Elements of a Great Meal
Dear Fabulous Traveler,
Have you realized something?The train has left the station - you’re on your way...
By making small changes in your routine, you are starting to create a waterfall effect that will carry over into multiple aspects of your life.The next step is looking at the fundamentals of preparing a perfectly healthy meal.
What’s a great meal?
Your ideal plate will have lots of vegetables, a small portion of protein, and a source of carbohydrates. The key is to focus on eating and using ingredients that are whole, fresh, and largely unprocessed.Once upon a time, ‘whole food’ was all that was available to eat, but today supermarket shelves are lined with a variety of deceptive, food-like substances and products. These tend to be jam-packed with preservatives and nutritionally lacking. Throughout this journey, we’re going to help you avoid these!
Let’s get started.
Keep it Colorful
Always start by asking yourself: what veggies am I going to use? Am I going to have a salad, make stir-fry, or go for steamed vegetables with a sauce on top?
The Harvard School of Public Health advises that the more variety you have the better. Keep it colorful! Look for reds, oranges, greens, and yellows. And remember, potatoes don’t count. They aren’t even included in the food chart as a vegetable!If you don’t want a bunch of different vegetables with every meal (maybe you’re just in the mood for steamed broccoli or kale one day), just make sure you aren’t falling into a rut of the same couple of choices. Day to day, week to week, switch it up and experiment with things you haven’t included before.
Finally, make sure to use healthy oils for cooking and in salads. If you are cooking at high heats, coconut oil is one of the safest because it doesn’t denature as fast as other oils. Sunflower oil is a good choice as well. Olive oil is fantastic for salads and a great source of healthy fats.
Okay Fabulous Traveler, once you’ve decided on your t vegetable choices, you can pick your source of protein.
Focus on Fish
Our first tip is that while a little meat won’t affect your health, it’s better approached as a side dish rather than a main course.
Harvard Health Men’s Watch emphasizes cutting red meat for a longer life, with data showing that it increases risk for colorectal cancer and other serious health concerns. These concerns are raised further when processed choices (like bacon, sausage and other deli meats) are involved. They advise meat portions at meals should be no larger than the palm of your hand.
We are encouraging reduction and replacement with healthier options.Poultry is a great alternative, such as some homemade chicken or turkey breast.
Another very important part of a healthy diet, that you should include and also increase your consumption of, is fish.
Fabulous Traveler, fish and other types of seafood are major sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. These support a healthy heart because they reduce heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. It’s also high in protein and low in saturated fat.
Fish is also rich in other nutrients such as Vitamin D and Selenium, which help your nutrient absorption, boost your immune system, and support thyroid function. Basically, it’s great for body!
Watch Out for Mercury
One thing to look out for when you’re picking the kind of fish you want to buy is mercury levels, especially, but not only, if you’re pregnant.
Health Canada has identified certain fish as being of more concern for mercury, and these tend to be the ones higher in the food chain: fresh/frozen tuna, shark, swordfish, marlin, orange roughy and escolar. The FDA also mentions King Mackerel and tilefish. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean you have to cut these out entirely, but keep them to a minimum.Some of the fish options with the lowest mercury levels include salmon, sardines, tilapia, anchovies, butterfish, hake, whitefish, and cod.
Stick to Complex Carbs
Once you have chosen your protein, think about a source of complex carbohydrates. The easy approach to this is to always go for whole grains instead of the processed version. For example, have brown instead of white rice, and quinoa instead of white pasta.
Simple carbs are essentially sugar, or starches that are quickly converted into sugars in your body. These cause blood sugar spikes and long term are major risk factors for type 2 Diabetes. This is why we say to avoid a lot of baked goods and cereals.Lastly, don’t forget to always end your meal with a serving of fresh fruit. Make this a tradition.
Okay Fabulous Traveler, if you remember only two sentences from this, let it be this these: Veggies are the main course, protein and carbs are the side dishes. Think less red meat, more fish, whole foods and lots of color!
This Week’s Plan
Your one-time action
There is a habit many of us learned from our parents: nothing should be left on your plate. The principle behind this is a good one. It’s discouraging food waste. However, when you are trying to switch your eating habits, it can also become a problem.
Look at the size of your plates.If they're big, you’re definitely going to eat more. Can you switch to smaller plates? This will force you to serve yourself a smaller portion of food. So you are actually reducing waste and eating less at the same time.
While this is a remarkably simple solution, studies show that switching to a smaller plate has resulted in people reducing their food consumption by 22 percent!.If you have large plates, try to make arrangements for this switch today. Don’t want to or can’t buy new ones? Try using salad plates or bowls as a tool for measurement instead.
Your goal
Three times during the next week, keep eating fruits and vegetables with your meats. Now, we’d also like you to try substituting red meat with fish three times as well.
An analysis of 20 studies involving hundreds of thousands of participants indicates that eating approximately one to two servings of fatty fish a week—salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, or sardines—reduces the risk of dying from heart disease by 36 percent. That’s pretty good incentive!
What We Are Doing
We’re continuing to help you build the right habits for healthy eating. We’re doing it slow and steady, because that’s how you make change last! You’ve built a great foundation, keep it up, and next week we’ll be focusing more on the importance of whole grains. Let us know how you’re doing, we love to hear from you.
Until next time, Fabulous Traveler!