Low Calorie Super Bowl Snacks That Will Score a Touchdown

As I was doing my thinking and research for this blog post I came across some stats that just amazed me. According to research conducted by the Calorie Control Council (CCC) and the Snack Food Association (2012), Americans will eat 30 million pounds of snacks this Sunday. Yes that’s right, 30 million pounds or about 1200 calories and 50 grams of fat for the average armchair quarterback and that doesn’t include any meals eaten that day! Another fact that had me shaking my head is that the favorite snack, potato chips, will account for 27 billion calories and 1.8 billion grams of fat. Then if you translate the fat grams into pounds of body fat we are talking about 4 million pounds nationwide which is equal to the weight of 13,000 NFL offensive linemen at 300 pounds each! HA! Can you imagine?

Now I know that many people just to want to use the day to indulge, but for those of you in the crowd who would rather not derail your healthy diet intentions, I have put together a few strategies and snack ideas that are lower in calories but not flavor.

First of all you need to get a plan. If you are going to a party then you can be the one who brings the healthy dish and if you are throwing a party you can make sure to include lots of healthy fare.

Dips: Choose salsa which is very low calorie and fat free; substitute non-fat Greek yogurt or low fat cottage cheese for sour cream in guacamole – this will up the protein while decreasing the fat; serve hummus or bean purees’ as healthy, great tasting alternatives to cream based dips.

Crunchy snacks: Serve baked potato and pita chips, sliced peppers, carrot and celery sticks. Why not jazz it up with some kale chips for some extra nutrition? They are actually really tasty!

Hot foods: Instead of ordering deep-fried wings, try making a healthier version by using boneless chicken tenders seasoned in whole-wheat flour and cornmeal and pan-fried in a small amount of oil and then drizzled with a tangy hot sauce. Serve an outstanding low-fat chili that will fool even the biggest meat eaters by substituting the meat with a vegetarian ground “beef” or tofu. Here is a great recipe from Nasoya using tofu http://www.nasoya.com/recipes-results.html?recipe_product_type=Tofu&recipe_dish_type=&recipe_diet_type=&recipe_keyword=chili&id=192 and one from Morningstar Farms using meatless crumbles http://www.morningstarfarms.com/quick-and-easy-meatless-chili-recipe.html

Beverages: Serve light beer along with regular and offer healthy diet sodas like Hansen, Blue Sky or Truvia which don’t contain artificial sweeteners. Iced green and rooibos teas would add some healthy antioxidants and of course don’t forget just plain old water.

Dessert: Try my healthy vegan black bean brownies or pumpkin muffins (see earlier posts) and be sure to serve fresh fruit like grapes, pineapples and apples.

Physical activity breaks: Yes! Before and after the game, take a walk, ride your bike, do something that can help you to burn off some of those snack calories. Another fact from the CCC is that it would take 3 hours of walking around a football field, 1 hour and 45 minutes of running, or 2 hours of touch football to burn off 1200 calories of snack foods/beverages.

With a little planning and creative thinking you can enjoy a day of healthy snacking without giving yourself a “food hangover” come Monday morning.

‘Tis the season for upping the quality of your diet

Nutrient Density. Do you know what this term means and if you do are your actively apply the principle? A nutrient dense diet is something akin to choosing high octane fuel for your car over the regular unleaded. Octane is a measure of anti-knock properties, i.e. performance and the higher the octane generally the higher the performance. The same goes with your diet: fuel up with nutrient dense choices and power your body through back to back workout sessions, speed recovery time and decrease your risk for a host of chronic diseases.

Make a commitment to add an extra serving of fruit and/or vegetable to each meal and snack:

· Eat the skins of your potatoes and leave them on when making mashed potatoes.

· Substitute spaghetti squash for pasta and top with your favorite sauce and diced vegetables.

· Choose whole fruits over juice the majority of the time.

· Buy whole carrots and eat the skin instead of buying baby carrots.

· Add dried apricots to your whole wheat couscous.

