Eating Healthy: List Small Changes That Have Big Impact

[Tom]

lots of mentions of frozen fruit... do you prep and freeze it yourself?
I always feel like commercial frozen fruit is loaded with sugar... but I am a neophyte at the whole healthy cooking thing.

There are tons of options for organic and non-organic frozen fruit that contains one ingredient...the fruit. Obviously these will contain some amount of sugars, but no added sugar (I assume that is what you meant).

We go through a fair amount of strawberry, blueberry, cherry, raspberry and pineapple from Trader Joe's frozen section.

Once in a while when local berries are insanely cheap and insanely fresh/ripe/tasty, we will load up and freeze them ourselves, but store bought are just too easy. The other advantage of frozen fruit is the juice ends up more like a frozen smoothie.

I have switched to trying to only eating local fruit that is in season. Before fruit is ripe, it contains a toxic chemical that keeps birds and other animals from eating it.

My simplest healthy thing I do is to never eat fast food.

[headmount]

Even if you don't eat 'fast' food, eating good food fast can be hard on your digestion.  Chewing slowly sounds obvious but I know I'm guilty of not chewing when I get ravenous (after a session).  People have remarked that I inhale food like a dog.  So I'm trying to slow down.

Shirley warns people not to get in the 'impact zone' between me and my food around dinner.  I have no inhibitions about 'repositioning' friends that visit who are talking and in the way of my prep.

[mittenkitten]

-Try to do the bulk of your grocery shopping at the periphery of the supermarket. Produce, meat and eggs are almost always around the perimeter, while the bulk of the processed crap lurks in the middle.

-If you're buying something that is a "processed" food, try to aim for things with no more that 5 ingredients. (Preferably ones that don't look like something you see in a chemistry textbook).

-Pack simple food and snacks with you for long road trips (fruit, nuts, etc). This way you don't find yourself ravenous at some nasty gas station desperately debating between the nasty day-glo orange cracker thingies or starvation...

[SEA]

BLENDTEC blenders ROCK !!!!

[SUPinSC]

I shop like mittenkitten--at the store's periphery.  In the warm months, I rarely visit the grocery store--I get to indulge at the farmer's market, my veggie garden, and the fish market.  My chicken's yard eggs complement my garden tomatoes terrifically.  I might quickly run thru the grocery for yogurt though.....love plain yogurt with fresh berries.....

One other thing I have done and found a big difference is to not fear fat...."reduced fat" simply equals "added sugar".....