How to Reduce Your Saturated Fat Intake

Use margarine instead of butter to reduce your saturated fat intake. Typically, saturated fats are solid at room temperature. Try the squeeze test on a stick of butter and margarine. Butter is more solid, meaning it contains more saturated fats. Check the labels for the lowest amount of saturated fat possible and enjoy!

Calling All Vegetarian Athletes

Vegetarian athletes beware: three meals a day may not be enough. More and more athletes are shying away from high cholesterol foods. Regardless of the type of vegetarianism, the energy demands on an athlete’s body may be more than the supply your diet is providing. Alternate meals and snacks every three hours. Choose meals and snacks containing approximately onethird protein and fat and twothirds carbohydrate (for example, beans and rice and a salad with dressing).

Prepare for Holiday Cooking Light and Lean?

• Degrease meat like a roast by browning it under the broiler rather than on the cook top. Fats will drip from meat into the roasting pan.
• Feel like chicken? Sauté chicken breasts or vegetables in nonfat cooking spray, low sodium chicken broth, or wine.
• Like to add a little zip to your vegetables? Try seasoning with fresh herbs, lemon juice, stock, wine or flavored vinegars instead of adding butter to your vegetables.

Cook me I’m raw!

For years, we’ve been told raw veggies are better for us than cooked ones. Well, more recent research suggests that the body may absorb as much as FIVE TIMES the amount of diseasefighting antioxidants from cooked or mashed veggies than from raw ones. Cooking or mashing breaks down the plant cell walls making the antioxidant vitamins easier for the body to absorb. Whichever you decide to believe, just getting any type of fruits and vegetables will be beneficial.

Make way for garlic

You’ve probably read that garlic can fight certain types of cancer. But what you may not know is that you need to prepare garlic a certain way to reap its health benefits. To get the most from garlic, don’t cook the cloves whole. Instead, it is better to cut, chop or cut the cloves and let STAND FOR 10 MINUTES before tossing them into your saucepan. Cutting onto a clove’s membrane releases the enzyme that contains the healthpromoting compounds.

What a nut

As small as they are, almonds are nutritional WHOPPERS.

Almonds are:

• High in protein 1oz of almonds = 6g of protein
• High in monounsaturated fat the good fat associated with reducing risk of heart disease.
• Rich in important minerals, including calcium, magnesium and phosphorous
• Higher in fiber than most nuts
• A good source of vitamin E (the browner the nut, the better.

Thumbs UP on frozen

Contrary to common misperception, frozen vegetables are healthy. So, stock up and you’ll always have nutritious veggies within reach.