Archive for the ‘sodium’ tag
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).
Eat Well, Eat Healthy, Eat Cheap
You CAN eat good healthy food, AND it doesn’t have to cost a fortune either.
- Make a list of what you need before you go out. It’ll stop you buying junk, and keep you within your budget.
- Be sure to read the labels at the store when buying new products or brands that are not familiar to you.
- Avoid anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup in as this is simply a source of empty calories. Watch out for high sugar, and high fat and sodium contents too.
- Go around the perimeter of the store. It always seems to work! Fresh Produce, and diary, and meat and fish seems to be around the edges, with all the junk stuff in the center aisles.
- Do not ever go grocery shopping when you are hungry. Eat first, and you won’t be tempted to fill the cart with stuff you don’t really need, and certainly not candy and cakes and extra cookies.
Mediterranean Eating
It’s good for you right? Yes it is.
So if I go out and eat Italian, that’s a Mediterranean diet, and so that’s good for me too, right? Not necessarily, no.
That fried calamari that you’re so partial to at the local Italian chain restaurant can have as much cholesterol in as eating a large omelet.
You see, Italians are big on pasta. That’s great, but it’s the sauce you get with it in many American Italian restaurants that is the killer. Italians also eat a lot of vegetables.
In your average US Italian restaurant, you’ll end up with a plate of watery iceberg and a few bits of tomato, and carrot. Not so bad, but once you put that dressing on top, you might as well go to the fast food drive thru down the street, and eat a portion of fries.
Chinese food is usually lower in fat, but there’s all the added sodium to deal with then.
Our advice. Stick with dishes that have a high pasta content, are low in sauces, particularly meat based (high fat) sauces, go easy on the cheese, and if you’re somewhere like Olive Garden fill up on the salad, as you can have as much as you like. Just don’t flood it with that dressing.
Better yet, find some healthy low-fat recipes (that avoid read-made processed sauces) and try your hand at cooking Italian at home. That’s just what we’re doing this evening.
eyebee