· Grill fruits like peaches and pears along with your vegetables.

· Add fruit to your salad – dried cranberries, fresh raspberries and mandarin oranges work well.

· Add spinach and peppers to your omelet.

· How about adding fruit to plain yogurt instead of buying the fruit yogurt?

· Snack on hummus and veggies.

· Make green smoothies for breakfast or snacks by adding a handful of kale or spinach to some yogurt or protein powder. Throw in a few dried dates to make it thick.

· Start your lunch and dinners with broth based low-sodium vegetable soup or try it as a snack.

· Add a layer of vegetables to your lasagna.

· Make a puree base of vegetables, fruits or beans and add to just about everything. The Sneaky Chef has some great free recipes http://www.thesneakychef.com/free_sneaky_chef_recipes.php

You can also make some targeted changes when it comes to upping the quality of your protein intake:

· Substitute a starch like a potato for a serving of beans.

· Ever try beans for breakfast? In many cultures this is the norm.

· Trade in the dark meat for white meat.

· Grill and broil your meats instead of frying them and use olive oil instead of butter.

· Include fatty fish twice a week.

· Include a vegetarian protein based meal once or twice a week.

Then there are the grains. Aim to make most of your choices whole and unprocessed:

· Choose whole grains for everything: pasta, couscous, rice, barley, pastry and regular baking flour, hot and cold breakfast cereals. You may have to look a bit harder but whole grain versions do exist!

· Mix up your grains and try quinoa, millet, amaranth and bulgur. They can all be substituted in place of rice.

As we embark on a new year, make a commitment to up the quality of your diet. If you have a tip to share I would love to hear it.

Healthy Thanksgiving Side Dish

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks and celebrate the abundance the season has to offer. Unfortunately for most Americans this means overindulging in high calorie and high fat foods. I read in my American Council on Exercise newsletter (http://www.acefitness.org/pressroom/392/hard-to-believe-average-thanksgiving-meal-equals-3) that the average Thanksgiving meal with all of the fixings can be in the vicinity of 3000 calories and 229 grams of fat! Now unless you are competing in an Ironman race in the days before Thanksgiving, (a 160 lb person would need to run at a moderate pace of four hours, swim for five hours or walk 30 miles to burn off ~3000), you might want to think about incorporating at least one or two healthy options in your meal. Oh and that number doesn’t even include the appetizers and pre-meal snacking so you would probably need to add in a bike ride of an hour or two as well.

Personally, I won’t be feasting until I have done my run, maybe ridden my bike and of course walked my dog. I also know that I am in the minority when it comes to what will be on my Thanksgiving table. I will be cooking a Tofurkey (http://www.tofurky.com/tofurkyproducts/holiday_products.html ), green beans, Brussels, maybe some lima beans, and my healthy pumpkin muffins for dessert. However, I wanted to encourage everyone to add at least one very healthy side dish this season so thought I would post a “mock” mashed potato recipe.

The Mayo Clinic website has a nice basic recipe for cauliflower mashed “potatoes” http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-recipes/RE00142 but I just can’t look at a recipe without putting my personal spin on it. So the one posted here is a combination of several that I looked at.

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower

1 leek, white part only, cut into pieces

1 clove garlic

¼ cup skim milk or soy or almond

1-2 Tbs olive oil

Salt, pepper, and paprika

1. Place cauliflower, garlic, and leeks in a steamer basket; place in a saucepan over 1 inch of water. Bring to a boil; cover and steam for 8-10 minutes or until tender. Cool slightly.

2. Place the milk and oil in a food processor or blender. Add the vegetables, salt and pepper; cover and process until blended.

3. Either transfer to a bowl and serve immediately; or pour into a baking dish, sprinkle with paprika and bake until bubbly.

The nutritional analysis using 1 Tbs olive oil and 4 servings is:

100 calories, 3 grams of fat, 15 grams of carb, 6 grams of fiber, and 5 grams of protein.

