meals-related stories
Beat the Heat With No-Cook Meals
When the mercury rises, who wants to turn the oven on? And, while grilled food tastes great in the summer, even standing near a hot grill can be unbearable when the weather is hot.
If the heat has you down, perk up with some delicious -- and healthful -- no-cook meals. Some ideas:
It's also helpful to think ahead when you know you're not going to want to cook. When cooking dinner one night, think ahead and see what you can cook for later in the week. For example, if you're baking chicken for dinner, bake an extra piece or two for use in a cold chicken salad later in the week. Or, save a bit of grilled salmon and use it on top of a mixed greens salad another night.
If the heat has you down, perk up with some delicious -- and healthful -- no-cook meals. Some ideas:
- Tomato-Watermelon Soup. Chilled or at room temperature, this blended soup is a unique taste, and it's rich in lycopene.
- Artichoke and Beef Lettuce Wraps. Roast beef from the deli is tossed with artichoke hearts, chickpeas, zucchini and other healthful ingredients in this tasty lettuce wrap.
- Salmon and Cucumber Boats. Skip the bagel -- instead pair lox with cucumber and fiber-rich triangles of pumpernickel.
It's also helpful to think ahead when you know you're not going to want to cook. When cooking dinner one night, think ahead and see what you can cook for later in the week. For example, if you're baking chicken for dinner, bake an extra piece or two for use in a cold chicken salad later in the week. Or, save a bit of grilled salmon and use it on top of a mixed greens salad another night.
Diet-Friendly Frozen Meals - Get the Best for Your Buck
When you're trying to lose weight, you may rely on frozen meals a little bit. They're certainly convenient -- just pop them in the microwave and you've got a pre-packaged, calorie-controlled meal. And the health value of some of these meals is improving; many are now available in whole grain (goodbye white rice!). However, the meals don't come without some caveats:- Look at more than calories. If it's a diet meal, the calories are probably relatively low. However, be sure to watch for sodium. A lot of frozen meals are ridiculously high in sodium. Also, be sure to check the fat grams as well.
- Don't forget to form healthy habits. For weight loss to really stick, you've got to change your lifestyle habits. Almost any diet can help you lose weight -- but if you don't create healthy habits that will last a lifetime, how can you ever expect to keep the weight off? Little, frozen microwaveable meals might be all right for a while, but who would want to eat them for the rest of time?
- Watch for cost and taste. When it comes to groceries, you pay a price for convenience. Cost-wise, you're much better off cooking your own meals at home. If you just love having pre-portioned meals you can pop in the microwave, why not cook some light, nutritious dinners over the weekend and freeze individual portions? When you cook at home -- controlling the flavors and ingredients -- you're sure to end up with a more nutritious and tastier meal anyway.
There's nothing wrong with stocking your freezer with a few pre-packaged items for when you're in a rush, though. Just make sure you get the best nutrition and taste for your buck. "AOL Health" has taken the guesswork out of it -- check out this slideshow of diet-friendly frozen meals.
Walking the Walk - Day 3
Day 3: Guess what we had for dinner last night? Pizza. Guess how many calories are in one slice? 300, roughly. Do you know how hard it is to eat just one slice of pizza? Nearly impossible. But, I prevailed. Probably because of the eggs I ate a few hours earlier -- scrambled with peppers and onion. I'm struggling with the idea of five small meals. I find myself still falling into the meal/snack/meal/snack/meal pattern, which is technically fine, I think, but doesn't seem like it's probably what Jorge and others who subscribe to this theory had in mind.
I mean, we all know it's pretty easy to use up 300 calories in a snack -- I'm so tempted to grab a Kashi bar and a cheesestick, for example. But I'm pretty sure that's not the idea here; the idea is not to just spread your calories around, but to make each small meal nutritious and balanced.
Still working on that one, I guess.
Does an After-Dinner Walk Erase Your Splurge?
Fitness, Nutrition & Supplements
So you went a little overboard with dinner. How long will it take to walk it off?
Leftovers - Creative Ways to Use Every Last Bite
- Rice. Have some steamed vegetables left over from tonight's side dish? Or maybe you just have small bits of fresh veggies waiting in the crisper. Vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, onion, corn, green beans and peas make a great addition to steamed brown rice.
- Omelet. Leftover vegetables can also be added to an omelet for a quick, healthful and easy meal.
- Pizza. Leftover protein such as chicken, ground beef or sausage makes a great pizza topping. Try a BBQ chicken pizza or come up with your own unique combination. It's hard to go wrong.
