Healthy Tips for Leftovers

Many of us are likely to have leftovers this week. The question is other than simply reheating them what else can we do to spice things up? We're here to help with some tips to add some interest.

•Leftover pasta - try adding fresh or frozen vegetables to create a whole new meal
•Leftover protein such as turkey can be given a second chance such as adding it to stir fries, tacos with beans, lettuce, tomatoes and low-fat cheese or sour cream for a quick quesadilla, or even add...ing it to soup
•Leftover turkey, chicken or pork can be added to grain dishes like couscous, rice or quinoa along with some vegetables
•Leftover turkey has always found a home in sandwiches, but try giving it new life by adding a salad along with it. To keep it healthy try a whole-grain bread, top with lettuce and tomato and keep the condiments light.

By using your leftovers you will be doing your part to avoid waste! Enjoy!


Reference: Health & Nutrition Letter, Tufts University, Make Your Leftovers Healthier the Second Time Around, p. 1 & 3.

The Truth About Agave Nectar

Agave nectar is a sweetener with a health halo that's not necessarily justified. It's not that agave nectar is worse for you than sugar, but then again, it's probably no better.

Agave nectar is derived from Agave plants grown in Mexico. There are several processing methods used to obtain the syrupy sweetener. It's not as simple as tapping into the plant and draining it, like maple syrup.

Agave nectar has the same number of calories as sugar, honey and maple syrup: 4 calories per gram. However, agave nectar is one and a half times sweeter than table sugar, which means you can use less to reach the same sweet point. This means slightly less calories for the same level of sweetness as sugar.

The reason agave nectar is sweeter is its makeup: 23 percent water, 55 percent fructose, and 12 percent glucose. The fructose accounts for 82% of the sugar content in agave, compared to just 50% in table sugar. Fructose is sweeter than glucose, hence a sweetener with a higher fructose content will be sweeter.

Agave nectar has a lower glycemic index than table sugar, which makes it popular in some circles of people with diabetes or prediabetes. However, this is slightly misleading: the glycemic index only measures glucose levels, and agave nectar has far less glucose than sugar. Additionally, recent research suggests that fructose may be more harmful than glucose because of the way it is metabolized by the liver.

Bottom line: Agave nectar, like all sweeteners, it is best consumed sparingly.

Reference:  Fooducate, October Newsletter, The Truth About Agave Nectar.

8 Ways to Reduce Your Sugar & Salt Dependency

People who try to lose weight often revert to their old habits. When asked why, one of the answers always revolves around the complaint that healthy food is not tasty.

We'd like to share some good news. It's not that healthy food lacks flavor. The truth is that our taste buds have simply forgotten the flavor of real food. Clever food manufacturers have spent decades optimizing their products for the right mix of fat, sugar and salt to reach a "bliss point" that keeps us hooked.

You can break free of the processed food chains, but it's not easy. Here are some suggestions that can help you reduce your sodium and sugar dependency.

Tip #1 Eat more home cooked meals
About 70 percent of the sodium in a Western diet comes from processed food (restaurants, fast food, snacks and prepared supermarket food). The rest is found naturally in some foods or is added when cooking or serving. If you really want to cut down on your sodium, just eat food you prepare.

Tip #2 Choose frozen, not canned
Salt and freezers are both food “preservers”. Choose frozen over canned veggies because they don’t need the salt to protect the food. They usually have a higher level of the original vitamins preserved, compared to canned. When you do use canned vegetables, try rinsing them to remove some of the salt.

Tip #3 Delay salting
When cooking, add salt just before serving, and in a smaller amount than called for in the recipe. Each diner can then add salt to taste from a shaker at the table.

Tip #4 Gradual salt detox
Train your taste buds to enjoy less salty foods. Over the course of weeks and months, slowly reduce the amount of salt you add to food. Your salt comfort zone will adjust. If you keep at it, within a few months, you’ll actually start to dislike fast foods because they will taste too salty!

