In the first part of this article I talked about why fruits and vegetables might be just what you need to give you the winning edge in managing your weight. (Fruits and Vegetables Best Choice for 2009) Today I would like to share my thoughts on how you might make it easier to regularly include more fruits and vegetables in your diet.

The cost of fresh fruits and vegetables especially off-season might dampen your enthusiasm for my suggestion. Unfortunately, some of the least healthy food is also the least expensive. There are many reasons for this including certain government policies that made sense 40-50 years ago but not any longer. However, that’s a topic for another day.

Hopefully we may see some changes in government policy and otherwise that might make fruits and vegetables more affordable in the near future. In the meantime, I have some suggestions that may help a little. When you plan your food budget do keep in mind the enormous health benefits of fruits and vegetables as well as the opportunity to more easily manage your weight.

Cost of Fruits and Vegetables

•Minimize your costs by buying fresh fruits and vegetables by season (whenever possible buy local and organic). Imported produce can sometimes be more expensive than what is grown in the United States.

•When fresh is limited or not available, choose to buy less expensive canned fruits or vegetables. You may also find frozen to be cheaper than fresh. The nutritional value of frozen is as good and might even be better than fresh. Canned produce may have somewhat less in the way of certain nutrients but is still a good choice.

(Note: Choose canned or frozen options without added sugar, syrup, cream sauces, or other ingredients that add calories.)

•Whenever possible, avoid buying pre-cut fruits and vegetables for enormous savings. The convenience may be nice but you pay dearly for that.

The cost of fruits and vegetables may or may not be an issue for you but what about meal and snack ideas? And what kind of simple changes might you make in your routine to make it more likely that fruits and vegetables are a part of your diet more often?

Tips for Simplifying

•Pick one day at the beginning of your week to wash and cut fruits and vegetables. Put each in a separate container, if necessary. (Add a little lemon juice to cut apples and pears to keep them from browning. Or just leave these whole to eat fresh as is.)

Now you have a supply of fruits and vegetables ready for snacks or to include in a meal later in the week. This will not only save you precious minutes when its time to cook but will also make it more likely you will grab one of these containers for a ready-to-eat, healthy, and low calorie snack.

•Add leafy greens (such as spinach, red leaf lettuce, romaine), tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, green peppers, and more to sandwiches and lighten up on the meat and cheese.

•Don’t forget fruit. Thinly sliced apples can make a great addition to a turkey or chicken sandwich for extra flavor and nutrition. Sliced bananas or, better yet, low calorie berries go well with peanut or other nut butters instead of jelly or jam.

•Add chopped veggies to broth based soups (whether homemade or canned), stir-fried dishes, pasta, omelets, and pizza toppings. Eat more veggies and there is less room for higher calorie pasta, rice, or bread.

•Strive for having half your plate at mealtime filled with fruits and vegetables. Do eat off of smaller plates for smaller portions and fewer calories.

•Potatoes eaten with the skin can be a healthy choice; however, do limit how much you eat. They have a high starch (carbohydrates) content and as such are more similar to bread or cereals with respect to calorie count.

Recipe Ideas

If you need a bit of inspiration when it comes to additional ideas on ways to prepare fruit or vegetables, what you may need are photos and recipes that make your mouth water. Here’s just a few of the places I go for inspiration both offline and on.

The next time you are at a shop with a magazine rack, flip through a few issues of some of the better cooking magazines. I especially like the magazines geared for vegetarians. You don’t need to be a vegetarian to get inspired and enjoy the recipes you’ll find!

The latest issue of Vegetarian times (January 2009) caught my eye with the lead story of “Lose Weight, Gain Energy: 35 satisfying recipes under 300 calories”. After only a minute or two looking at the enticing photos and recipes and I was hooked. I don’t buy magazines very often but this one came home with me!

No time for magazines? No problem. There are lots of great online sites for inspiration:

Check out Flickr photos (online) for pictures of vegetarian recipes from around the world. Not all of the photos will appeal to you (or feature fruits and vegetables) but the ones that do are sure to inspire you to be more creative with your meals and snacks.

Flickr Vegetarian Group

Have you had a chance to read my review article of some of the best online sites for low calorie and healthy recipes?

