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Guide to Fast and Delicious Meals

Guide to Healthy Recipes

Eating healthy means making a commitment to preparing healthy food. But for many of us, the term “healthy meal” brings to mind hassle, effort, and tastelessness.

Preparing healthy, good-for-you foods doesn’t have to be a stumbling block to a healthy diet. Plenty of resources exist to help us eat well and transform our favorite foods and recipes into healthier fare.. Read on to discover simple recipes and tips for specific health concerns as well as a generally healthier diet.

In This Article:

* The benefits of cooking and preparing your own food
* Making your favorite recipes healthier
* Recipes for a heart-healthy diet
* Weight loss recipes
* Fighting cancer through diet
* Recipes to fight osteoporosis
* Diabetes diet
* Related links

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The benefits of cooking and preparing your own food

In today’s fast-paced culture, the prospect of planning, cooking, and savoring a home-cooked meal can seem daunting. The “quick-and-easy” way of life full of microwaves, fast-food restaurants, and packaged meals easily overshadows the importance of cooking and preparing food the old fashioned way: at home in your own kitchen. Many prepared foods, whether from the drive-thru or a microwave-safe package, can contain a myriad of unhealthy ingredients.

In addition, many of us have been put on special diets to address specific health concerns ranging from heart disease prevention and diabetes, to weight loss. Diets often have you eating the same things over and over which can become monotonous over time. Being exposed to different types of foods and creative methods of preparation can infuse your diet with a new twist and give you the delicious tastes you’ve been craving.

Taking the time to prepare quick and healthy meals gives you more control over what you and your family are eating. Seeking out a variety of healthy recipes and preparing nutritious meals can help prevent common medical conditions and concerns, and engages your senses in a sumptuous world of flavors, textures, aromas, sights, and sounds!
Making your favorite recipes healthier

What if I just don’t have time to cook? Or prepare my lunch? Or eat breakfast? All common refrains from people who don’t realize how easy and fast it can be to prepare your own meals. Cooking doesn’t have to be complicated.
Some basic tips for making your favorite recipes healthier include:

* Decrease the meat and increase the vegetables called for in stews and casseroles.
* Choose whole-grain versions of pasta and bread; substitute whole-wheat flour for bleached white flour when you bake.
* Serve imaginative whole-grain side dishes like bulgur or kasha instead of white rice or pasta.
* Cook with less fat by using non-stick skillets.
* Blot all fried meats on paper towels.
* Avoid cooking with soy or Worcestershire sauce and products that contain monosodium glutamate (MSG).
* Substitute garlic or onion powder for garlic or onion salt, and use unsalted or low-salt vegetable broths and products.
* Buy reduced-fat cheese or use mozzarella which is naturally lower in fat.
* In recipes calling for milk or cream, substitute 2% or reduced fat versions. This also works well for low-fat cream cheese, yogurt, and mayo.
* Unhealthy fats like certain oils, butter, or margarines can usually be cut by 1/3 to 1/2 in recipes. At first try a small cut-back and then use less and less over time; you’ll hardly notice the difference. You can also use fat substitutes like prune purees and applesauce in baked goods.
* Use fresh-frozen fruit without added sugar if fresh is unavailable.
* Cut the sugar called for in most recipes by one-third to one-half.
* Sweeten waffles and quick breads with cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla or almond extracts in order to cut the sugar content.
* Try salsa on a baked potato or salad rather than high-fat dressing or butter.

Learning the basic building blocks of a healthy diet is the first step to eating better and promoting overall health. See Healthy Eating: Tips for a Healthy Diet for guidelines and suggestions.
Recipes for a heart healthy diet

Harvard Medical School breaks down the basic guidelines for heart healthy eating into the following 5 steps:

1. Eat more liquid (unsaturated) fats, and fewer solid (saturated and trans) fats.
2. Eat more colorful, nutrient-loaded fruits and vegetables, and fewer white potatoes.
3. Eat more fiber-filled whole grains, and fewer refined carbohydrates (white starches).
4. Eat more heart-healthy proteins such as fish, poultry, beans, and low-fat or nonfat dairy products, and less red meat.
5. Eat more potassium-rich fruits and vegetables, and less sodium-rich processed food.

