Lunch, Dinner and Healthy Baking Ideas for the week of July 21

July 23, 2008 Uncategorized No Comments

I got inspired this weekend - while up in the Poconos I found myself forced to piece together a healthy lunch at a WaWa Convenience Store (kind of like an AM-PM, for all of you West Coasters). And, come to think of it, I often find myself in this sort of predicament while on the road. So, instead of giving you “make-at-home” recipes this week, I am instead giving you “make-on-the-road” meals that you can piece together from a convenience store or fast food restaurant when your cozy kitchen is nowhere in sight.

LUNCH IDEAS:

Any convenience store or mini-mart: Piece-Together a Balanced Lunch

  • 1 protein bar
  • 1 fresh apple or orange
  • 1 string cheese
  • 1 bottle of low sodium vegetable (for example V8) juice

    • This lunch actually provides you with at least one serving of the majority of the USDA Food Pyramid food groups!
    The protein bar provides grains and a protein source, the apple provides a serving fruit, the V8 provides 2 servings of vegetables and the cheese provides a serving of dairy.
    Note: For the protein bar, Balance, Luna or Odwalla bars are especially good. Overall, try to pick a protein bar that has less than 300 calories and doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup high on it’s list of ingredients

    WaWa: PBBB (Peanut Butter Banana Bagel) Lunch

  • 1 whole wheat bagel, toasted and dry (no butter, cream cheese, etc.)
  • 1 banana
  • 1 carrots and peanut butter (from the pre-made food refrigerator)
  • 1 large bottle of water or small carton of fat-free milk

    • Grab a knife from the deli counter. Place the bagel on a plate. Open the carrot and peanut butter cup. Place the carrots aside for later. Open the peanut butter packet and spread on the bagel. Unpeel the banana and slice into 1/2 inch rounds. Arrange the rounds on top of the bagels with peanut butter. Place the two PBBB halves on a plate, along with the carrot sticks. If you prefer to eat raw veggies with some sort of dip, look for the pre-packaged, light salad dressing offered in the pre-made food refrigerators.

    DINNER IDEAS:

    Wendy’s: Baked Potato and Salad Dinner

  • 1 Mandarin Chicken Salad with Grilled Chicken Fillet
  • 1 Hot Stuffed Baked Potato
  • 1 Junior Chocolate Frosty
  • Water or Fat-Free Milk

    • Special Instructions:
    1. Ask Wendy’s to hold the Cripsy noodles on the salad. Also, only use half of the Oriental dressing on the Mandarin Chicken Salad, or ask for the Fat Free Honey Dijon Dressing instead.
    2. Order the Hot Stuffed Baked Potato with Broccoli and Cheese, but ask them to “go light” on the cheese sauce. Or, if you can live with out it, ask them to hold the cheese and ask for some salsa or salt and pepper instead.
    3. Enjoy the Frosty for dessert! When you get a Junior one, it’s actually a pretty low-cal treat (only 150 calories), as far as fast-food fare goes!

    WaWa: Super Veggie Sandwich Dinner

  • 1 6 inch veggie ‘Shorti’ sandwich
  • 1 hummus and pita plate (from pre-made food refrigerator)
  • 1 apples, grapes and yogurt plate (also from pre-made food refrigerator)
  • 1 large bottle of water or small (6 oz) bottle of 100% juice

    • How to order your sandwich:
    (1) Have it made on a whole wheat roll
    (2) Say “yes” to “a little bit” of pepper jack cheese
    (3) Say “yes” to all of the veggie selections possible
    (4) Say “no” to mayonnaise
    (5) Say “yes” to “a little bit of oil and vinegar”
    (6) Say “yes” to your favorite type of mustard
    (7) Pass on any of the side salads or slaws
    Once you’ve gotten your sandwich, open it up and spread the hummus from the hummus and pita plate on one side of the roll. This will give you some extra protein. Save the mini-pitas for a snack later on. Enjoy your healthy sandwich for lunch and your yogurt plate for dessert!

