KTK-Nutrition

How often do we hear, “eat healthy”, “eat nutritious foods”?   Are there small changes you can make to boost your nutrition without giving up every fun food?   I like to focus on what you can add to your diet to make it healthier rather than focus on taking things away.   An article in Environmental Nutrition has some simple, easy ways to boost your nutrition by focusing on foods that are full of nutrition.   How can you Make Your Diet More Nutrient-Dense ?   Some suggestions adapted from this article: Organic Milk – is organic milk healthier?   It is more expensive but is it worth it?   A study in the British Journal of Nutrition noted that organic milk has more of the heart healthy fat, omega-3, a lot more, 56% more.   Milk is not a great source of iron or vitamin E but these were higher in organic milk.   Not to mention the healthier aspect of no hormones and no pesticides in the milk.   Why a higher nutritional value?   They believe it is because the cows are grazing in the pas

How can you make eating healthier a habit?   Are there easy things to do that can help you and your kids eat healthier?    A recent article Place Your Order In Advance has some great tips.   Suggestions have been modified to include those I teach in my nutrition classes.   1.          Put healthy foods in front of you:   studies have found that if it is easy to get to, you may eat that food first.   So make the healthier foods ones that are easy to get to.   Keep healthy foods on the counter – a bowl of fruit, a pitcher of water   Cut up veggies like green pepper, carrots, celery and have them in the fridge for a quick snack 2.        Supermarkets:   shop the perimeter:   focus on healthier options by shopping the perimeter of the store.   Did you ever notice the perimeter has the fruit and vegetables, the dairy, the meat group?   3.        Eating out?   Read the menu ahead of time:   check out the online menu before you go.   Plan healthier options before you even enter th

Many people are looking for ways to cut back on calories with little effort.   Are there simpler ways to cut back on calories than go on some stringent diet?   To lose one pound a week, you need to cut back on 3500 calories or 500 calories a day. But it doesn’t have to mean cutting back on 500 calories of food, one can also increase their exercise and burn up 250 calories a day and then cut back on 250 calories, which would be a lot easier to do.   Trying to cut 500 calories a day is a lot and many people would feel hungry doing so.   For some ideas on how to cut back on calories, WebMD has a few suggestions in their article, 20 Ways to Cut Back on 500 Calories A Day .   A few of their suggestions are highlighted below: Choose black coffee and skip the grande latte.   Even with no added sugar, the grande latte adds 220 calories to your day.   Black coffee has almost no calories, adding only 2 calories to your day.   And for those of you drinking 2 grande lattes a day, this switch w

Smoothies are the rage and many people have their favorite smoothie recipe.   Which one is better for you?   A recent article in the New York Times, Are Smoothies Better For You Than Juices? , outline the pros and cons of juice vs. smoothies.          1.          Juice – to be healthy, juice has to be real, 100% juice.   Many people buy Sunny D, Hi-C, or Capri-Sun juice drinks and think they are getting real, 100% juice.   But these are fruit drinks or juice drinks and not 100% real juice.   These fruit drinks may contain some juice as Hi-C drinks contain about   10% real juice.   Simply Fruit Punch Juice Drink contains only 15% juice.   The rest is mostly sugar water.   The added sugar in these drinks is often high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar which provide only “empty calories” without the nutritional benefits of real juice.     Choose "juice" not juice drinks or fruit punch.  To be sure it is real juice, look for the word “juice” on the label and not “fruit drin