meals.
Wonderful, meatless dishes are waiting to be sampled. try indian-style dahl (lentils) or add kidney beans to your favourite soup.
9. Rethink the plate
For a well-balanced meal, divide your plate like this: ½ vegetables, ¼ starch and¼protein. drink milk and then have fresh fruit for dessert.
10. Avoid portion distortion
Serve food on smaller plates. And when you "splurge" on a treat, think single-sized containers, mini chocolate bars and small bags of chips, not king-sized indulgences.