Source: Harvard Health: Healthy Eating for a Healthy Heart

If you are focusing on a heart-healthy diet, you may want to choose recipes that are low in sodium, high in fiber and protein, and low in saturated fat (unsaturated, “good” fats, like Omega-3 and Omega-6, can actually be beneficial to heart health.)

To learn more about eating for heart health, see Preventing Heart Disease and Stroke
Recipes for heart healthy breakfasts

* Muesli — With oats, bran, and flax, this high-fiber treat makes a great breakfast. (Waukesha Memorial Hospital Heart Healthy Recipes)
* Applesauce-oatmeal pancakes — Made with egg whites and fat-free milk, these are a delicious low-fat alternative to ordinary pancakes. (About.com: Low Fat Cooking)
* Broccoli-cheddar breakfast burrito — Broccoli is a powerhouse vegetable, and by using a whole-wheat wrap and added flax, you’ll get some extra fiber as well. (Discovery Health National Body Challenge)
* Egg and avocado wrap — Avocado is a wonderful source of “healthy fat”. (Discovery Health National Body Challenge)

Recipes for heart-healthy lunches

* Open-faced sardine, watercress & carrot sandwich — Sardines are full of healthy omega-3, and carrots pack an antioxidant punch. (Reader’s Digest Food & Recipes)
* Chicken veggie pita — Made in 10 minutes flat, this recipes uses whole-wheat pita and heart-wise grilled chicken, along with crunchy cucumbers and tomatoes (which have the added bonus of lycopene, a cancer-fighter, and vitamin C). (Discovery Health National Body Challenge)
* Edamame and summer bean salad — Edamame are full of soy protein, which may reduce the risk of heart disease. (Mayo Clinic Healthy Recipes)

Recipes for heart-healthy dinners

* Pasta with ricotta and tomatoes — By using whole grain pasta in this easy dish, you can make it even better for your heart. (Heartscreen.com)

Weight loss recipes

Healthy weight loss is about avoiding restrictive or “starvation” diets, and focusing instead on consuming better foods and controlling portion sizes. Incorporating a variety of healthy recipes into your eating plan will keep diets from becoming boring or repetitive. Healthy snacking is also a smart way to stave off hunger and avoid bingeing on fattening, processed foods — so we’ve included some recipes for filling, weight-loss appropriate snacks, as well as quick and easy meal ideas.

For more information on losing weight, see Healthy Weight Loss.
Snacking for healthy weight loss

* Cucumbers & cottage cheese — A crunchy, creamy snack with a protein and calcium boost. (Eating Well.com)
* Banana, apricot and bran smoothie — Fiber helps fill you up; the natural sweetness of fruit can curb sugar cravings. (WeightLoss.com — Australia)
* Spice-roasted almonds — Almonds are great sources of vitamin E, protein, and healthy fat, and are thought to lower LDL cholesterol. (MedicineNet.com)

Breakfast recipes for healthy weight loss

* Spinach scramble — Thanks to flavorful pepper and spinach, you won’t miss the fat in this recipe, (About.com — Walking Recipes)
* Quick apple muesli — Chock full of fruits, nuts, and fiber, this muesli combines with low fat yogurt to give you a healthy, delicious and filling start to your day. (Delicious Low Fat Recipes — commercial site)
* Low-fat apple bran muffins — If you’re always on the go, these fiber-filled low fat muffins are a perfect solution. (Family Oven.com — commercial site)

Lunch recipes for healthy weight loss

* Turkey and broccoli crepe — A light, easy meal with nutritional powerhouse broccoli. (Mayo Clinic Healthy Recipes)
* Grilled chicken Caesar salad — This remake of a popular salad uses heart-healthy olive oil and grilled chicken which cuts the fat to 10 grams. (Food Network)
* Zesty minestrone — Pairing some whole grain bread with this flavorful, vegetarian soup makes for a hearty but healthy lunch. (Low Fat Recipes.com)

Dinner recipes for healthy weight loss

* Pan-seared halibut with lemon-herb mayo — With only 7 grams of fat and 231 calories per serving, this seafood feast works well with any diet. (Food Fit.com — commercial site)
* Tofu manicotti — Vary your protein sources with silken tofu, which can be a great substitute for cheese in Italian dishes. (Better Homes and Gardens)
* 15-minute chicken & asparagus stir-fry — Diet meals don’t need to be time consuming. Not only is this chicken dish quick and easy, it’s stir-fried to provide taste without added fat or calories. (World’s Healthiest Foods - The George Mateljan Foundation)

