Beginner’s Tips for Healthy Eating
For many individuals and families, eating well is tough, time consuming and expensive. I’ve been working for several years to help my family eat better by moving from a standard American diet to a more Mediterranean way of eating. The Mediterranean diet (MED diet) is one of the most well-researched diets that show us that what we eat matters. If you follow the Med diet even a few days per week, you can reap its many benefits including lower heart disease and cancer risks.
When I’m counseling patients, many will characterize their diet as “bad,” “good,” or “working on it,” but often we can feel stuck in a rut of not enough time, energy or know how to start making changes. Here are three ways I think anyone can get started moving from a nutrient poor diet to one that is more similar to the Mediterranean diet. Start by trying one tip and then overtime see what works for you!
1. Healthy Plate Eating & My Love of Frozen Veggies
One of the most useful changes in the history of nutrition was when the USDA changed its guidance from four food groups or food pyramids to the healthy plate. The healthy plate which you can find at myplate.gove (MyPlate | U.S. Department of Agriculture) shows how to lay out our eating plates to have the right proportion of fruits, veggies, grains and protein. To get started, I encourage patients to place fruits and veggies on half the plate and can use the other half of the plate for whatever they enjoy. I find many of my patients are not getting enough fruits and veggies so this is a great place to start.
To make this happen for lunch and dinner at my house, we use lots of frozen veggies. I particularly love blends that I can microwave. When we are presented with many different things, we tend to want to try them. (Think of how much more dessert you eat at a wedding with a dessert buffet vs served cake). You can use this same trick with adding more varieties of fruits and veggies on your plate to increase your overall intake of these.
One of my favorite resources for a basic understanding of the Mediterranean diet and a healthy plate is from the Veterans Administration: Mediterranean Diet (va.gov) Check it out to see some great examples of how a healthy plate should look!
2. Add beans or legumes to your meals to reduce meats
The Med Diet encourages changing up how we get our protein. I really like the flexibility in the diet in that you can eat any of your favorite foods – including red meat like beef and pork – just less frequently than many of us do now. One of the ways I am working on this in my family is adding in proteins from plant sources and increasing our fish intake. We try to eat fish weekly and we add in beans and legumes whenever we can.
One of our favorite recipes is from the American Heart Association - Quick Chicken Chili | American Heart Association Recipes. In this recipe I often make a double batch (my kids love it!) but instead of putting in twice as much chicken I just add in twice the amount of beans. We still get the same great flavor but increase our bean intake while decreasing meats.
3. Start experimenting with whole grains
This is one of my favorite tips for two reasons. 1. Whole grains are plentiful, great for the environment, and filled with nutrients 2. It gets us to start reading the ingredients list that is labeled on every package. When looking for a whole grain at the grocery store you want to find a product that has “Whole wheat” “Whole Oat” “Whole Rye” “Whole Corn” as the first ingredient. You can also enjoy stand alone whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, or oatmeal.
To start trying out whole grains you can start by adding them into your favorite meals. You can mix whole grain and regular pasta and slowly increase the whole grain portion as you develop a taste for it. You can add the rice or quinoa to soups or casseroles where the longer cooking time of the grains can infuse them with delicious seasonings. You can snack on our family favorite whole grain – popcorn!
Many people often feel overwhelmed by the amazing amount of diet and nutrition information available to us and are not sure where to start. Try one of these three tips and move slowly. Our bodies adapt to what we put in it overtime so making changes slowly helps the body adapt. Remember this information is for educational purposes only. If you want to figure out the best way to change your diet for you, reach out to your doctor or a nutritionist to determine the best next steps for your particular health situation. In the meantime, I hope you find these tips are a start to increasing the vitamins and nutrients in your diet that give you the energy to thrive!
To your health and well-being,
Dr. Jen