    Healthy Baking (or, to stay with this week’s theme: Baked Goods on The Road!!) Tip for the Week:
    When you’re out to eat, all of those baked goods and dessert can be very tempting, especially when you’re hungry for a quick breakfast or craving something sweet after treating yourself to a good dinner. Here are some good choices at some popular restaurants:

    Muffins:

    • Starbuck’s Mini Bran Muffins: 150 calories
    • Panera’s Pumpkin Muffie (just the muffin top!): 250 calories

    Cake:

    • Starbuck’s Reduced Fat Blueberry Coffee Cake: 320 calories
    • Tasty Kake’s 100 Calorie Carrot Cake Sticks: 100 calories

    Desserts:

    • Chilli’s Dutch Apple Caramel Sweet Shot: 230 calories
    • A&W Root Beer Float with Diet Root Beer: 181 calories

    When in doubt, order what you really want and share it with a friend! Also, order a cup of decaf coffee or tea with your dessert. This will help to enhance the flavor of your dessert and, if you sip it in between bites of dessert, it can help you pace yourself while you indulge. All in all, remember that it is okay to have an indulgent treat every once in a while, just as long as you enjoy it in moderation!

    Lunch, Dinner and Healthy Baking Ideas for the week of July 14, 2008

    July 16, 2008 Uncategorized 2 Comments

    Recently, a friend of mine asked me to share with her some easy, healthy eating ideas since she travels a lot and often doesn’t have the energy to cook a healthy meal after a long day of work. Also, with her crazy travel schedule, she needed some ideas for how to eat healthy on the road, when a kitchen and fresh foods may be hard to come by.

    So, in response to this request, I am going to start posting weekly Lunch, Dinner and Healthy Baking Ideas. If you need some inspiration for quick, easy to pack lunches and tasty, minimal prep dinners, be sure to check back every week for 4 recipes to try out. Or, if you love baking but are at a loss as to how to make your favorite recipes healthier, check out the weekly tip at the end of the post. Also, feel free to give me any requests for healthier, easier versions of foods you love and I will be sure to include them in the weeks that follow. Enjoy!

    LUNCH IDEAS:
    These ideas can be used for two easy “mini-lunches” – for example you could eat one around 11:00am and another around 2:00pm. These “mini-lunches” are ideal for someone with a busy work day and not a lot of time for a long lunch break. The idea is that it will take you 5-10 minutes to eat these “mini-meals” instead of 30+ you might take to prepare and consume a larger meal. That being said, still make sure you are taking time out to enjoy your “mini-meal” and eat mindfully!

    Research shows eating “mini-meals” throughout the day is actually preferable, as it can keep your blood sugar at a more even keel. Just make sure that if you are eating more frequently that you really are eating “mini-meals” so that you avoid over-eating! If you prefer to eat more frequently (e.g., 5 to 6 smaller meals instead of 3 big meals) aim for each of your mini-meals to have around 300-400 calories.

    (1) Hummus and Mini Pita

    • 1/3 cup hummus - store bought is fine or use the easy recipe below
    • 2 tablespoons sliced black olives
    • 2 mini pita pockets
    • 10 baby carrots

    Top the pita pockets with hummus and black olives. Dip the baby carrots in any hummus that did not fit on the pitas.

    Hummus Recipe

    • Two 15-ounce cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
    • 6 tablespoons lemon juice
    • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
    • 1 teaspoon salt
    • 2 teaspoons cumin

    Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until they form a smooth, thick paste. Refrigerate in an airtight container - will keep for up to two weeks.
    Note: this mini-meal is approximately 385 calories

    (2) Peanut Butter Banana Parfait

    • One 5 oz container of non-fat Greek yogurt (you should be able to find this easily in the dairy/yogurt section of the supermarket – it might be near the organic milk/dairy products)
    • 1 medium banana, sliced
    • 1 tablespoon natural peanut butter
    • 1/8 cup raisins
    • 1 teaspoon honey
    • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