Fighting cancer through diet

New research is strengthening the link between healthy eating and the prevention of certain types of cancer. Eating more fruits and vegetables, limiting red meat, and incorporating more “healthy fat” and fiber into your diet can help fight many forms of cancer, while strengthening your immune system and general health.
Cancer-fighting recipes

* Flaxen French toast — Flax contains lignans, a substance thought to prevent breast cancer, as well as healthy Omega-3 fatty acids. (Alive Magazine)
* Linguine with sautéed veggies — This delicious pasta has broccoli, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, jalapenos, garlic and turmeric — all known cancer fighters. (BFeedMe.com — commercial site)
* Berry blender blast — Berries contain ellagic acid , found to prevent cancers of the skin, bladder, lung, esophagus and breast. This smoothie has the added benefit of soy protein from tofu. (Walgreens.com Health Corner)
* Mashed sweet potatoes and turnips — With beta-carotene, fiber and vitamins A, C and E, sweet potatoes are a true super food. Turnips are in the cancer-fighting cruciferous family of vegetables. (American Institute for Cancer Research)
* Tofu creamed spinach — This recipe is not only high-protein from the tofu, but thanks to the cartenoids, folate and anti-oxidants in spinach, it is an anti-cancer delicacy. (AllRecipes.com)

Recipes to fight osteoporosis

The treatment plan for osteoporosis always includes ensuring that there are sufficient amounts of calcium and Vitamin D in the diet. Foods rich in calcium include milk, yogurt, cheese, tofu, sardines, salmon, turnips, and some green and leafy vegetables, such as spinach, broccoli and kale. The main food sources of vitamin D are cold saltwater fish (e.g., salmon, halibut, and herring), fortified milk, egg yolks, liver, and especially fish oils.
Osteoporosis-fighting recipes

* Raspberry popsicle parfaits — Made with high-calcium yogurt. (FoodFit.com — commercial site)
* Cottage cheese cantaloupe salad — Cottage cheese is a great source of calcium. (Reader’s Digest Food & Recipes)
* Three-cheese spinach frittata — Between the spinach, cheese, and eggs, you’ll have much of your calcium and vitamin D needs taken care of by breakfast! (Good Housekeeping)
* Sauteed tofu with bitter greens — A filling combination of calcium-rich tofu and bitter greens. (Martha Stewart.com)
* Sauteed chard and salmon — Salmon provides vitamin D, while the swiss chard adds some much-needed calcium. (Whole Foods Market)
* Fettucine with mushroom sauce — By using evaporated milk, you can create a creamy, calcium-rich comfort food without all the fat. (OBGYN.net)

Recipes for a diabetes diet

A diet for diabetes should keep blood glucose from rising too high or dipping too low. Eating too much can cause blood glucose to elevate to unhealthy levels. Conversely, the consequence of glucose levels dropping too low is hypoglycemia , or low blood sugar. This can manifest as nervousness, trembling, weakness, and “brain fog.” Thus, the key is to stabilize blood glucose at a healthy level.

In addition, diabetics are at significant risk for increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, two of the main risk factors for heart disease. Besides managing blood glucose levels, eating a heart healthy, low-cholesterol diet can help diabetics further reduce their risk of heart problems.
A selection of recipes for diabetic diets

* Cran-apple oatmeal (American Diabetes Association — Virtual Grocery Store)
* Banana bars (American Diabetes Association — Virtual Grocery Store)
* 7-minute egg casserole (DLife.com — commercial site)
* Chicken-chutney wraps (Diabetic Gourmet Magazine)
* Upside-down taco (Diabetes Self Management — commercial site)
* Slow-roasted butternut squash & carrot soup (Liberty Medical — commercial site)
* Parmesan-crusted pork tenderloins (Fabulous Foods.com — commercial site)

