Archive for the ‘fruit and vegetables’ tag
Eating In Season
When I was a kid, my mother would send me to the greengrocers for fruit and vegetables. It was almost all seasonal.
Except for bananas and oranges, just about everything came from the local farms, or at least within the county. and without celebration or fanfare either. No ‘locally grown’ or ‘organic’ labels back then.
This had a number of advantages. Produce was generally fresher. Everything was loose in any case, so you could pick out for yourself what you wanted.
It meant that you got fruit and vegetables at the peak of their ripeness, and probably at their most nutritious, save for picking them from your own garden.
It also mean that you got to look forward to certain items at certain times of the year.
I would look forward to new potatoes, to fresh peas, runner beans. I always looked forward to summer fruits. They were always a little more expensive than regular apples and oranges, but one certainly didn’t hand over a fistful of notes for a small carton of berries as one usually does in the supermarket these days.
Tomatoes, and other salad items were a summer treat too. We simply didn’t have salad in the winter, as their were no perfectly red round and totally tasteless hothouse tomatoes back then.
Actually my parents had a small back yard, and my father would grow runner beans, and tomatoes, for which he would sent me to the local fields with a bucket to get manure. Still, that’s another story for another time…
How To Lose That Gut
When you eat protein it requires more calories to digest than fruit and vegetables. Beans are good, as they also contain fiber, and like protein, fiber takes more time to digest, and leaves you feeling fuller longer, so you don’t feel a need to eat so much. Be careful what type of beans you eat though. Baked beans might be tasty, but some brands contain huge amounts of sugar.
Eggs are a good source of protein, but some sources recommend that you don’t eat too many eggs, because of the cholesterol content – no more than one a day.
Although fat in general has a bad name these days, not all fats are bad, and some can actually boost your metabolism. Avocados are a good source of good fat, and so is olive oil, because it helps regulate cholesterol.
Almonds contain good fats, the mono saturated kind, and are also a good source of protein.
Raw fruit and vegetables are good to eat also, as the enzymes they contain helps your body to rid itself of some of that belly fat.
Save Money and Do It Yourself
Of course, that is usually said to those who want to maintain their homes, or their car.
It equally applies in the kitchen though.
Save money by eating out less, and eat more healthily.
Save money by cooking from scratch, and eat more healthily too.
It’s not a lot of use eating at home if all you do is eat take-out items or frozen TV dinners. For one, it won’t save you much money, and secondly, most take out food and packets of TV dinners are highly processed, with lots of added preservatives, colors, sodium and other junk like HFCS.
If you cook from fresh ingredients at home, you know exactly what you’re eating.
If you can buy organic meat, fruit and vegetables, it’ll still be less expensive, far healthier and much more nutritious than buying junk food.
Try planning ahead and you can save even more. For example, a larger chicken can last two days, and you oonly need to cook it once. As long as you properly refrigerate the leftovers you can have a healthy chicken salad the next day, or perhaps make some chicken fried rice (which will have a lot less sodium in than that from the Chinese take out). You an also use wholegrain rice, for added vitamins and fiber.
Try to work out what you’re going to eat for at least a few days, and then you won’t buy too much, and have it go bad before you eat it, particularly vegetables and fruit (as fresh meat can more easily be frozen as-is, whereas vegetables need to be prepared and blanched first before freezing).
