Healthy Meals: No Longer a Mystery

Healthy meals don't have to be a mystery! A little extra planning, a few modifications, and the right choices can make all the difference. Knowing what to do (and what not to do) in the kitchen is essential. Nor does eating out have to mean eating unhealthy foods. Use this chapter to help you unlock the mystery and make healthy meals part of your everyday lifestyle.

Planning the Family Menu

Planning meals for yourself usually means planning meals for the whole family. The best way to make sure you and your family eat a healthy diet is to plan ahead. Plan menus for the week, and make sure you have all the foods necessary to carry out your plan. Planning ahead can help deter haphazard eating, which can lead to overeating or eating the wrong foods, and it helps you to stock your kitchen with the right ingredients.

Good menu planning is based on the right balance of foods. That means using the food groups and making sure you get enough of what you need at each meal to reach your goal for the day. Plan to eat five to six small meals throughout the day. This helps to keep your energy levels stable from meal to meal and gives you more opportunities to fit in all the food groups that you need.

Benefits of Planning Ahead

There are many benefits to planning ahead that can help both your nutritional intake as well as your busy lifestyle. Dinner can be a much less hectic event when you know what the menu will be in advance. By planning ahead, you can make meal preparation less time-consuming, and your family will probably tend to eat together more frequently. Planning ahead also sends you to the grocery store with a list, which can help you to avoid impulse purchases at the grocery store (and thus saving you some money!). When you plan meals, you don't tend to eat out or order out as much, which can be costly to both your pocketbook and your daily food intake.

Build some flexibility into your weekly menu plan in case things don't go as planned, which can happen at any time! Once you plan a week of menus, keep them around and recycle them down the road.

Steps to Easy Meal Planning

Menu planning does not have to be a complicated task. A small investment of your time can reap great rewards. Menu plans can save you money by cutting out the need for last-minute trips to the grocery store. Most important, planning ahead helps conserve your most valuable resource: your energy. You don't need to plan for the next month; just plan for the next week. Keep staple foods on hand for healthy breakfasts and snacks, and then decide on a few lunches that you can eat a few times during the week. That leaves you with just seven simple dinners to plan.

Think of dishes that can be used for leftovers the next night-for instance, a pan of lasagna is sure to last you a few nights. Do your meal planning on the days that your local grocery store ads come out; this can help give you ideas for dinners for the week and will let you know which foods are on special. To come up with some ideas of meals to prepare, get out your favorite recipes or cookbooks, and see what you already have on hand. Plan meals according to your and your family's schedule, for instance, by saving the roast for a lazy Sunday and preparing a homemade pizza on the day when the kids have soccer and you work late.

Mastering Low-Fat Cooking

While planning your meals, think healthy. The methods that you use to prepare your meals can make a big difference in the amount of calories, total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol content they contain. With a few simple changes and tips to cooking methods, you can cook "leaner" and still have great-tasting dishes. Use cooking methods that require little fat, such as braising, broiling, grilling, pan-broiling, poaching, roasting, simmering, steaming, stewing, and stir-frying. Simply trimming visible fat and skin from poultry) before cooking can cut fat significantly. If you leave the skin on while cooking, remove it before eating.

Other tips include running ground meat in hot water after browning and then draining to rinse off excess fat. You can also pat the meat with a paper towel or drain on a paper towel to remove excess fat. For meat that has little to no fat, try using marinades such as teriyaki sauce, orange juice, lime juice, lemon juice, tomato juice, defatted broth, or low-fat yogurt. Add fresh herbs and other spices, such as garlic powder, to marinades for more flavors. Did you ever notice that fat collects on top of stew, soups, chili, or other casserole dishes? Chill these dishes overnight, and the fat will rise to the top, making it easy for you to skim off. If you are not afraid to experiment, use half meat and half tofu, tempeh, or legumes to lower the fat in recipes and increase fiber. Stock your kitchen with nonstick saucepans, skillets, and baking pans so you can saute and bake without adding additional fat. If you need to, use a nonstick cooking spray along with defatted broth, water, juice, or cooking wine to replace cooking oil and prevent sticking.

Grilling can be a great low-fat cooking method, but it does have a few downsides. Recent research has indicated that potential carcinogens (cancer-causing substances) may be present in grilled foods. To make grilled food safer, do not char meats or vegetables, use a low to medium heat, reduce time on the grill by baking or microwaving foods first, and avoid eating the blackened parts of grilled foods.