    Stir all ingredients together in a bowl and enjoy!
    Note: this mini-meal is approximately 360 calories

    DINNER IDEAS:
    (1) Chili Baked Potato

    • 1 medium baking potato
    • 1 tbsp grated low-fat cheddar cheese
    • 1 cup of your favorite healthy chili (e.g., tomato-based homemade, turkey, vegetarian)
    • 1 small spinach salad (e.g. spinach, tomato, shredded carrots, black olives)
    • 1 tbsp balsamic vinaigrette (or your favorite dressing for salad)
    • 1 large orange

    Wash potato, poke several holes in it with a fork and place on a microwave-safe plate. Microwave the potato for 8 minutes, until soft.

    While the potato is cooking, heat chili in a saucepan over medium heat.
    Also, assemble your salad.

    When the potato is done cooking, let cool for 1 minute, then cut in half and place in a bowl. Place shredded cheese on potato, then top the potato and cheese with the chili.

    Eat your salad while your chili potato cools, eat your chili potato as your main course and eat your orange as dessert to make sure all of the iron from your spinach salad and chili gets well absorbed by your body!


    (2) Salmon, Mediterranean Couscous and Green Beans
    Simple Broiled Salmon recipe:

    • One 6-ounce fresh salmon fillet or steak
    • Spray olive oil
    • Salt
    • Oregano

    Place the top rack of the oven to the highest position. Preheat the broiler to 500°F. Place a broiler pan in the hot oven for about 5 minutes. Spray the hot pan with olive oil. Place the salmon skin-side-down in the pan, and spray its top surface with additional oil. Sprinkle lightly with salt and oregano. Broil the salmon on the first side for 3 to 5 minutes, then turn the fish over and broil for another 3 to 5 minutes on the second side. When done, the top surface should just begin to flake.

    Mediterranean Couscous recipe:

    • ½ cup vegetable or chicken broth
    • ¼ cup whole-wheat couscous
    • 2 tbsp feta cheese
    • 2 tbsp roasted red peppers, chopped into small pieces
    • 5 Greek olives

    Place broth in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. When the broth begins to boil, pour in couscous, cover and remove from heat. Let this sit, untouched for 5 minutes. Then, remove lid, fluff couscous with a fork and stir in feta, red peppers and olives

    Green Beans recipe:

    • 1 tbsp olive oil
    • ¼ pound whole green beans, trimmed
    • Pinch of salt
    • 1 tsp minced or crushed garlic

    Warm olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat for about 1½ minutes. Turn the heat to high and add the green beans and a pinch of salt. Cook over high heat for 3 minutes, stirring the beans so they cook quickly and evenly. Sprinkle the garlic onto the beans and cook for one minute longer.

    Healthy Baking Tip for the Week:
    The new USDA Food Guide Pyramid encourages Americans to “make half their grains whole”. Interpretation: half of the breads, baked goods, grains and cereals that you eat should be made from whole-wheat or from some sort of whole grain product. Some examples are:

    Breads where the first ingredient is “Whole-Wheat Flour”

    • Brown Rice
    • Oatmeal
    • Whole-wheat pasta

    The other type of grains, refined grains, is foods such as white breads, pastas, rice and cereals. Refined grains have had all of the good, healthy parts of grains (that is, the vitamins, minerals and fiber) stripped away, thus these grains are not as nutritious as whole grains.

    Usually recipes for cookies, cakes, muffins, etc. use refined, white flour. But, to increase the fiber in your baked goods, and to help you reach the USDA food guide pyramid’s goal of “making half your grains whole”, you can substitute whole-wheat flour for all or part of the flour you use in your favorite baked goods recipes.

    At first, you might want to try substituting half of the flour in a baked goods recipe for whole-wheat flour. So, if a recipe calls for 2 cups of flour, use 1 cup white flour and 1 cup whole-wheat flour. Your baked good will probably turn out a little darker in color and denser in appearance, but should taste just as good.