Tip #5 Gradual sugar detox 
You can train your taste buds to crave less sweet. Do it with your coffee / tea. Reach zero sugar in your coffee as follows: At the start of a new week, add just one quarter teaspoon less sugar to your drink than you normally do. The difference in flavor will barely be noticeable. After a week, it will even feel normal. The next week, try to reduce another quarter teaspoon, and so forth. Within a few months, you’ll discover you are drinking your coffee without any added sugar! If you are used to drinking 3 cups a day with 2 teaspoons of sugar, your daily saving of 6 teaspoons of sugar is worth 100 calories. That’s the equivalent of one pound of weight loss every 5 weeks!!!

Tip #6 Chewing gum
Low calorie chewing gum may help you resist the urge for sweet calories. Choose gums that don’t include artificial sweeteners. We like Glee and Pür brands because they don’t use artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and acesulfame-k.

Tip #7 Eat every 3 hours
If you wait too long between meals (or snacks), your brain will signal that it craving a fat / sugar / salt combo; your willpower won’t be strong enough to say no. If you never get to that stage, you’ll have an easier time making the healthier choices.

Tip #8 Get more sleep
A well-rested person has better chances of refusing the many food temptations she comes across during the day.

Reference:  Fooducate, October Newsletter, 8 Ways to Reduce Your Sugar & Salt Dependency

Savvy Tips for Dining Out

According to the U.S. Census Bureau this is the first time Americans are spending more dining out at restaurants than they are on groceries.  It turns out that we are buying more of our groceries in warehouse and “club” stores.  In addition, consumers reported that lower gas prices allowed them to dine in restaurants more often, and visit fast-food chains and coffee shops.  That being said, this new boom could have implications for our nutritional health because we don’t know exactly how these foods are being prepared when we dine outside of our homes.  What we do know is that restaurant meals tend to be very high in calories, sugar-sweetened beverages that are offered are high in sugar, and fruits and vegetables are usually absent.

To help you make the best choices while dining out see our tips below:

Savvy Strategies:

• ·         Start by having a healthy mindset and “can-do attitude” to help make the best choices.
• ·         Choose restaurants that make it easy to select a healthy option.
• ·         Review the menu online beforehand so you can set up your game plan.
• ·         Speak up right away to share or split orders with others at your table.
• ·         Remember portion control.  That means avoiding descriptions like jumbo, grande, supreme, feast, combo, etc.  Instead, select descriptions like regular, petite, and even kiddie.  Ask for half, lunch or appetizer portions.  Split or share your meal if possible, or pack up half of it in a to-go container.  Lastly, choose from side and á la carte offerings to create your own meal.
• ·         Be creative about your selection.  There is no rule that says you have to eat an entrée.  Instead, try a soup or side salad with an appetizer.  Or, what about eating family style with your table mates where everyone can sample a little bit of everything.
• ·         Order foods as you would like them – meaning request items on the side or to be omitted.  You can also ask for a different cooking method like broiled, grilled, or steamed.  Try using the phrase, “Do you think the chef will…?” or “Would it be a problem to…?”
• ·         Know when you are comfortably full and stop eating.  There is no need to clear your plate when you can take the rest home.

     Try these skills the next time you dine out to help you make healthy choices.

Reference:  Smart Strategies for Healthy Eating Out, Tufts University, Healthy & Nutrition Letter, September 2015 (pp. 1 and 4).

Keys to Keeping Weight Off as We Age

As we all age we typically notice that keeping weight off becomes more challenging.  So, is there anything we can do to help avoid this?  The good news is that recently a new study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that challenged the previous notion that it’s about calories in and calories out that matter.  What was found is that not all calories are the same.  Moreover, the study found that “all foods have complex mechanisms that help or hinder weight long-term.  The simple math of calories in versus calories burned is true if you’re testing food in a test tube.  But human beings are not just inert buckets to put calories in.”  In addition, the results showed that foods interact in a synergistic way – meaning that “we should not only emphasize specific protein-rich foods like fish, nuts and yogurt to prevent weight gain, but also focus on avoiding refined grains, starches and sugars in order to maximize the benefits of these healthful protein-rich foods, create new benefits for other foods like eggs and cheese, and reduce the weight gain associated with meats.”