Healthy-Up Your Recipes

In addition to using healthier cooking techniques, swapping ingredients in your recipes for leaner ones can healthy-up your meals. Small changes within a recipe can make big difference in the nutritional outcome. You may need to use less of an ingredient, substitute an ingredient, add a new ingredient, or completely leave something out. It will take some trial and error to get your recipes to your liking, but the extra effort will be well worth it.

Take a look at your recipes before you get started, and think about what individual ingredients may contribute to a dish that's higher in fat, cholesterol, calories, or sodium. Decide which ingredients can be substituted or reduced as well as added for additional nutritional value. Adding shredded carrots or zucchini to your lasagna, for example, can add a load of extra vitamins, minerals, and fiber to your dish. Make changes to your recipes gradually by changing one or two ingredients at a time each time you make it.

Use some of these substitutions to cut fat and calories while cooking or baking:

• Use fat-free or low-fat milk instead of whole milk.
• Use low-fat yogurt, 1/2 cup cottage cheese blended with 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, or light or fat-free sour cream instead of regular sour cream.
• Use evaporated fat-free milk or fat-free half-and-half instead of cream.
• Use 3 tablespoons cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon oil instead of 1 ounce unsweetened baking chocolate.
• Use low-fat cottage cheese or low-fat or nonfat ricotta cheese instead of regular ricotta cheese.
• Use chocolate sauce instead of fudge sauce.
• Use nonfat or low-fat plain yogurt or reduced-fat mayonnaise instead of regular mayonnaise.
• Use pureed fruits such as applesauce to replace anywhere from a third to half of the fat in recipes.
• For pies and other desserts, use a graham-cracker crumb crust instead of a higher-fat pastry shell.
• Use pureed cooked vegetables instead of cream, egg yolks, or roux to thicken sauces and soups.

Sensible Snacking

Choosing healthy snacks is as important as the healthy meals that you plan. Healthy snacks can help you add those extra calories and nutrients you need during pregnancy as well as give you a boost of energy when you need it and take the edge off hunger in between meals. Contrary to popular belief, snacking can be part of a healthful eating plan. To keep blood sugar levels under control, it is ideal to go no longer than three or four hours between meals. The key to sensible snacking is the type and amount of food that you choose. Mindless snacking or nibbling on high-fat, high-calorie foods can lead to trouble in the form of unwanted and empty calories as well as loads of fat and sugar.

To make snacking a healthy part of your diet, choose snacks that are lower in fat and rich in nutrients. Make snacks count, instead of thinking of ­ them as an "extra." Eat snacks well ahead of mealtime, and eat smaller portions of your snacks as opposed to big ones. Also, plan your snacks ahead of time. Good snack ideas include the following:

• Half a whole-wheat bagel or an apple topped with peanut butter
• Celery stalks with low-fat cream cheese
• Low-fat fruited yogurt topped with low-fat granola cereal
• Low-fat cottage cheese topped with fresh fruit
• Fresh fruit
• Light microwave popcorn (for extra flavor, toss with a small amount of low-fat Parmesan cheese or garlic powder)
• Pita bread stuffed with fresh veggies and low-fat ranch dressing
• Low-fat string cheese and crackers
• Raisins and rice cakes

These are only a few ideas! Use your creativity, and choose foods that you like.

Can eating more than three times a day be part of a healthy diet?

Yes. For women who are pregnant or for anybody who enjoys a healthy lifestyle, eating several small meals during the day can fit nicely into a healthy eating pattern. It can help you to fit in those extra calories and food group servings without having to eat large meals all at once, which can be difficult for women who may be having a problem with nausea or morning sickness.

Portion Power

Portion sizes are very important when you're trying to eat a healthy diet and control your calorie intake. The portion sizes you consume contribute directly to the number of calories and the amount of fat and other nutrients that you consume per day. Don't forget that even though you need a few more calories while pregnant, you are still not eating for two adult people.

You can eat healthily and still be eating too much. To follow the guidelines of the Food Guide Pyramid correctly, you must be aware of the portion sizes that you eat.