- Potato cakes. Leftover mashed potatoes can be made into tasty potato cakes.
- Soup. It's pretty hard to go wrong with soup. Use up leftover vegetables and add them to a broth base along with barley or another whole grain.
- Calzone. ParentDish's Rob Barrett shows you how to turn almost any leftover into a delicious calzone.
- Salads. Tuna, chicken, beef, cut veggies, nuts and fruit are all great salad toppers.
Using and reusing leftovers is an economical way to go. But remember safety and ditch those leftovers when it's time.
Lose Weight by Nixing the Nosh
Jonny's Take, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Nutrition & Supplements
Ever wonder why some trainers still tell you to eat six small meals a day, have a high-carb snack after working out and carb-load every time you go for a run? It's because they are steeped in the bodybuilding-gym culture of the 60s and learned from the training manuals of competitive athletes.
Unless you're training for a marathon or an Ironman competition, that advice is precisely the wrong thing for the average exerciser, especially those looking to lose weight. Consider this: In a recent study, volunteers were given a high-carb mini-meal immediately after exercising on a treadmill for an hour. The results: The ability to clear sugar from the bloodstream was completely wiped out. A separate study tested high-carb mini-meals against low-carb ones and found the low-carb meal did the least damage.
Holiday Grub - 'Tis the Season to be Stingy
Supermarket guru Phil Lempert was on The View the other day, offering all sorts of tips for saving bucks on holiday meals. According to Lempert, 63 percent of us say food prices are so dramatically high, we need to do something about it. Here's what he says we should do.- Skimp on shrimp. It's all frozen anyway. Even the stuff in the glass case that looks all pretty and fresh has been previously frozen. So march right over to the freezer aisle, and grab yourself a bag of frozen-solid stuff. It'll cost you maybe $8, compared to $25. Make your own cocktail sauce too. Horseradish sauce and ketchup are all you need.
- Buy ham in a can. You can pay $69 for a big 'ol ham or $15 for a canned one.
- Ban the bakery and buy store-bought cookies, make your own pumpkin pie and mix up your own egg nog too.
Want more money-saving tips? The gals at The View have got you covered.
Thanksgiving Calories Can Really Add Up
Gravy, stuffing, pumpkin pie ... as delicious as it all is, the calories can really add up. Martha told us that a typical Thanksgiving feast can add up to 4,000 calories. The American Council on Exercise (ACE) is a bit more forgiving and estimates that most of us consume about 3,000 calories. But that's no less shocking. ACE also estimates that we take in about 229 grams of fat. Or, to look at it another way, it's the caloric equivalent of 5.5 Big Macs. Wow.Don't let those scary numbers stop you from enjoying the feast, though. Fitz has some great ideas on how you can enjoy Thanksgiving and not regret it later. To help you decide what foods you want to splurge on, consider this list:
- Egg nog -- two cups have 684 calories and 36 grams of fat
- Dark turkey meat -- a 3.5-ounce serving has 187 calories and 7.2 grams of fat
- Candied sweet potatoes -- one cup has 286 calories and 7.8 grams of fat
Breakfast - Get a Healthy Start Even If You're Not a Morning Person
We all know the benefits of breakfast -- it can help you control weight by managing your hunger, it improves focus, and it can give you the energy boost you need to get moving. But what if you're just not a morning person? The idea of pulling together a balanced breakfast when you can barely keep your eyes open isn't exactly realistic, is it? Cranky Fitness has a great post about how those of us who are much more like slugs than chipper birds in the morning can still get our healthy morning meal. Some of the tips:
- Make a batch of steel cut oats ahead of time, then just warm it in the microwave. Add some low-fat milk and some sliced bananas to sweeten it up.
- Hard boil a few eggs and keep them in your fridge for quick access.
- Fresh fruit is about the simplest and quickest breakfast you can have -- just grab and go.
Microwave meals made better
Though meals made from scratch are always better, sometimes the convenience of frozen meals is too difficult to pass up. And the pictures on the boxes of those frozen meals usually look quite tempting, don't they? The reality is often quite different, though. The portions are small and you can be left feeling hungry -- all that extra sodium and preservatives don't feel worth it when it's not even satisfying. But, with a few added ingredients, you can make those frozen meals more nutritious, tasty, and filling. Women's Health shares lots of easy ideas -- such as adding basil, garlic, asparagus, or tomato to a Healthy Choice Chicken Alfredo dinner. Check out their other ideas as well. Then, the next time you're resorting to a heat-and-eat meal, look around your pantry or fridge and see what fresh and nutritious ingredients you can add.
