Better eating can seem like a mountain to climb, but here are some small steps to start the journey

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.”

Stuck at a fast food outlet? Try to find one still offering salads like this one at Buona Beef in Chicago.

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.

April 8, 2025 0

Time for our annual hidden sugar primer

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 is hiding everywhere in our food supply, be aware.*

“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?

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March 14, 2025 0

Weight loss & food choices, really?

LoseIt has been pumping out a lot of diet info as the new year begins. This one particularly caught my eye because it seems kind of guffy, Most-Logged Foods in 2024 by Those Who’ve Lost 50 Pounds or More.

Banks are something I have daily.
Photo by Couleur on Pexels.com

Does eating these foods regularly lead to weight loss? That’s the implication. But our nutrition and eating habits are much more complex than that, I’d contend.

LoseIt looks at it this way, “Food choices play a crucial role in losing weight, and our Lose It! members understand this well. From breakfast to dinner, they carefully log their meals to maintain consistency and stay on track with their weight loss goals. These 11 foods were the most popular in 2024 among members who achieved an impressive weight loss of 50 pounds or more.”

You decide. The food are eggs, bananas, blueberries, chicken breast, white rice, bacon and 2% milk.

Bacon and white rice are on my heart-patient do-not-eat list, so I’m not so sure if they would help me use weight. I’m lactose-intolerant, so milk is also out. Egg prices have gone so high recently because of bird flu that I’m stopped buying them. And I don’t like blueberries. I do eat bananas every day to maintain my potassium levels.

January 15, 2025 0

Why we love unhealthy foods — dah, it’s the taste

Americans generally know that food high in sugar and fat are unhealthy for them, but knowing that and changing their behavior are two different things, reports a new analysis from the online data collection site YouGov.com.

“Nearly four in five US consumers (79%) say foods high in sugar are unhealthy, followed by high in saturated or trans fats (74%), and high in calories but low in nutrients (71%). Deep-fried (70%), fast food (68%), and salty snacks (68%) are also rated as unhealthy by a majority of respondents,” the site reports.

So why eat it all? “Data indicates that taste is the primary driver when asked about chips (65%), candies (58%), sodas (49%) and fast food (39%). The variety of flavors offered by these foods is a significant draw (33% chips, 30% candies, 20% sodas and 17% fast food),” the site reports.

Healthy food can taste good too, you just ahve to work on it. Try our recipe page to start.

July 13, 2024 0

Five foods that naturally lower cholesterol

A guest post by Elizabeth Klodas, Step One Foods

Most people assume that LDL or bad cholesterol, can only be lowered with medications. That’s not true. We have a lot of control over our LDL levels based upon what we eat, especially the types of fats and the types of carbohydrates we choose.

Saturated fats that come from animal sources (think butter, cheese, the marbling in beef, etc.) help raise LDL. This is why some people that go on a keto diet will see their LDLs go through the roof. On the other hand, unsaturated fats that come primarily from plant-based sources (think olive oil, oils in nuts and seeds, oils in fish, and in avocados etc.) help lower LDL in most people and raise HDL (good) cholesterol while reducing triglycerides – yielding an overall much more favorable cholesterol profile.

Complex carbohydrates (think brown rice, beans, whole fruits and vegetables, etc.) are digested slowly causing small increases in blood sugar and lower insulin levels. Highly processed or simple carbohydrates (think puffed rice cereal, white bread, sugary soda and alcohol, etc.) are digested quickly causing big increases in blood sugar and insulin levels. Insulin is a storage hormone so when it’s floating around in our blood stream it pushes our biochemistry into storage mode.

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September 13, 2023 0

Illinois is a Keto diet state, apparently

Get ready to eat more fat in your diet, at least if you’re coming to Illinois (or live here already like I do).

A new survey by FitnessVolt analyzed Google Keyword Planner data to determine which diets interest Illinoisans the most. You can see the results here.

The Keto diet, which is a high-fat, low-carb combination, was searched for more in a given month than its closest competitors, the Mediterranean Diet, which is more fruits and veggie-oriented.

The DASH diet came in third. Given that its a version of Mediterranean Diet, or very close to it, combing those two search terms would have surpassed the Keto numbers.

(Full disclosure, I had gone off my heart-healthy diet and was eating a McDonald’s double burger when I wrote this story!)

The most Googled diets in Illinois
Diet	Monthly average searches for the diet
Keto diet	28,103
Mediterranean diet	20,416
DASH diet	5,170
Paleo diet	4,518
Alkaline diet	3,542

Source: www.fitnessvolt.com

May 16, 2023 0

Can your cookouts be healthy? Yes, if you plan ahead and shop wisely

When I was a much younger man, I would routinely have a start-of-summer cookout at my house with a menu that included Italian sausage and peppers, ribs, chicken legs, fatty hamburgers, hot dogs — in other words all the things I can’t eat now that I’m dealing with heart issues. So I stopped having those cookouts, not wanting to serve people foods I can’t eat and assuming they would not be happy with what I could eat.

But that was then, this is now, some nine years after my first stent went in and I changed my eating habits.

I haven’t had a large cookout party in some time, especially not last year when we were all isolating, but I have developed healthy cookout menus for us.

A recent article I saw, Nutrition: Making summer barbecues healthier from the Duluth News Tribune, can help you make your cookouts healthier as well.

The article covers the basics — grill lean proteins like fish and chicken, use whole wheat breadstuffs when you must have a bun, grill fruits. It even touches on how high in salt most condiments are and suggests finding substitutes for those as well.

A good place to start grilling healthier is my recipe page. The Memorial Day special meals (under special occasion meals) all deal with grilling, for example. And check my smart shopping page for tips on low- and no-salt condiments.

June 17, 2021 0

Pandemic binge eating: foods to avoid before bedtime

A lot has been written about people overeating during the Covid-19 pandemic. And why not, with all the tension and changes in routine the pandemic has brought into our lives?

If you’re trying to get a grip on your pandemic eating, try starting with not eating for at least two hours before you go to bed. And, according to this piece on Foodnetwork.com, avoid these eight foods before bedtime:

Pizza
Coffee
Soda
Orange Juice
Wine
Spicy foods
Burgers
Sugary cereal

Why? Read all about it by clicking here.

July 31, 2020 0

Gaining weight in the pandemic? Here’s some tips to stop

I’ve been reading a lot about people gaining weight as they sit at home and are forced to cook during this Coronavirus pandemic. I actually lost four pounds when I was sick for three weeks in March as it was all beginning. Sadly though, after-Easter candy sales mean I’ve put that weight back on.

So I was interested when an email came my way promising The 6 Best Foods To Stimulate Weight Loss. You might find the article useful if you somehow have never heard of the Mediterrean or similar diets.

The six foods all would fit into such a plan. They are:

Lean meats
Fruits and vegetables
Avocados
Eggs
Leafy Greens
Citrus

I don’t like the taste of avocados plus they upset my stomach, so I never eat them. I also only eat egg whites these days even though the popular thinking about eggs and cholosterol has changed over the years.

The others all are part of my everyday diet. Unfortunately these days, so are cream-filled Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies, so I’m afraid these six won;’ help with the impact of those.

April 27, 2020 2

Tag: smart eating