HEALTH
Healthy eating made easier
A meal-by-meal guide to nutritious yet satisfying food alternatives
By Asher Fusco afusco@kansan.com
Eating healthy can be tough: Compared to pounding down delicious burgers and pizza, consuming nutritious foods can seem like a nightmare. But getting your meals in order doesn't have to be a drag. There are plenty of fit and filling alternatives to some not-so-good staples of everyday eating, and they can all easily be found on and off-campus.
Breakfast:
What to keep: Whole-grain cereal or oatmeal, fruit
What to ditch: Sugary cereals
alternatives to all the sugary cereals that line grocery store shelves. If you're looking to stick with boxed cereal, try Wheaties. The whole grain flakes might not turn you into Michael Jordan, but they're more palatable than their four grams of sugar—one-third as many as Frosted Flakes—might suggest.
If a hot breakfast sounds better, oatmeal is a quick and easy choice.Adding fruit such as bananas or raisins can improve the taste, and its healthy carbohydrates (dietary fiber) will satiate your body more effectively than the carbs you'd get from Froot Loops (sugar) can.
"The fiber in the whole grains is broken down more slowly than sugar, so it stays in
your stomach and keeps you full longer;" says Nancy Donahey, a nutritionist at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
Lunch:
What to keep: Salad with fat-free dressing, vegetables and nuts or chicken What to ditch: Salad with standard dressing and cheese
As for salads, the line between unhealthy and healthy can be as thin as a stream of vinaigrette. Luckily, most salad dressings are available in fat-free or light incarnations these days, so feel free to pour away. The difference between one serving of regular and one serving of fat-free ranch dressing is 100 calories, 16 grams of fat and not much taste. Without the dressing's extra calories, you can feel better about adding healthy ingredients such as chicken, turkey or nuts
to your salad. Donahey
says the protein found in leanmeats and the healthy
fats in nuts are important to include to transform a salad into a substantial meal.
As for the financial
side of feeding yourself, salad
side of feeding yourself, salad bars are economical as well as healthy.
"Salad bars would be the best place for students to go to save money," says Adrienne Baxter, clinical instructor at the KU School of Allied Health. "There are so many choices of ingredients—soy nuts, beans and vegetables."
Snack:
What to keep: Protein bar
What to do: Potato chips
Doritos, Fritos, and any number of other crispy foods ending in "os" are cheap and easy to find on campus. But protein bars are also easy to come by, and are usually more nutritious. One of the best mainstream protein bars is the Odwalla Super Protein Bar. It's filling—230 calories. 4.5 grams of
fat and 16 grams of protein—and packed full of raisins, dates and nuts to avoid that bland "protein bar" flavor. Each bar does contain 16 grams of sugar, but none of the sugar comes from artificial sweeteners.
An Odwalla bar has more calories than a bag of Doritos, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; Afternoon snacks are meant to replenish and revitalize. Plus, a protein bar has half the fat and five times the protein of a bag of Doritos.
If you're looking to buy local, Baxter suggests Harvest Lark natural food bars.The company, based 100 miles west of Lawrence, offers six varieties of fruit and nut bars that are available at Hy-Vee.
Dinner:
What to keep: Sandwich on wheat bread; Whole-grain pasta with brown rice or vegetables What to ditch: Pizza and cheesy or buttery pasta sauces
Feeling lazy? Is the big game on TV tonight? Go ahead, order in. Just bypass the pizza. Instead, opt for a sub sandwich. Yello Sub offers sandwiches ranging from the unhealthy (Meatball Grinder) to the lean (Roast Beef). The healthiest choices are turkey, tuna or the Californian crab sandwiches, but any on wheat bread without too much cheese will do. And don't skimp on the colorful toppings.
"The more peppers and tomatoes, the more vegetables you add, the better." Baxter says.
If you're preparing a home-cooked meal, several easy steps can make common main courses more nutritious. Instead of using alfredo sauce, try a red sauce such as marinara on whole-grain pasta. Tomatobased sauces generally have about half as much fat as cheese sauces. Donahey's top choices for easy and healthy sides include mixed vegetables or brown rice.
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October 9,2008
graphics by Becka Cremer