To Learn More: Related Helpguide Articles

Healthy Weight Loss: Popular Plans and Tips for Managing Your Weight
*

Healthy Fast Food: Healthy Restaurant Eating
*

Healthy Eating: New Food Pyramids and Tips for a Healthy Diet

* Nutrition for Women: Lifelong Healthy Eating
*

Organic Foods: Pesticides, GMOs, Food Irradiation, and Eating Well On A Budget

Related links for healthy recipes
General healthy recipes

The World’s Healthiest Recipes — Database allows you to search for recipes based on particular ingredients that you’d prefer included or excluded in the meal. The majority of these recipes have preparation and cooking times of 30 minutes or less. (The George Mateljan Foundation)

5 A Day Recipes — Search for recipes that contain fruits and/or vegetables based on type of meal, preparation time, season, and color. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute)

Meals for You (commercial site) — Advanced search finds recipes based on particular diets (i.e., vegetarian, diabetic, etc.), taste, preparation time, and nutritional requirements. (Point of Choice)

Recipe makeover — Learn “how to convert typically unhealthy western style foods into healthier, lower calorie versions — without sacrificing the taste.” Recipes include nutritional analysis. (Mediterrasian.com)
Healthy recipes for heart disease prevention

Delicious Decisions — Online “cookbook” from the American Heart Association.

Cooking the Heart Healthy Way — Collection of recipes that are low-fat and promote heart health. (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute)

Heart-Healthy Recipes — Large and diverse collection, including appetizer and beverage recipes. (Mayo Clinic)
Healthy Recipes for Weight Loss

Weight-Loss Recipes — Recipe ideas for a well-balanced diet. (Readers Digest)

My Recipes — Healthy Diet — Website offering searchable, healthy recipes from Cooking Light and Health magazines.
Healthy recipes for cancer prevention

Recipe Corner — Contains numerous healthy recipes for a variety of meal types including appetizers, breads, beverages, soups, entrees, and desserts and provides diet and health guidelines for cancer prevention. (American Institute for Cancer Research)

Recipes — Browse healthy recipes by type of meal including breakfast, appetizers, soups & salads, entrees, side dishes, beverages & shakes, and desserts. Recipes include nutritional analysis. (Stanford Cancer Center)

Cancer Center Recipes — Offers numerous cancer-preventing recipes. (University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center)
Healthy recipes for a diabetic diet

Diabetic Recipes — A collection of over 800 recipes which are both diabetic-friendly and heart healthy. (Diabetic-Recipes.com)

Diabetic Gourmet Recipe Archive — Recipes divided into categories such as “Regional and Ethnic,” “Sauces and Condiments,” and “Holidays and Special Occasions.” (Diabetic Gourmet Magazine)
Recipes to fight osteoporosis

Calcium-rich recipes — Includes guidelines on calcium needs for osteoporosis, and recipes incorporating significant calcium and vitamin D. (ObGyn.net)

Recipes for Healthy Bones - Online cookbook of international recipes rich in calcium and vitamin D. (International Osteoporosis Foundation)

Suzanne Barston created this article with contributions from Gina Kemp, M.A., Heather Larson, and Deborah Cutter, Psy.D. Last modified: March 08.
Helpguide NewsletterHelpguide Newsletter

First of all, I want to apologize to all if I have been ‘cranky’ tonight - Low pressure coming in with cold rain/sleet/snow mixture - Sure has my sinusitis in an uproar.

LOL Maybe this would be the perfect time to lay some accumulated experience on why you should can your own food out there...

Some of you may have seen where I have had a couple of years of experience in the commercial food preparation business. I worked as an Area Manager for Receiving, Clean & Prep, Initial Processing and Freezer operations for a now closed very large food processing company here in the East.

I left that company over some of their practices even though many of them were standard operating procedure throughout the industry. Knowing those normal operating practices is what really drove me to canning my own.

A few examples...

What do you do with a truckload of string beans that has been rejected for worms? Process them as french style beans - worm strips are not readily noticeable.

If peeled potatoes are left exposed to the air till they turn dark - even almost black - what do you do with them? Put them in the can anyway, but increase the salt. After 3-5 years in the increased salt solution they will lighten up or bleach out to where it isn’t noticeable. Yep that can may have been sitting in a warehouse for 5 years before it was sent to the distributor then to the grocery store.