Enjoy the holiday and practice moderation!

All About Apples!

I grew up in Pennsylvania and am part PA Dutch so I have always had a fondness for apples. While never a big fan of apple cider (I remember finishing a 10K and being greeted with it at the finish – yuck!), I did eat my share of homemade apple dumplings and apple butter. I bake a mean apple bread and love just about any variety. Apples are in season now so I thought a few reminders on their health benefits were in order especially since they don’t really receive much attention.

Apples belong to the Rose family and the apple tree originally came from Eastern Europe and southwestern Asia. Today there are over 7000 varieties on the market due to the work of cultivars. Apple varieties run the gamut from the very tart, to the very sweet and can be stored for quite a long time, 3-4 months in fact.

I am sure you have heard the adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” and “one bad apple can spoil the bunch” and both are well, actually pretty true. I’ll get to the health benefits momentarily but in terms of the bad apple, a bruised apple releases ethylene gas that decreases the shelf life of other apples it is in contact with.

The health benefits of apples stems primarily from their polyphenol content, a type of phytochemical. Phytochemicals are plant hormones that function as antioxidants and assist in decreasing the risk for many chronic diseases. Anthocyanins are a type of photochemical found in the skin of apples that gives them their red color and decreases the oxidation of cell membranes. Phenolics found in the pulp have both cardio protective properties and are beneficial for blood sugar regulation. While apples are not “excellent” sources of fiber they are classified as a “good” source. One whole apple contains approximately 2-3 grams and about 50% of this is in the form of pectin which has blood fat lowering properties similar to the soluble fiber found in oats. Apples are also a good source of vitamin C. The nutrients in apples are disproportionally present in the skin and since the Environmental Working Group listed apples as one of the 12 foods with the most pesticide residue I would recommend buying organic if you can. If you buy non-organic ask your grocer what type of wax was used. Non-petroleum waxes like carnauba are preferable to petroleum-based apples.

Enjoy apples while they are in season either whole or in one of thousands of recipes. What is your favorite variety and way to relish?

October is Non-GMO Month

October is non-GMO month (genetically modified organisms),and in case you aren’t familiar with the ramifications of GMO’s in our food supply then now is a great opportunity to become informed. I for one avoid GMO’s if I possibly can. Well let me back up. Non-GMO month was created by the Non-GMO Project http://www.nongmoproject.org/ in 2010 as a platform for raising awareness on the GMO issue. And in less you have taken a nutrition class recently (and I happen to teach several), you may or may not be aware of the pros and cons of GMOs. There are some great movies you can watch on the subject like The Future of Food (which you can watch for free online http://www.thefutureoffood.com/ and Food, Inc. (which you have to rent) but I will try to sum it up in a nutshell.

GMO’s are created through gene splicing techniques (biotechnology, genetic engineering or GE), which is an extremely precise way of plucking out just a desired gene or two from one organism and inserting it into another organism. It is light years more precise than traditional cross-breeding which takes the good with the bad when species are crossed.

While there are some pros to this such as disease and pest resistant in plants, there are an awful lot of cons and quite frankly a dearth of long-term studies on their safety. I could go on for hours about the ramifications and the lack of testing and so on but you can watch the movies I suggested and visit the Non-GMO project site to read more. Actually here is a link to a good article http://www.nongmoproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/GM-Crops-just-the-science.pdf

So what is the Non-GMO project all about? “It is a non-profit multi-stakeholder collaboration committed to preserving and building sources of non-GMO projects, educating consumers, and providing verified non-GMO choices”. Foods that are Non-GMO certified contain a stamp that looks like this:

Currently in the US products that contain GMO’s are not labeled so unless a consumer purchases 100% organic foods there may be ingredients that have been altered through biotechnology. The beauty of this project is that you can easily identify foods that have no GMOs even if they aren’t 100% organic. All you have to do is look for the seal.

I encourage you to become informed on GMO’s so you can make informed purchasing decisions and make your voice heard with your purchasing dollar.