Categories


Tips For Healthy Menus At Home

Published in December 4th, 2009
Posted in Fitness

Advertisements

Planning healthy menus can help you lose weight and, possibly, live a longer life. More and more research indicates that we truly are what we eat. Food affects how we feel, how well our brains work and even how we look.

In order to create the healthiest menu for any meal of the day, the first step is to “cut out or substitute”. Each meal or snack should include a good source of protein, some good fats and some complex carbohydrates.

All three are necessary for the body to build new cells and muscle fibers. Proteins and fats are satisfying. They keep you from getting hungry before your next planned meal or snack. Carbohydrates give you energy. The body converts them slowly to glucose, which is fuel for the brain cells.

Simple carbohydrates are among the least healthy foods. They are digested very quickly. If you are a professional athlete or a marathon runner, you might need that quick energy.

But, when the average person eats simple carbohydrates, more glucose is produced than the body can use. Eventually, the glucose makes it back to the liver, where it is converted to fat.

So, healthy menus do not include simple carbohydrates. Starchy foods are bad choices, too. Here is a short list of some of the foods to steer clear of:

Irish, white or baking potatoes
White rice
Enriched pasta made from white flour
White bread and other baked goods made with white flour
White sugar

It is easy to make substitutions. Instead of using potatoes, try yams, cauliflower or turnips. Instead of using white long grain rice, choose wild rice. Pasta, bread and baked goods can be made with whole wheat flour, which is made with the germ and the bran, intact. Instead of using white sugar, use brown, sugar cane or honey for sweetening your foods.

Good protein sources for healthy menus include fish, beans, lentils, legumes, nuts and lean, skinless white-meat chicken. In some cases, your protein source will also be a source of fat. For example, fish and nuts are a source of both protein and fat. The fats that they contain are some of the good ones.

Saturated and fatty acids are bad for our health. You can cut fatty acids out of your diet completely, simply by reading nutrition facts or by looking at the label of ingredients. If it contains “partially hydrogenated vegetable oils” then it is a source of fats, which play a role in cancer and heart disease.

Healthy menus include good polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as the omega-3s and omega-6s. They are necessary for the production of new cells and for making hormones, as well as for providing energy.

Omega-3s are found in olive and canola oils, as well as fatty fish. Some nuts, such as walnuts and almonds are good sources, as well.

Whatever you do, do not forget your fruits and veggies. To create healthy menus, try using veggies as your main dishes and put a little fat and protein on the side. You might live longer, as a result.

audreyj is an online product reviewer. dramatically lose weight
by checking out http://thesixxpackabs.com”//
.it is possible to findhttp://thesixxpackabs.com”/>
staying healthy forever.

Related posts:

  1. 6 Nutrition Tips To Help You Maintain A Healthy And Fit ... For many people, eating healthy is like having bamboo shoots shoved down our fingernails. Okay, so maybe it is not that bad, but for some reason most of us really struggle with trying to eat healthy. It could be because we have gotten lazy, or maybe you just can’t stand cooking or can’t cook, whatever [...]...
  2. What Is A Healthy And Normal Cholesterol Level? Cholesterol is a medical problem that most of us encounter and have to battle with at one point in our lives. So what actually is cholesterol and what role does it play in our body? Cholesterol is a substance that exists in our cell which our body needs. It flows through our blood stream and [...]...
  3. Ways To Increase Metabolism – The Carbohydrate Connection To know more about metabolism one needs to know how the way in which the body utilizes and preserves energy. Energy is derived from the various food sources we consume. Foods have proteins, carbohydrates and fats in different levels and these are used by the body cells to create and store energy to perform various [...]...
  4. 15 Unhealthy Foods That You Think Are Healthy But Are ... There are many terms that are misleading in the food advertising industry today. Think of how many times you see the following phrases plastered all over food containers: * Fat Free * Reduced Fat * Low Fat * Sugar Free * No Added Sugar * Diet [Insert Product Name Here] Let us examine some examples [...]...
  5. Carbohydrates, Simple Carbs And Complex Carbs, Are They Good ... Carbohydrates certainly are and have been the most controversial type of food in the American diet today. Are carbs good? Are they bad? What is a good carb? What is a bad carb? It is very confusing for most people. Carbohydrates are, however, one of the most varied of the three nutrient types. Carbohydrates include [...]...
  6. Some Useful Tips to Select the Right Diet Plan The right diet plan means intake of a balanced quantity of all of the food groups. Diet can include any food category, as long as the overall diet is hale, hearty and balanced. You need not have to exorcise all cookies, chips jellies and ice cream. You can still eat them occasionally, but foods from [...]...
  7. How to Get Six Pack Abs With Healthy Fat This is the oldest question asked in the fitness industry. Is fat a friend or a foe? Well not all fats are created equal. There are fats that kill and fats that heal. Some fats should be avoided like the plaque while others are necessary if you want to have great looking skin and hair, [...]...
  8. Healthy Diet For Athletes – 5 Tips Athletes, in particular, need to focus on what they put into their bodies. Whether you are a weekend or a professional athlete, you take great pains to make sure that everything you eat meets the requirements of a healthy, balanced diet. As an athlete, you need a healthy diet because you are keenly aware of [...]...
  9. Insulin Overload… Heads Up! Insulin is a hormone produced by the body. It’s essential for good health. But too much insulin is harmful to your health…and to your fitness goals. Insulin’s function is to lower your blood sugar levels when it gets too high. Without proper insulin levels you could develop hyperglycemia or diabetes mellitus. But too much insulin [...]...
  10. Foundation For A Healthy Diet. Good Nutrition. Good Nutrition and Healthy Diet go hand in hand. With the increase in Heart Disease, Type 2 Diabetes, Osteoporosis and others, caused by our decline in exercise and dependence on processed and fast foods, its time we get back in shape. The place to start is with what we put in our mouths. [...]...
Previous post:
«

Next post:
»