Part of making your meals more healthy is getting yourself organized ahead of time.
The worst part, and the part that takes the longest, is going through your kitchen and purging all of the bad stuff. Spend a day going through your fridge and pantry. If you don’t want to waste food, give it to the neighbors or take it to work for your co-workers to gorge on.
Some of the offending items are super highly processed foods, because they contain low amounts of nutrients, while giving you too much fat, too much sodium and too much sugar and too much weird chemicals.
Get rid of the white bread, chips, instant soups like Cup-O-Noodles and the like.
Once you’ve cleared out all of the bad stuff (it’s fine to eat bad stuff once in awhile, but don’t keep it in your house to be tempted by it) plan to spend the better part of an afternoon or morning at the grocery store. You’re going to want to find better products, and you’ll have to read labels, and of course, do price comparisons. You don’t have to go to the fancy schmancy Whole Foods to get good produce with good prices. You may have to check around, but I get a lot of my produce at the 99 Cent Only store and a big asian market. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with what stuff ought to cost. Some things, like canned beans are often cheaper, when they’re on sale at the regular grocery store, say 79 cents, as opposed to getting them at the 99 cent store. So you’ll probably want to shop at multiple stores, but get an idea of what things should cost (as the seasons change, the prices of produce will change drastically too).
With regards to produce, I like to make one big shopping trip, on my day off, and if I’m not too worn out by the trip, I’ll start to prep my stuff, or I’ll wait until the next day. This is going to seem like an arduous process, at first, but it will save you time and give you more easy options afterwards.
Some produce can be cleaned and cut up and put into tupperware or ziplock bags for easy pickings throughout the week. Examples are carrots, celery, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, lettuce, bell peppers,jicama, grapes, watermelon and citrus.
Some produce items are better left in their original package or loose, but uncut, because if you wash them, or cut them they’ll start to deteriorate pretty quickly, often before you can use them up. Examples of these items are berries, stone fruits, apples and pears and bananas and mushrooms. But all of these items are easily washed (or just wiped in the case of the schrooms, don’t wash them) and cut up quickly.
Here are some items with good substitutions:
Sandwich with processed lunch meat and cheese
Peanut butter and Jelly on whole grain bread, or hummus on a whole grain tortilla.
Regular Spaghetti
Brown Rice Spaghetti
Alfredo Sauce
Low Sodium Marinara Sauce, or better yet, make your own and then freeze some. Here’s a Recipe
Potato Chips
Whole Grain Crackers and unsalted or lightly salted nuts (peanuts, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts) or sliced carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower and red bell pepper with Low Fat Dip or home made whole grain Tortilla Chips (or healthier tortilla chips like These) with homemade Guacamole. Make sure to push your plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the guacamole in your bowl, so it will stay green, otherwise it turns brown in about an hour. This will last about 4 days and you can even put some of it on a baked or nuked potato.
Hamburgers from the drive through
A turkey sandwich on whole grain bread, with lettuce and tomato and a wee schmear of mayo, or even Veganaise which tastes so much like regular that even my Dad can’t tell the difference (as long as he doesn’t see the jar).
Chicken Nuggets or a chicken sandwich from the drive through
Rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. You can make several different meals with rotisserie chicken, including eating it hot, with a couple of veggie side dishes like Sautéed Green Beans and a nuked sweet potato. Or you can shred some of the chicken and cook it with a little bit of salsa in a pan, then throw it into a whole grain tortilla with a bit of shredded cheese, or you can make a sandwich, or some Chicken Salad
Pizza Delivery or frozen pizza with too much fat and too many processed ingredients
Healthier Frozen Pizzas that taste great, but still give you the time savings you want. You can also make semi-homemade pizza with Whole Grain Crusts and use some of the marinara sauce from above, some mozzarella cheese, but go easy on it, and load it up with your favorite veggies (instead of pepperoni and sausage) like mushrooms, red and green bell peppers, and broccoli.
Top Ramen
Baked Ramen Noodles with tofu (or some of the rotisserie chicken) and veggies. These ramen noodles are healthier, because they’re baked and not fried, but the flavor packet still contains quite a bit of sodium. If you like, you can ditch the flavor packet and use your own favorite lower sodium broth, or you can make your own Broth Make it ahead of time, on one of your prep days, and freeze it in ice cube trays or small freezer bags (laid flat in your freezer to save space) for individual meals.
Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Tomato Soup
Make it a Wrap with some Easy Soup Recipes, most of which you can make ahead and freeze. If you don’t already have one, invest in a stick blender. It’s much easier to puree soup stuff in the pot, rather than transferring hot soup to a regular blender.
Submarine Sandwiches, Hoagies and Grinders
Vietnamese Bahn Mi Sandwiches
Beef Chili
Vegetarian Chili. If you want it to have a meatier texture add some Morningstar Farms Burger Crumbles or Gimme Lean
Iceberg Lettuce
Romaine Lettuce.
Soda
Cucumber, Lime and Mint Water. This is very refreshing when it’s hot.
Ice Cream
Fresh berries with non-fat Greek yogurt.
Sour Cream
Non-fat Greek yogurt. I’ve tasted a bunch of them, and so far my favorite is Voskos
Baked or Nuked Potato with sour cream
Baked or nuked Sweet Potato with non-fat Greek Yogurt.
Sometimes you might want to just throw some frozen meal into the microwave, and that’s OK, but make sure you add some veggies to whatever you’re fixing. Grilled mushrooms and or steamed broccoli is great with macaroni and cheese. Or make yourself a salad, because you’ll have all of your fixings already washed and cut up.
You might want to keep a bag of frozen chicken breasts in your freezer. That way, you can put one in the fridge, in the morning before you go to work, and it will be ready to Cook when you get home.
Add more beans to your diet. Canned beans are fine, just make sure to rinse them before using, otherwise you’ll be getting too much sodium, or you can buy the ones marked as low sodium. Have lots of canned beans on hand (black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas etc.) so you can make burritos, chili, or soup, and throw them on to your salad.
Eat more mushrooms, of all types. They’re nutrient dense, taste delicious and can be a good substitute for meat in all sorts of dishes. Check out these Portobello Mushroom Burgers or this Mushroom Stroganoff or this Mushroom Pizza
Take away white colored foods such as white potatoes, white rice and bleached white flour. Replace them with sweet potatoes and yams; brown rice and wild rice; whole grain flours. Don’t forget to add lots and lots of colored produce to your repertoire such as cherries, mangoes, nectarines, berries, squash, purple and red grapes, orange cauliflower, tomatoes, swiss chard, kale, mustard greens, and avocados. Make sure to eat more Cruciferous veggies.
Eat more Fiber
Eat more salads. Here are some easy salad recipes :
Avocado Chicken Salad
Broccoli and Bacon Salad If you want, you can sub a veggie bacon such as This One
Taco Salad
Quinoa, Chickpea and Avocado Salad
Chicken, Watermelon and Arugula Salad
Caprese Salad
Thai Chicken Salad
Cold Steak and Noodle Salad
Prep in Advance to make salads quicker and easier
Happy Eating!
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