The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal
Creating healthier food choices
Lean ground turkey (be sure to buy the leanest kind) is a great addition to any healthy diet, taking the place of fattier meats. I’ve long been a turkey meatloaf lover. Now, here’s a new turkey meatloaf recipe I just saw on the Food Network site that you can try.
The ingredient list (before we take the salt out):
Continue reading “A new turkey meatloaf recipe”We’re into April now, past the time most people give up on New Year’s resolutions like, “this year, I’m going to eat healthier.”
Eating healthy in a society drenched in high-fat, high-salt, high-calorie, high-sugar foods can seem like an impossible mountain to climb. If you’re like me, you’ve climbed it many times, only to slide back down when you hear the siren songs of your favorite junk foods.
But don’t give up, here’s an interesting piece called 13 Small Changes You Can Make to Eat Healthier Forever that may help.
The steps really are small, like start your day with a glass of water or eat a vegetable with every meal, but they can add up.
Some, like focusing on fiber and adding more omega-3s (found in such fish as salmon), I’m already doing. Others, like thinking about food as a friend rather than an enemy or getting enough sleep, I still struggle with.
Healthier eating is a journey, not a destination for most of us. Keep walking.
My wife doesn’t believe it when I say it, but I am hungry all the time. After dinner? Still hungry. So this piece, Why Am I Still Hungry After Dinner? Plus, What to Eat caught my eye.
Turns out what I eat, and don’t eat, along with when I eat during a day, all can contribute to feeling hungry after a meal, the piece on LoseIt.com notes. So can plain old stress, which I constantly feel too.
“Before reaching for an after-dinner snack, it’s important to assess whether you’re truly hungry or just eating out of habit. Staying hydrated, ensuring you’re consuming enough calories, focusing on protein and fiber-rich foods, and savoring every bite of your meal can all make a difference in achieving fullness. Additionally, avoiding overly restrictive habits with sweets can help,” the piece advises.
Check it out for more details. It may help you get your hunger under control.
When I saw Justvegantoday.com writing this piece about hidden sugars, I thought — haven’t I written about that before? Yes, severel times it seems. But it’s good to have an annual reminder.
“Sugar often masquerades under various aliases, making it even more challenging to identify them in an ingredients list. Common names include fructose, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, and dozens more. Manufacturers often use these alternative names to disguise the actual amount of sugar they are putting into products,” Justvegantoday.com writes.
How to combat the sugar rush?
Continue reading “Time for our annual hidden sugar primer”Delish.com is out with its list of the highest calorie offerings at a variety of fast-food menus. Some of these may surprise you because they’re just massive orders of French fries, not entire meals, such as at Shack Shake’s Double Down Fries at 1,910 calories or Five Guys large fries at 1,310 calories.
Some are for times of day when you might not expect massive calorie intake, such as McDonald’s Big Breakfast with Hot Cakes at 1,340 calories (keep in mind we are supposed to eat around 2,000 calories a day to maintain weight).
Fast food outlets like McDonald’s have stopped trying to have even one healthy item, a salad, on its menus. So exercise care and look for places that still have a salad, but carry your own oil and vinegar as I do to avoid high calorie, high-salt, high-fat dressings.
LoseIt!, which I’ve used and endorsed, is getting into he spirit of February being National Heart Month with a piece about how eating heart-healthy can lead to weight loss.
The article, which you can read by clicking here, goes through the usual — the Mediterranean and DASH diets, both of which are big on veggies, olive oil and fiber. But then LoseIt! asks if eating healthy can lead to weight loss. This is an obvious question — the answer is — of course!
If your old diet is full of fried foods, desserts, sugary content, etc., and you stop eating all that, of course you’ll lose weight. It would be impossible to cram enough vegetables into your stomach to equal all those lost calories.
After my first stent in 2012, I changed my eating habits and lost 25 pounds over the next several months. I had simply stopped eating everything I enjoy. Junk food is called junk food for a reason, it’s loaded with calories.
Continue reading “Does eating heart-healthy mean losing weight? Duh!”The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services seems a prime target for staff cuts these days and that raises questions about how safe our food supply will be going forward. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates food safety, is part of that department.
“FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones’ abrupt resignation on Monday (Feb. 17) following the wholesale termination of thousands of employees across the Department of Health and Human Services late last week does not bode well for the Trump administration’s ability to “Make America Healthy Again” as promoted by recently appointed HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, according to public health advocates,” reported Food Navigator USA on Feb. 19.
Jones oversaw something called the Humans Food Program within the FDA, which had been looking at safety issues involving food additives. But 89 employees in that program were lied off recently, prompting Jones to resign.
Continue reading “How safe will the U.S. food supply be?”Regular readers of my blog know that McDonald’s salads, without the high-salt dressings, were a mainstay of my lunch diet over the years. But in 2023, those salads disappeared from McDonald’s menus. victim of Pandemic-related menu changes.
I’ve been searching for a quick-salad alternative ever since, trying Wendy’s and a chain called Zupas among others. I’m adding another option now, a salad at Chicago-area chain Buona Beef, its Tuscan Harvest Chicken salad.
Priced at $11.19, the salad has a nice mix of chicken, cranberries, apples, spinach and romaine lettuce. Eat at a Buona’s and it comes in a real bowl, not a plastic container, a civilizing touch absent at other outlets.
Continue reading “Another Chicago-area fast-food salad option”Chicago is in the midst of its annual restaurant week, a time when local restaurants offer specially priced menus to draw people in on cold winter days and nights. It’s a good time to try new places but can you find healthy offerings? Well, sort of.
Restaurant food is notoriously high in salt, fat and sugar. So you need to be picky, and also know you’ll likely go off your healthy menu more than once.
My wife and I so far have gone to two restaurants, Pescadero, a suburban seafood place; and Big Jones, a Cajun restaurant in Chicago. We also plan a trip to L Woods, another suburban spot, since we live in the suburbs.
Seafood dishes tend to be healthier per se, assuming they aren’t loaded with sauces heavy in fat and salt.
I opted for the oysters to start my Pescadero meal, they’re served raw, so aren’t mucked up with salt or fat. I had the octopus for my main course. It was grilled and wonderfully tasty, if you love octopus as I do.
Continue reading “Eating healthy on restaurant week, sort of”
Super Bowl Sunday isn’t just about football and new TV ads. It’s also about snacking, big time. But most American snacks are not heart healthy, so I’ve tried over the years of doing this blog to give you some healthy, and tasty, alternatives. Just click this link to review all my Super Bowl-related posts.
To get into specifics, how about swordfish steaks for your main course of the day? Use a salt-free spice rub to give them great flavor.If weather allows, grill them outside to spare your house a fishy smell afterwards.
Continue reading “Time for some healthy Super Bowl snacks”Intimate theater showcasing emerging talent
An honest look at living with bulimia.
This is how I spend my quality free time...
Feeding a hungry family!
Big living from a small space
Balance your body and your life with the alkaline lifestyle.
Italian Home Kitchen Blog
By: Raquel Moreira
Food, foraging, recipes... simple, cheap & stylish... ideal for hipsters or hobos
Creating healthier food choices
Expert dietary advice from a registered dietitian and nutritionist
Food for folks who have yet to figure it all out
Just another WordPress.com site
Sharing My Kitchen
"Home is where the Hearth is"
Simple and delicious dinner inspiration
The greatest WordPress.com site in all the land!
The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal 