Helen’s Diet Blog

You reach late from office and your kids are hungry! You are too tired to attempt full-fledged cooking. In such a situation, calling up a fast-food restaurant seems to be the only alternative. Is there a time to think about providing healthy diet to all family members? Not really!

Here are few tips to help you cook healthier meal within minutes, and thus saving your family from unwanted calories, fat, and sodium intake apart from saving your hard-earned money.

• Always stock fast, nutritious food in your food cabinets
• It requires a good amount of planning. Therefore, always plan in advance and make a proper list of all food items for the coming week. For example, your list may contain:

o Cereals, whole-grain breads, and pasta.
o Milk, or low- fat cheese, eggs, canned beans, and yogurt
o Peanut butter, chicken and meatballs
o Fresh, frozen low salt canned vegetables
o Fresh and dried fruit
o Orange juice cartons, and milk cartons

• Plan during Weekends

You can spend few hours more in your kitchen during weekends to plan your week days. You can even cook food in double quantity and freeze the other half for the next day. How about having sandwiches for dinner? You can make healthy, nutritious sandwiches within minutes by using easily accessible ingredients such as cucumber, tomatoes, cauliflower, and peanut butter. You can even stock veggie burgers or lean beef burger patties made during weekends and serve them with fruits and milk. How about cooking delicious yet quick dinners with eggs? For example, you can use eggs in salad, sandwich, and make whole-grain French toast. Try making some mouth-watering Omelets using leftover cooked vegetables and serve them with fruit juice or milk.

All of these ideas provide you healthy alternatives as compared to unhealthy fast food items. Don’t forget to shop for these items when you go to the supermarket next. In fact, you will be able to come up with more interesting ideas once you start planning in advance.