Eat healthy with this time-saving menu
When you're crunched for time, you many find it difficult to prepare creative, healthful meals. I know that I resort to my old stand-by meals when I'm really busy. They're stand-by meals because they're quick, healthful, and tasty but after a while, they get a bit boring. One of my favorite tricks for cutting down on meal preparation time is to cook ahead. For example, if I'm going to be baking some chicken for dinner, I bake an extra piece or two for a different meal later in the week. Self magazine has a great sample menu that uses that same time-saving tip -- and the recipes are healthful, balanced, and sound positively yummy. Give it a try!
Jamie Oliver - economic slump can lead to unhealthy eating
Celebs & Entertainment, Nutrition & Supplements
When Oliver was first zeroing in on school lunches and teaching cafeteria workers to prepare fresher, more nutritious meals, he didn't just encounter resistance from kids. In one South Yorkshire town, cameras caught parents of school children shoving burgers and fries at their kids through the school's fence. So now Oliver is working in that town and trying to teach families how to eat healthfully on a tight budget.
Oliver makes a good point: Historically, when money was tight, people had to become more resourceful -- growing their own produce, using cheaper cuts of meat, and so forth. Now, however, people have the option of buying $0.79 boxes of macaroni and cheese or value meals at fast food joints. Have you seen that recent commercial for KFC? The one that challenges people to buy the ingredients for a bucket of chicken for less than they'll sell it to you? That's just the point the Oliver is making -- when convenience and cost pair together, some people will let nutrition slide.
If you're trying to lower your grocery costs, try these tips for eating healthfully on a budget.
Holidays might make you bloated - but you can fight back
On any given day, women are especially vulnerable to bloating, because gastrointestinal ills occur up to six times more often in women than in men, say the experts at Redbook magazine. Give us girls some holiday cheer, and the tummy troubles really ramp up. We can minimize the stress on our systems, though, by understanding why we bloat and how we can prevent those bothersome bulges. Check out these three thoughts.
- Holiday over-do in progress. Raise your hand if you over-do it at holiday meals. Many of us do, with hard-to-digest, rich, fatty foods -- gravy, stuffing, pie with whipped cream, even peppermint -- which cause indigestion. Redbook says you should ease your symptoms with an antacid such as Pepto-Bismol, Maalox, Tums, or Rolaids. I say head this stomach stuff off by avoiding the over-do. If you simply must indulge, make it small -- think you can succeed at the three-bite rule? Also, keep your body upright for a few hours after a feast, instead of curling up for a nap.
- More eggnog and hot cocoa, please. If your belly aches and bulges after these treats, it's probably because you can't tolerate lactose, the main sugar in dairy products. The trick for a settled stomach is to find your own lactose limit and respect it. You can also opt for lactose-reduced milk.
- Belly up to the bar. Besides the overload of calories you'll consume by knocking back too many cocktails this season, you'll likely be left with a bad hangover after an alcoholic indulgence. And maybe a scary condition called acute pancreatitis, caused by an excess of alcohol. One symptom is bloating -- others include pain in the upper abdomen that worsens and wraps around your back. See a doctor right away if this occurs. A better option than alcohol -- since we women don't tolerate alcohol as well as men -- is sparkling water. It's better for the diet overall.
Getting your healthy groove back: Five tips
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My healthy habits have taken a bit of a vacation over the past couple of week. Ten days ago, I took a short trip to Vegas (which-- let's face it -- is not the kind of place that helps you stay motivated to eat well and exercise.) Then, this past week, I had out-of-town guests, complete with four birthdays to celebrate over the weekend -- one of them my own. But I'm not writing this to tell you about me -- I'm trying to offer you (and myself) some tips for getting back on track after falling off the health wagon.Here are five ways to revive your routine:
5 ways to eat healthier, starting now
- Count colors, not calories. Aim to eat at least five different fruits or veggies a day, in a range of colors. Why? Because every category of produce contains hundreds of unique, healthy substances.
- Eat three healthy meals, plus healthy snacks. This way, you should never be hungry.
- Eat fiber in the morning. Put fruit in your cereal, and make sure it contains at least three to five grams of fiber per serving. Switch to whole-grain bread. And top your goods with all-natural fruit or nut spread.
- Put out your craving fires. Build a stash of food that can put out a three-alarm starvation fire, like blueberries, peaches, cherry tomatoes, celery, and other ready-to-eat produce.
- Stay in control. Choose healthy foods, and you'll be healthier -- starting now.