Here are a few things to think about:

Protein Options:  It’s common for people to gain weight as they age, and typically this gain is seen in the mid-section, which can increase the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.  There has been evidence supporting that a diet including fewer low-quality carbohydrates like white breads, potatoes, and sweets and higher in protein-rich foods may be more efficient for weight loss.  It would appear that yogurt, peanut butter, walnuts and other nuts, skinless chicken, and low-fat cheese and seafood were associated with weight loss.  On the flipside, meats, chicken with skin and regular cheese were associated with weight gain, so be careful.

Carbohydrate Quality:  Researchers found that there is a relationship between glycemic load (GL) and weight changes.  GL takes into account how rapidly a food boosts blood sugar, as well as the typical serving size.  For example High-GL foods such as white bread and white potatoes were linked with weight gain.  However, it’s not just about GL, fiber and whole grains also have an impact.  With that in mind, it’s important to look for foods whose ratio of total carbohydrates to fiber is 10:1 or less.  That would mean that a piece of white bread with 15 grams of carbohydrates and 1 gram of fiber would have a ratio of 15:1, and therefore would not be a good choice.  To make things a little more complex, if you’re eating foods that are weight-promoting like meat and combining it with a low-GL food like broccoli it turns out that combination could decrease weight gain.  However, if you’re combining proteins linked with weight gain (meat) with high-GL foods (white pasta) the reverse is true, so that would be weight promoting.

Common Sense:  It turns out that the food we eat affects our brain’s reward systems, our insulin levels, liver function, microbiome, and fat-cell function.  We have a complex system to regulate our weight.  That’s why the calories from salmon and vegetables versus the calories from processed packaged foods have a different effect on your weight.  And, over time it’s more about diet quality rather than diet quantity.

Reference:  Smart Choices Key to Keeping Pounds Off as You Age, Health & Nutrition Letter, Tufts University, August 2015, Vol. 33, NO. 6. (pp.4-5.).

More on Portion Sizes

Creating a heart- and brain-healthy diet isn't just about putting healthy foods in your body - it's about eating the proper amount. Without a doubt, most Americans eat too much. Restaurant portions are large, many single-serve snack packages have ballooned over the years, food is all around us, and many people have lost the ability to recognize when they are full.

Knowing how much you should be eating might involve a little bit of measuring, but that can be made easier by relating portion sizes to every- day objects. Follow our portion size guide so you know how much food makes up one serving.

Below are a few other tips to ensure that you're eating the right portion amounts:

- Most restaurant portion sizes are at least double or triple the portion you  should be eating. As soon as your meal arrives, cut it in half and box up the other half. Take it home to have for lunch the next day.

- Serve food on small plates. Instead of using a dinner plate, substitute a luncheon plate or a salad plate.

- When eating at home, put a small portion of food on your plate, and keep the rest of the food in the kitchen. Then, if you want to eat more, you'll have to get up to get it.

- Read food labels. When a package says that it contains more than one serving, measure out one serving into a separate dish.

- Avoid eating in front of the TV or while reading. Instead, focus on the tastes, textures, and aromas of your food. This can keep you from mindlessly munching your way to the bottom of a bowl of popcorn or bag of chips.

- Listen to your body's hunger cues. Pay attention to feelings of hunger and fullness.

Complicated Calories

Research has shown that what we thought we knew about calories is actually a lot more complicated because our bodies' digestive process is quite involved.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Calorie counts posted on food labels can range widely from the calories you extract

• Vegetables can vary in how easily digestible they are

• Cooking plays a key role as it breaks down the cells in these vegetables 

• Research has found that peanuts, pistachios, and almonds are not digested as much as foods with similar levels of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats 

• Carbohydrates, fats, and proteins require different amounts of energy to digest 

• Heat accelerates the unraveling of the amino acids in proteins
 and they become more easy to digest

• We expend less calories digesting processed foods

• Gut bacteria, which differs from one person to another, plays a part in our digestion

• Our modern diet reduces the bacteria in our stomach

• Whole foods provide us with more vitamins and nutrients, which keep our intestinal (gut) bacteria happy

Even if the way calories were counted was revised it would still be nearly impossible to know exactly the amount of calories in each item we consume due to complex interactions between food and the human body.  Instead, if you are trying to eat healthier it would be best to eat a diet with less processed foods, and more whole and raw foods.

Dunn, R., (2013). The food issue, everything you know about calories is wrong. Scientific American, (pp.58-59,).