Prepare healthy meals that are low in added sugars and fat, especially in saturated and trans fats. Use a variety of foods from MyPyramid to get the health benefits from vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients provided by these foods. Use the guidelines on the next few slides to help with meal preparation.

Plan meals in advance. Have a good idea of what you want to serve so that you can buy healthy foods in advance and avoid having to buy fast foods at the last minute. Collect ideas and recipes (from friends, magazines, cookbooks, etc.) for quick and easy healthy meals. Have a variety of foods on hand to be able to prepare healthy meals even if you did not plan them in advance.

Serve reasonable portions and keep second servings small. Serving larger portions results in a larger volume of food consumed and a higher calorie intake1. High calorie intake can lead to weight gain. Keep second servings small. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to signal to your brain that you have eaten enough!

Include more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in your meals daily to benefit from a variety of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients. Add veggies to salads, soups, pizzas and sandwiches. Use whole grain breads and pastas in meals.

Prepare lower fat meals. Limit added sugars.

Select Lower-Fat Choices

Use healthy cooking methods such as baking, sautéing, broiling, barbequing, instead of frying. These cooking methods do not add large amounts of fat to your meals.

Baking - no need to add extra fat, just bake in a covered container and add some liquid before cooking.
Grilling or broiling - Place food on a rack and cook over or under direct heat. Fat drips away either into the coals or broiling pan.
Steaming - steamed food keeps its natural flavor, color, and most of its nutrients. No need to add extra fat.
Roasting - slow, dry heat method of cooking. No need to add extra fat.
Microwave cooking - Fast, easy and moisture-producing so it requires no added fats or oils. In fact, you can drain fat off of food as it cooks by placing it between two paper towels.
Braising or stewing - slow-cooking method that is great for tenderizing tougher cuts of meat. To braise, just brown meat on all sides using a small amount of vegetable oil or vegetable oil cooking spray. Sautéing or stir frying - Cook in an open skillet over high temperatures with a small amount of fat added to the pan. Note to the speaker: mention that there is a (optional) handout about cooking methods, that they can pick up if they need.

Leave the skin of chicken on during cooking for enriched flavor and to prevent drying, but peel it off after it is cooked. Remove fat from soups and stews before you serve them. To do this, chill soup and skim the layer of fat that forms on the top. You can limit the amount of fat by choosing spray margarines/oils instead of stick margarine or butter. Margarines that come in spray or squeeze bottles or a tub also have less trans fat than stick margarines.

Use:

• 2%, 1% or nonfat milk, and dairy products made with low fat milk instead of whole milk.
• Leaner varieties of meat, and trim the visible fat off of meat.
• Light, low-fat or fat-free varieties of salad dressings, mayonnaise, and margarine.
• Low-fat snacks and desserts such as fruits, vegetables kabobs, baked tortilla chips and salsa, angel food cake, sorbet, and low-fat or fat-free frozen yogurt.

Beware, foods low in fat may be high in sugar. When fat is taken out of products it might be replaced with sugar.

Select Lower-Sugar Choices

To keep sugar intake under control, substitute regular soda with water, seltzer, diet soft drinks or low-fat non-fat milk. One 12 oz bottle of regular soda contains 10 teaspoons of sugar. Let’s say that you are meeting your energy needs from other foods, and in addition to that, you drink one can of regular soda everyday. You could gain an extra pound of weight in about 3 weeks. If you kept going like this, you could gain 16 pounds in a year.

Choose fruit instead of fruit juice. While fruit juice can be high in vitamin C, it can also be high in sugar. Consider mixing half juice and half water or seltzer for a sweet, lower calorie beverage. Check the ingredients on the food labels, if sugar is listed as one of the top four ingredients, it is high in sugar. Other names of sugar that may be listed are: high fructose corn syrup, molasses, corn syrup, fructose, honey, dextrose, sucrose, pear juice concentrate, grape juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, etc.

Check the sugar content of foods that are low in fat. Select low sugar snacks and desserts: fruits, angel food cake, sorbet, animal crackers, and low-fat or fat-free frozen yogurt, lite/low-fat ice cream.

• How the calculation is done: 1 can (12 oz) of regular soda = 155 calories, it would take 22.6 days to make up the 3500 calories needed to gain a pound of weight.

Choosing Healthy Snacks

Snacking is an important part of daily food consumption. However, many snacks are packed with sugar or fat. Healthy snacking can lower your total daily calories and add a variety of food and nutrients to your daily diet. Choose healthy snacks for you and your family. Here are some examples of healthy and delicious snacks that provide a variety of nutrients without being high in fat or sugar:

• Fruit
• Low-fat cheese with low-fat crackers
• Raw vegetables and low-fat dip
• High-fiber cereal
• Angel food cake
• Low-fat or baked chips with salsa
• Smoothies
• Pretzels or air-popped popcorn

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