A healthy diet is instrumental to reaching balanced wellness goals. We understand it can be tricky to decipher the best options to choose from. Hopefully, this can make it a little bit easier!
Fruits
- Choose whole, cut, or pureed fruits, over frozen, dried, and canned processed fruits.
- Use fruits as a supplement for dessert, or as a healthy snack option.
- Fruits help reduce the risk of chronic diseases.
- Most fruits are naturally low in fat, and sodium calories, and none have cholesterol.
Vegetables
- Veggies make great side dishes for almost any meal. Add fresh, frozen, or canned veggies as much as possible.
- The most beneficial method to gain nutrients is to prepare and consume steamed sautéed, roasted, or raw vegetables.
- In general, 1 cup of whole vegetables or vegetable juice, or 2 cups of raw leafy salad greens can be classified as 1 cup from the vegetable group.
Dairy
- To cut back on saturated fat, choose fat-free milk, yogurt, and calcium-fortified soymilk.
- Choose dairy products with no sugar added. This is especially helpful when buying yogurt, with plain greek yogurt often being the richest in nutrients.
- Take an extra step to replace sour cream, cream, and regular cheese with low-fat or fat-free yogurt, milk, and cheese.
Protein
- Be diverse! Eat meats, poultry, seafood, nuts, legumes, eggs, and soy products.
- Seafood is especially good for you because of its supplemental nutrients – strive to eat seafood twice a week.
- Meatless protein alternatives are a great way to eat protein if you do not eat animal products.
Grains
- Whole grains, whole grains, whole grains!
- Carefully select healthy oatmeal, popcorn, quinoa, brown rice, bread, crackers, and noodles. Beware, there is a wide range out there that offers little nutritional value.
- Limit pastries, cookies, and cakes. These may have grains, but do not offer the same benefits as the previously mentioned items.
Limit!
- Read the Nutrition Facts label to understand and limit items high in saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.
- Choose water over drinks with sugar!
- Cook with vegetable oil instead of butter.
