Eating healthy means more than just eating your veggies. What you buy, how you cook it and what's in the food you buy are also important considerations. To keep your diet as healthy as possible, focus on unprocessed foods as much as possible. Avoid fast foods and fatty snacks and instead try to increase the amounts of fruits, vegetables, nuts and other unprocessed items. Cook at home often, so you can control what goes into your meals.
Giving Your Pantry a Makeover
If your goal is to start eating better, your first step is to make sure you always have healthy food around. Start with the basics first. Replace anything high in fat with a low-fat alternative. For example, switch from regular chips to baked chips or buy pretzels or plain popcorn for when you feel like snacking. Replace refined grains with whole grains. Instead of white rice, stock up on brown rice, buckwheat or bulgur. If you bake, get rid of white flour and instead buy soy or almond flours, which contain no gluten and are higher in protein.
Cooking Healthy
Ditch the corn and vegetable oils. Instead, buy unrefined sesame oil, soybean and olive oil. Use them in moderation when you cook. Buy a non-stick pan and only add a 1 tsp. or less of oil to enhance flavor. If you like the flavor of fried food, MayoClinic.com recommends stir-frying and sautéing. It will give your foods the crispy feel of fried food but without all the extra calories. Experiment with baking, grilling, poaching and roasting your foods. Try using low-sodium broth to cook your meals instead of adding more oil to the pan.
Understanding Nutrition Labels
Knowing what a product contains is key to choosing the best possible option out there. Before you buy anything, compare different brands for amount of fat and sugars. According to the Food and Drug Administration, look at the fiber content of a product. Aim for more than 5 percent of fiber in anything you buy. Products that contain 20 percent or more of fiber are considered high fiber. Also look at the amount of fat a product contains. Under Total Fat, you'll see Saturated Fat and sometimes Trans Fat. You want those two numbers to be as low as possible compared to the total fat. For example, if a product has 12 g of total fat but only 2 g of saturated fat, it means that the other 10 g are nonsaturated fat, which is healthy and good for your heart. Finally, look at the list of ingredients. Ingredients are listed in the order of volume. Ideally, words like sugar, corn syrup, butter or other fatty or sugary ingredients should not be among the first three or four ingredients.
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