Vegetables are transported throughout the plant by pumping the product. Each pump has a drum that the vegetables drop into from a dewatering reel from the previous pump. Quite often, pumps plug up and overflow the drum and fill the pit where the pumps are located - a worker or two are put into the pit with shovels to shovel the vegetables into the unstopped pump - along with the slime, mold and whatever has accumulated in the pit. They do change the water in the pumps once a day and rinse off the tanks with hoses to knock the foam/slime/mold off.

Flash frozen vegetables are run through a blast of super cold air blast which has been blown over ammonia coils - those coils freeze moisture on them from the vegetables and from the air - so Glycol (an anti-freeze) is continuously sprayed on those coils to deice them. Mist from that is blown through the vegetables traveling on the freezer bed. Yum.

USDA - while having one inspector for the whole plant, and a couple of technicians (mostly for paperwork) only toured the plant once a month and relied on opening 3 cans from each lot (about 10,000 cans) and inspecting what was in the can to assign it a grade. Most of the time, plant workers selected best looking vegetables as they went through for the inspections. Marking the cans to be pulled for USDA.

Ever wonder how those potatoes and carrots are peeled in such large quantities? They are dumped into a vat of caustic - yep very hot Lye. Then the conveyor runs them up and into a scrubber that has first hard rubber rough rollers which beat off part of the lye dissolved outer layer. Then they are run through a polisher which consists of brush rollers and then it goes to the pumps and off to a conveyor for obvious trash and bad potatoes or carrots are removed by hand on a 3’ wide conveyor running 1-2 deep past 8 women at a pretty good clip who are trying to pick out the bad. Then to another pump to the cutting and then to the can fillers. Snakes, frogs, other critters usually get past the pick-out tables as the first response is for them to jump back from them. The reels have a grill that takes out most of them.

The peels/lye mixture is pumped into a tank truck and hauled to a lagoon on a cattle ranch. After a few weeks in the lagoon, the pH has neutralized enough to where it can be mixed with hay and fed to cattle.

While most of us believe that Kosher has special processing and inspection - Well, not hardly. To run Kosher lots, the Rabbi comes in and is given a tour of the newer part of the plant once a year, they bring the Kosher Salt, Kosher Onion Powder, etc. out of storage in the freezer for the Rabbi to see and check labeling on it. He then proceeds to the boiler room where incense is burned in the boiler, prayers are said and he departs. As soon as he departs, all the Kosher ingredients go back into the freezer for next years inspection. Production continues as usual.

Ever wonder when you buy peas and carrots or mixed vegetables, how they get them all to mature at the same time? They don’t - The early vegetables are frozen in open tote boxes and stacked in a freezer - then when all the ingredients needed have come to season, they dump the frozen vegetables in with fresh ones and process as though they were all fresh.

Think your particular brand is special and better than the rest? Probably not. This plant processed 26 different vegetables and mixes - they are stored in warehouses in bulk pallets and when an order comes in on any of the over 600 labels they packaged for, they pull the grade called for and run the labels on. When the quantity needed is met, the line continues but with the next label going on. So you can see Aunt Lydia string beans coming off, and without stopping you change to Libby’s then even Del Monte and on and on to fill the orders. 6,000 cases for Libby, 5,000 for Aunt Lidia, 3,000 for Island Farm Brand, etc. all day long.

The final straw for me was when you are taking your turn on the weekends for plant operations, they run cooker charts (temperature and pressure round chart disks) without product going through so they can replace the charts for the lots that had malfunctions or breakdowns when they were run. Then they expect the manager to sign off on those charts saying they actually were from the original cook. Not me... I took all the charts they wanted me to sign and on Monday morning marched down the long hall to the Owner’s office. slammed them on his desk and told him that if he wanted to have these fraudulent cooker charts signed, that he needed to get out HIS pen and start signing, and if he didn’t, then they could expect to have a vacancy. He wouldn’t so I marched right out - never to return.

So, next time you go to the grocery store and pick up a can of vegetables, ask yourself - shouldn’t I be canning these myself - then I could know what is in it and how it was handled and processed and how fresh it really is...

I hope this doesn’t ruin anyone’s dinner, but while I was on my soapbox, I wanted y’all to know the ‘rest of the story’.

Maybe now some of you understand a bit more why I am so passionate on the growing/preparing/canning/freezing/drying your own food right!

Tomorrow I should be back to my normal sweet self (if this sinusitis will just abate a bit) and we can chat about more pleasant things.