Visualize Your Portions

To follow a healthy diet, you don't need to necessarily weigh and measure all of your food each day. But you do need a general idea of how much you should be eating. Keep in mind that portion sizes are meant as general guidelines-the goal is to come close to the recommended serving sizes on average over several days. Be careful of letting your stomach do the portioning. Skipping meals can lead to ravenous hunger at the next meal, which makes it difficult to correctly portion your foods. To help estimate your portion sizes, use these visual comparisons:

• A 3-ounce portion of cooked meat, poultry, or fish is about the size of a deck of playing cards.
• A medium potato is about the size of a computer mouse.
• One cup of rice or pasta is about the size of a fist or a tennis ball.
• An average bagel should be the size of a hockey puck or a large to-go coffee lid.
• A cup of fruit or a medium apple or orange is the size of a baseball.
• One-half cup of chopped vegetables is about the size of three regular ice cubes.
• Three ounces of grilled fish is the size of your checkbook.
• One ounce of cheese is the size of four dice.
• One teaspoon of peanut butter equals one dice, and two tablespoons is about the size of a golf ball.
• One ounce of snack foods-such as pretzels-equals a large handful.
• A thumb tip equals 1 teaspoon, three thumb tips equal 1 tablespoon and a whole thumb equals 1 ounce.

To help you eat only the portions you measure out, portion out your food before bringing it to the table. You will be less likely to eat too much when serving bowls are not on the table. Another clever trick is to use a smaller plate to make your portion sizes look bigger.

Dining Out

It is nice to get out of the kitchen once in awhile and let someone else do the cooking. According to the National Restaurant Association, in 2000, the average annual household expenditure away from home was about $855 per person. About half of all adults eat at a restaurant on a typical day, and almost 54 billion meals are eaten in restaurants, at school, and at work cafeterias each year. But dining out can present challenges to your goal of eating healthily during your pregnancy.

The more meals that are eaten away from home, the bigger impact they have on your total daily nutritional intake. It is much easier to splurge or lose sight of your overall eating pattern when you eat out frequently. All of this eating out generates nutritional challenges that include larger-than-normal portion sizes, too many calories, too much fat and sodium, too few vitamins and minerals, and too little fiber.

Your Dining-Out Guidelines

Even though dining out can present some challenges, this doesn't mean you can't eat out occasionally. It simply means that you have to put some thought into the choices that you make when dining out. It also means that you will have to put a greater effort to balance out the rest of your day's intake. When you are at a restaurant, be the first to order your meal so you are not tempted by what other people order. Make an effort to eat slowly and stop eating before you feel too stuffed. You can ask the server to remove your plate once you feel full. If there is food left on your plate, ask for a doggie bag. Try splitting a meal with a dining companion, or bring half your meal home in a doggie bag for lunch the next day. In fact, you can even ask for a doggie bag to come with your meal so you can pack half of it away and not be tempted to eat the whole thing.

Start with easy changes, like choosing low-calorie salad dressings. You can also ask for dressing, gravies, sauces, and condiments (like mayonnaise) to be served on the side. This way, you have more control over how much you use. Small changes can go a long way. Don't be afraid to ask exactly how foods are prepared or to ask to have them prepared in a certain way. When choosing entrees, opt for plain meats and vegetables instead of breaded and/or deep-fried dishes, and avoid sauces and ingredients such as hollandaise, butter, cheese, and cream sauces that can add extra calories and fat.

Menu terms that are clues to lower-fat foods include the following words: baked, braised, broiled, grilled, roasted, steamed, stir-fried, poached, or cooked in its own juices. Menu clues that a food is likely to be higher in fat include these: alfredo, au gratin, cheese sauce, battered, fried, bearnaise, buttered, creamed, French fried, hollandaise, pan fried, sauteed, scalloped, with gravy, or with sauce. Menu clues that a food may be higher in sodium include these words: barbecued, in broth, pickled, smoked, teriyaki, Creole sauce, or soy sauce.

Request substitutes for higher-fat side dishes. For example, if your meal comes with French fries, ask for a baked potato with salsa, a brothy soup, side salad, or fresh fruit bowl instead. Be careful of appetizers before your meal that can really add up in fat and calories. Instead, choose fresh fruit, vegetable juice, marinated vegetables, raw vegetables with salsa dip, or sea­food cocktail. Be very careful of beverages such as alcohol and soft drinks that can add tons of empty calories to your meal. You best bet is water with a twist of lemon-and keep it coming, especially if you're trying to avoid the bread basket! Most importantly, balance your dining-out habits with physical activity. Being physically active is what helps burn those calories. After you get home from eating out, take a walk.

Plan for Dining Out

Planning ahead for a meal out can put you on the right path to a healthier eating experience. Plan your day so that you can fit the restaurant meal into your whole day's eating plan. Nutritional intake is what you take in over the course of an entire day, not just one meal. Never skip meals during the day just to "save up" for your night out. If you arrive at the restaurant ravenous, you will probably eat more than you intended to, and you will probably have a harder time making healthier choices. Instead, eat light meals throughout the day, and have a snack such as yogurt or fruit in the late afternoon. Choosing a restaurant that prepares foods to order will help give you more control of what you eat and will make it easier to make Special requests. This means passing up the all-you-can-eat buffets. Do some home­work, and call ahead to a restaurant you plan to visit to ask about the menu and how food is prepared.

