Since food and eating properly contribute so much to a healthy diet, people should focus more on considering the food their body needs especially on a diet. What food items to consider then for a leaner, slender body?
Experts remind that diet foods should contain the necessary vitamins and minerals that are quite essential for weight control and metabolism.
These foods should include Vitamins B2, B3, B5, B6, Vitamin C, choline, inositol, chromium, manganese, and zinc.
These are some healthy food ideas to stock in your fridge and cabinets
Remember, if you don’t have junk around the house, you’re less likely to eat junk.
If all you have is healthy food around the house, you’re forced to make smart choices.
Basically, it all starts with making smart choices and avoiding temptations when you make your grocery store trip.
Now these are just some examples but perhaps they will give you some good ideas that you’ll enjoy.
Let’s start with the fridge.
Make sure to load with lots of varieties of fresh vegetables.
During the growing season, only get local produce. Obviously in winter, resort to the produce at the grocery store.
Most of the time, make sure to have plenty of vegetables like zucchini, onions, fresh mushrooms, spinach, broccoli, red peppers, and others to use in your morning eggs.
Dice up some lean chicken or turkey sausage into the eggs, along with some Swiss, jack, or goat cheeses.
Coconut milk is another staple in the fridge. Mix in with smoothies, oatmeal, or yogurt for a rich, creamy taste.
Not only does coconut milk add a rich, creamy taste to lots of dishes, but it’s also full of healthy saturated fats.
Healthy saturated fats like medium chain triglycerides, specifically an MCT called lauric acid.
Back to the fridge, here are some other staples:
Cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and yogurt – You can mix cottage or ricotta cheese and yogurt together with chopped nuts and berries for a great mid-morning or mid-afternoon meal.
Chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds
They are delicious and great sources of healthy fats.
Whole flax seeds
You can grind these in a mini coffee grinder and add to yogurt or salads. Always grind them fresh because the omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and prone to oxidation, creating high levels of free radicals in pre-ground flax.
Eggs
One of nature’s richest sources of nutrients and remember, they increase your GOOD cholesterol.
Nut Butter
Perhaps, plain old peanut butter has gotten a little old for you. You can get creative and mix together almond butter with sesame seed butter, or even cashew butter with macadamia butter. It is definitely delicious and unbeatable in nutrition!
Salsa
Try to get creative and try some of the exotic varieties of salsas.
Butter
Don’t believe the naysayers. Butter adds great flavor to anything and can be part of a healthy diet, just keep the quantity small because it is calorie dense…and NEVER use margarine, unless you want to assure yourself a heart attack.
Avocados
They are great plus a great source of healthy fats, fiber, and other nutrients. Try adding them to wraps, salads, or sandwiches.
Whole grain wraps and whole grain breadÂ
Look for wraps and bread with at least 3-4 grams of fiber per 20 grams of total carbs.
Instead of cutting out carbs, you should be aiming to reduce them to a healthy portion of your diet – which most doctors agree is about 50-60% of your caloric intake.
That means that if you’re on a 1500 calorie a day diet, you should be striving to get about 900 calories a day from grains, fruits, and vegetables.
Whole grain bread packs a lot of nutritional value. Replace your two slices of white toast with 1/2 a cup of oatmeal or whole grain cereal and for about the same number of calories.
You’ll be getting three times the vitamins, amino acids and roughage that your body needs to function. You’ll feel full far longer, too – because you’ve given your body something to work on that will take a while to digest.
Rice bran and wheat germ
These may sound way too healthy for some, but they actually add a nice little nutty, crunchy taste to yogurt or smoothies, or can be added when baking muffins or bread to add nutrients and fiber.
Lettuce and spinach leaf along with shredded carrots
They are great for salads with dinner.
Spinach
At 13 calories and 2 grams of carbohydrate in 2 cups of chopped raw spinach, this is one of the lowest cost sources of nutrition you can give your body.
Every serving gives you folic acid, manganese, beta-carotene, protein, lutein (a potent antioxidant), magnesium, vitamin C and vitamin K.
You can eat it raw in salads, steamed as a side dish, or sautéed in a tiny bit of oil for a different taste, and still get all the nutritional benefits.
Home-made salad dressing
Use balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and Udo’s Choice oil blend. This is much better than store bought salad dressing which mostly uses highly refined soybean oil that is full of inflammation-causing free radicals.
Tofu
If you eat tofu, you tend to eat less food. Tofu is considered as an appetite-quashing protein.
Red Hot Pepper
A bowl of spicy chili can help a person lose weight due to an ingredient called capsaicin. This ingredient actually helps suppress appetite.
Beans
Beans contain cholecystokinin, a digestive hormone that acts as a natural appetite suppressant. Beans also keep blood sugar on an even keel and help stave off hunger longer. High-fiber bean varieties can even lower cholesterol levels.
Stock with fiber rich food. Fiber is an indigestible part of all plant foods. It is found in fruits, vegetables, grains and beans. This includes beans, peas, spinach, sweet corn, red cabbage, carrots, and potatoes.
Pink Grapefruit
With only 40 calories in half a grapefruit, you’re getting 45 mg of vitamin C, lycopene, pectin, beta-carotene and potassium. It’s versatile and tasty.
Eat it as is for breakfast, or toss it into a salad with spinach for an extra punch to perk up the nutritional quality of your diet.
Tomato
When it comes to making boring foods tasty, garlic is way up there amongst the best. Along with tomatoes, garlic is an important part of the Mediterranean Diet.
