Tesco, the world's third largest retailer, offers a line of Light Choices prepared foods for calorie-conscious cooks who favor both convenience and nutrition. The Britain-based company also offers menus and grocery shopping guides for customers in the United Kingdom, the United States, Thailand, Hungary and China.
Light Choices Offerings
Tesco's Light Choices line includes sandwiches, dinner entrees, snacks, and side dishes. Sandwich choices include prawn and mayonnaise, chicken salad, ham and cheese and egg and cress. Light Choices dinner entrees include chicken breasts with tomato and basil sauce, minced beef and potatoes and tomato and cheese pasta bake. Prepared snacks include fruit and raisin bars, natural yogurt and carrot and coriander soup. Tesco also offers light versions of side dishes such as coleslaw, baked beans and cottage cheese.
Nutrition
Tesco Light Choices are promoted by the company as providing healthy food that contains little sugar and fat. Some sample Light Choices items are: chicken breast with tomato and basil sauce, 150 calories, 2.5 g fat, 7.9 g carbohydrates and 23.9 g protein; chicken and stuffing sandwich, 300 calories, 4.2 g fat, 46.8 g carbohydrates and 28 g protein; prawn cocktail, 210 calories, 16 g fat, 6 g carbohydrates and 10.5 g protein; chocolate and orange cereal bar, 80 calories, 1.3 g fat, 15.4 g carbohydrates and 1 g protein.
Weight Loss
Tesco's website includes a four-week Light Choices menu with recipes for meals and snacks that keep your daily calorie count below 2,000, the amount most women need to maintain their current weight. If your goal includes weight loss, you can use the website to set goals and customize meal plans. A moderately reduced calorie diet, less likely than extreme diets to slow your metabolism, involves cutting 500 calories from your normal food plan. You can use the website and the nutritional information provided on Light Choices packages to create a healthy weight loss program.
Meeting Nutritional Guidelines
If you want to ensure that you meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional guidelines, you will need to mix prepared Light Choices offerings with other foods. The USDA recommends you include three servings each of fruits and vegetables, two to three servings of dairy, six servings of grains and 5 oz. of protein in your daily diet. Consider eating oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, adding carrots and an apple to a Light Choices lunch and adding vegetables and brown rice to your dinner entrée. Low-calorie nutrition snacks that would help you meet your nutritional needs include whole-grain toast with peanut butter, yogurt with blueberries, skim milk and fruit smoothies and a vegetable plate with salsa dip.
Considerations
Tesco Light Choices offerings provide a solid base for a healthy diet, but it will be up to you to create an eating plan that helps you meet and maintain your weight goals. Tesco snack bars, for instance, contain fewer than 100 calories, but if you polish off a box of the low-fat treats, you'll consume as many calories as you would if you splurged on a slice of chocolate cake. Regular exercise will also help you lose weight, keep off the pounds and improve your overall health.
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