An order of twelve buffalo wings can weigh in at up to 700 calories and 48 grams. An order of eight stuffed potato skins with sour cream can add up to 1,260 calories and 95 grams of fat. A fried onion bloom (serving size of three cups) with dipping sauce can add up to 2,130 calories and 163 grams of fat. Plan on skipping the appetizer and just going straight to the healthy meal.

Obstacles at the Salad Bar

The salad bar always seems like a safe bet, but be aware that it can be a pitfall of excessive calories and fat if you are not careful. Choosing a large variety of vegetables and fruits can add to your day's intake of essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber. However, depending on what foods you choose, your salad bar plate can still add up to 1,000 calories or more. Excessive calories at the salad bar usually come from regular salad dressings, cheese, bacon bits, croutons, nuts or seeds, olives, and other side dishes such as macaroni salad, pasta salad, creamy soups, and even desserts. To help control your trip to the salad bar and make it a healthy one, use plenty of fresh vegetables as the base of your salad. By choosing dark-green leafy lettuces, such as romaine and/or spinach, over iceberg lettuce, you can add more essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Stick with lower-fat or fat-free salad dressings if you tend to eat a little salad with your dressing. Add protein to your salad plate by adding lean meats such as turkey, chicken breast, or egg whites; legumes such as chickpeas; or crabmeat. Add low-fat cottage cheese, other low-fat cheeses, and yogurt to add a calcium boost. Go easy on those mayonnaise-based salads, such as potato or macaroni salad, that always seem to be there, and stick to fresh fruits for dessert.

Fumbling for Fast Food

How many times have you been out running around-or home but not in the mood to do any cooking-and decided to stop at the first fast-food place you saw? Fast foods are more popular than ever before, and many now offer a variety of healthy menu alternatives. Still, frequenting fast-food places can lead to a higher intake of fat, calories, sodium, saturated fat, and cholesterol. It can also cut into your chances of getting in all the food groups you need each day, including fruits, vegetables, dairy, and whole grains. Some pregnant women may lose their taste altogether for that fast-food burger, while others may begin to crave them.

When choosing your fast-food entree, choose smaller burgers without the cheese, bacon, mayonnaise, and special sauces. All these toppers add more saturated fat and cholesterol to your meal, not to mention calories. Use lower-fat toppings such as ketchup, mustard, barbeque sauces, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles. Better yet, go for the grilled chicken breast or a sensible salad. If you choose to eat chicken or fish, stay away from the deep-fried versions, which will be high in fat and calories. A grilled, roasted, or broiled piece of chicken or fish is the healthiest choice.

Toppings can add up quickly, as follows:

• One packet of mayonnaise can have as much as 95 calories and 10 grams of fat.
• One packet of tartar sauce can add as much as 160 calories and 17 grams of fat to your fish sandwich.
• A 2-ounce packet of ranch dressing can have as much as 290 calories and 30 grams of fat.
• Just one slice of American cheese can add 50 calories and 5 grams of fat.

Subs can make for a healthy, low-fat sandwich when prepared on whole­grain bread and topped with mustard, vegetable oil, and/or low-fat cheese. Go for the cooked turkey or chicken breast instead of the higher-fat processed meats such as salami or bologna. Load up your sub with vegetables such as lettuce, tomato, onions, and peppers. Wraps are also a good choice. These are usually made from pita bread or flour tortillas and stuffed with chicken, beans, and/or vegetables. Again, beware of the added cheese, dressings, and sauces that can turn a simple sub into a high-fat and high­calorie nightmare. Ask for half the cheese, and ask for the dressing and sauce on the side so you can choose a lower-fat or fat-free version.

Not sure how your favorite fast-food menus rate? Most fast-food restaurants have Web sites that post nutritional information on their foods. Check them out before you head off to the drive-through!

We're a country of people who love our French fries. But don't be fooled into thinking this is a health food now that fast-food restaurants are telling us their fries are fried in vegetable oil. These oils are hydrogenated to make them more solid at room temperature, which means they are loaded with saturated fat. The best choice for a side dish is a garden salad with low-fat or fat-free dressing or a baked potato loaded with salsa.