Like tomatoes, it can be used with just about any other cooked food, so whatever your diet regime is, you should find you can utilize garlic widely to satisfy your palate.
Garlic has some important nutrients too, such as calcium, vitamin C and vitamin B6, phosphorus and selenium, plus antibiotic properties.
Basil
Basil is a humble and popular herb that can be used liberally to bring its distinctive flavor to other foods.
What you may not realize is that basil also packs a punch when it comes to calcium, phosphorus, vitamin A and vitamin C.
Also, basil is a good source of iron, potassium and magnesium, and carotenoids such as beta-carotene.
How about tomato and basil soup, with a touch of garlic? Indeed, it is a super combo of healthy foods that will fit into most diets.
These are some examples of the food items you can stock in your cabinets and fridge. Your tastes are probably quite different than the others.
But hopefully, this gave you some good ideas you can use next time you’re at the grocery store looking to stock up a healthy and delicious pile of groceries.
Some food items in the freezer:
Frozen fish
Try a couple different kinds of fish each week. There are so many varieties out there. You never have to get bored.
Eat at least three servings of fish per week, say many major medical associations. Fish is low in fat, as high in protein as red meat, and provides something that most other proteins don’t – omega 3 fatty acids.
Omega 3 is one of the main building blocks in your cells. If your body doesn’t get enough Omega 3, it will try to build cells from other fatty acids.
The problem is that those cells are not as flexible, and not quite the right shape. Among the cells that aren’t quite right are the ones in your brain that help control impulses and tell your body what it needs.
By providing enough Omega 3 for your body to use, you’ll be healing the damage done through years of poor diet. Since fish, as a general rule has fewer calories than most meats, you’ll be saving calories, too.
Frozen berries
During the local growing season, only get fresh berries. But during the other 10 months of the year, try to always keep a supply of frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, and the like to add to high fiber cereal, oatmeal, cottage cheese, yogurt, or smoothies
Frozen veggies
Again, when the growing season is over and you can no longer get local fresh produce, frozen veggies are the best option, since they often have higher nutrient contents compared to the fresh produce that has been shipped thousands of miles, sitting around for weeks before making it to your dinner table.
Frozen chicken breasts
It is very convenient to nuke up for a quick addition to wraps or chicken sandwiches for quick meals.
Lean ground turkey
Substitute your meat with lean ground turkey. Eat it in a sandwich or along with a salad.
Lean Beef
Lean beef contains an amino acid called leucine which helps provide energy, regulate blood sugar and repair muscles
Frozen buffalo, ostrich, venison, and other “exotic” lean meats
These are some of the healthiest meats around. And if you’re serious about a lean healthy body, these types of meats are much better for you than the mass produced, hormone-pumped beef and pork that’s sold at most grocery stores.
Now the staples in the cabinets:
Oat bran and steel cut oats
Higher fiber than those little packs of instant oats.
High-fiber Cereals
Cereals which are high in fiber help improve digestion and are good for reducing hunger pang
Cans of coconut milk
To be transferred to a container in the fridge after opening.
Various antioxidant rich teas
Green, oolong, white, rooibos are some of the best.
Green Tea
This type of tea is an antioxidant and helps stimulate metabolism which, in turn, burns fat. Green tea is rich in antioxidants called catechins.
Stevia
It is a natural non-caloric sweetener, which is an excellent alternative to the nasty chemical-laden artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharine, and sucralose.
Organic maple syrup
None of that high fructose corn syrup, only real maple syrup can be considered real food.
It can be added to your post-workout smoothies to sweeten things up and also elicit an insulin surge to push nutrients into your muscles.
Raw honey
This is better than processed honey…higher quantities of beneficial nutrients and enzymes. Honey has even been proven in studies to improve glucose metabolism. You can use a teaspoon or so every morning in your teas.
Whole wheat or whole grain spelt pasta
These are much higher fiber than normal pasta.
Brown rice and other higher fiber rice
NEVER white rice.
Cans of black or kidney beans
You can add a couple scoops to your Mexican wraps for the fiber and high nutrition content. Also, beans are surprisingly one of the best sources of youth promoting antioxidants!
Tomato Sauces
They are delicious, and they are a great source of lycopene. Just watch out for the brands that are loaded with nasty high fructose corn syrup.
Dark Chocolate (as dark as possible)Â
This can be one of your treats that satisfy your sweet tooth, plus provides loads of antioxidants at the same time. It’s still calorie dense, so keep it to just a couple squares.
But that is enough to do the trick, so you don’t feel like you need to go out and get cake and ice cream to satisfy your dessert urges.
Organic unsweetened cocoa powder
You can mix this into your smoothies for an extra jolt of antioxidants or make your own low-sugar hot cocoa by mixing cocoa powder into hot milk with stevia and a couple melted dark chocolate chunks.
Olive Oil
Your body does need a little fat to process vitamins and use them properly. Olive oil is a mono-unsaturated fat that is the primary source of fat in the so-called Mediterranean diet.
It contains antioxidants, flavonoids, beta-carotene and vitamin E, among other things.
One tablespoon has a whopping 125 calories but drizzled on a 13 calorie spinach salad with a little lemon juice and some garlic, you still have a meal with less than 150 calories – and a whole lot of healthy fuel for your body.
Vinegar
Acetic acid found in vinegar slows the passage of food from the stomach into the small intestine, thereby causing satiety (a feeling of fullness in the stomach).
Acetic acid found in vinegar slows the passage of food from the stomach into the small intestine, thereby causing satiety (a feeling of fullness in the stomach).
Vinegar also helps improve blood glucose control which is needed by diabetics.