    You can try using only whole-wheat flour in your baked goods recipes, but experiment first to see if you like it. Whole-wheat flour can be substituted for while four on a 1-to-1 ratio. Beware that your baked good will likely turn out much darker and denser than the original product, but if you like the flavor and appearance, then keep it up and enjoy! If not, it’s okay to go back to using half whole-wheat and half white flour – remember that this is still consistent with the USDA Food Guide Pyramid’s recommendation to “make half your grains whole”!

    Sugar-sweetened beverages: ban them completely or just take it easy?

    June 17, 2008 Uncategorized No Comments

    The June 2008 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition contains a timely meta-analysis worthy of note - this meta-analysis examines the association between sugar-sweetened beverages (i.e., soda, fruit drinks, sports drinks, drinks sweetened with high fructose corn syrup) and childhood obesity. This has been a hot, and somewhat controversial, issue over the past decade, as researchers frantically search for the factors responsible for the dramatic increases seen in the prevalence of obesity in almost all age, sex and racial/ethnic groups.

    One of the first studies to examine how consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages relates to childhood obesity was conducted by David Ludwig, a researcher at the Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston. This was an observational study that showed that children who had higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages at study entry and increased their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages over the 19 month study had increases in weight status and higher prevalence of obesity over this same time Additionally, subsequent research has also suggested that sugar-sweetened beverage intake is predictive of increased risk for adult obesity, insulin resistance, type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

    Recently, my colleagues and I conducted a study examining the predictors of metabolic syndrome risk in a sample of girls followed from age 5 to 13 years. In this study, we were interested in taking a broad look at all of the possible antecedents of metabolic syndrome risk at age 13, for example, weight and fat mass gain across childhood, dietary intake patterns and physical activity levels. A finding that surprised us, however, was that, out of all of the dietary intake patterns we examined, the only pattern that was a significant predictor of higher metabolic syndrome risk was higher consumption of sugar sweetened beverages. Girls who had higher intakes of sugar sweetened beverages across ages 5-11 (specifically, girls who drank approximately an average of 1.5 servings a day, compared to 1 serving for other girls) had the highest metabolic syndrome risk at age 13. Unfortunately, when we attempt to verify the physiology underlying this association (i.e., were these girls consuming more calories? were these girls consuming more high fructose corn syrup?), we did not find that these same girls had higher intakes of the components of sugar sweetened beverages (e.g., empty calories, added sugars, high fructose corn syrup) that have been pinpointed as the culprits underlying the association between high sugar-sweetened beverage intakes and undesirable health outcomes. So, we were left to wonder, what was the mechanism underlying this association? Was high sugar-sweetened beverage intake just a marker for a more obesigenic lifestyle or was there something we were missing?

    The recent American Journal of Clinical Nutrition meta-analysis I referred to above combined 12, high-quality studies examining the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity. The combination of these studies revealed that sugar-sweetened beverages have a near-zero effect on change in weight status; thus, the blame placed on sugar-sweetened beverages for contributing to the current obesity epidemic is not supported by current research. The authors acknowledge that sugar-sweetened beverages are a source of calories and any type of calorie consumed in excess of need will lead to weight gain. However, only targeting sugar sweetened beverages in efforts to prevent obesity and excess weight gain will likely have little effect.

    Consider our study mentioned above; girls at higher risk for metabolic syndrome had higher sweetened beverage intakes than other girls, but that statement is based on a comparison of girls who were drinking 1.5 servings per day versus girls who were drinking ~1 serving per day. Thus, girls who had healthy metabolic profiles and weight status at age 13 were not avoiding soda completely across ages 5-13, they were just consuming soda in moderation. The moral of the story? Perhaps complete bans of sugar-sweetened beverages from schools and child-centered facilities are not the answer to preventing obesity. Perhaps our children can have their soda and drink it too…just as long as our children are taught to place healthy limits on their consumption.