Healthy Low Calorie Recipes: 8 Super Sites

Veggie Meal Plans (A blog site with lots of good recipes and sometimes very appealing food photos.)

Fruits and Vegetables Matter

One of my favorite all around recipe sites is RecipeZaar. What I especially like is the ability to drill down and find specific kinds of recipes. I did a basic search for low calorie fruit recipes and came up with over 6,000 recipes. I took a look at the calorie counts for some of the recipes and many were on the high side. So I then chose to “filter by nutrition” and did a search for low calorie fruit recipes with less than 100 calories per serving.

This narrowed the results down to 198. At that point I could have chosen to filter by course (breakfast, snack, main dish, etc.), ingredient, preparation (time to make, simple, etc.) or occasion (seasonal, holiday, etc.). Very nice!

(Note: If the link for the filter for low calorie fruit recipes with 100 calories or less per serving doesn’t work, just do your own search at www.recipezaar.com following my tip.)

Low Calorie Fruit Recipes

A search at RecipeZaar for low calorie vegetable recipes with 100 calories or less per serving turned up 48 recipes:

Low Calorie Vegetable Recipes

For more about nutrition and the value of fruits and vegetables for weight loss you might want to read:

Fruits and Vegetables: Nutrition Source, Harvard School of Public Health

Last but not least, I wanted to share with you a list I came across at Health.com (Health magazine) for the 10 best supermarket chains. These are the stores selected by six prominent health experts as being the best of the largest chain stores for delivering the freshest and healthiest food possible.

These stores may not be available where you live. That doesn’t mean you are out of luck. There are a number of smaller chain stores and other grocery stores with an outstanding selection of healthy choices that did not make this list because of size.

In addition, some of the stores listed may not be the best for you based on cost. And just because a chain store may have received high marks in general doesn’t mean a particular branch store where you live is as good. It may not have the kind of management necessary to assure the same high quality guidelines as the same shop in another city.

1. Whole Foods
2. Safeway
3. Harris Teeter
4. Trader Joe’s
5. Hannaford
6. Albertson’s
7. Food Lion
8. Publix Super Markets
9. Pathmark
10. Super Target

If you have some time, I would encourage you to read the original article to see what some of these shops offer and what kinds of things matter when it comes to making healthy choices: America’s Healthiest Grocery Stores

Do start out the New Year with a plan. Eat more fruits and veggies. Good luck with this and best wishes for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight!

Are you aware that the company Lean Cuisine has a product recall for three of their frozen entrees? If you enjoy Lean Cuisine you may want to check your freezer to see if you have one of these three:

Lean Cuisine Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie

Lean Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean

Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan

These particular chicken meals may contain pieces of hard blue plastic. You can read more about the product recall and get the production codes to look for at the Web MD site.

Food production on a large scale is not easy. There is the potential for so many things to go wrong. I worked in Quality Assurance for a small food company many years ago and I can honestly say that despite rigorous procedures and care, things happen. It’s a wonder that we don’t have more product recalls than we do.

Lean Cuisine offers reasonably healthy and nutritionally balanced pre-prepared meals. I am not affiliated with the company in any way. Nor do I recommend depending on frozen entrees or any other packaged meals on a regular basis. Home-prepared meals from fresh whole foods are best. (In addition, there are the questions of environmental impact and social justice but that’s another discussion.) I do eat frozen entrees from time to time like most everyone else.

I particularly like some of the Spa Cuisine choices because they seem to have more added fruits and vegetables than the others. Lean Cuisine has partnered with the non-profit organization Fruits and Veggies: More Matters. I agree, fruits and vegetables are very important!

The Lean Cuisine website and Fruit and Veggies site offer some resources you might find helpful in your efforts to eat low calorie healthy meals.

Lean Cuisine:

You can download a PDF version of nutritional information for Lean Cuisine products. With the included chart you can get a better sense of which meals might fit best with your diet. Trying to keep your carb or fat grams down to a certain amount? Or maybe you need to watch your intake of saturated fat like me. Well now there’s no need to stand at the frozen food case at the grocers reading one Nutrition Facts label after another. (To learn how many grams of fat or carbohydrate you need on a 1200 or 1500 calorie diet you may want to read: 1200 Calorie Diet: Protein, Carbohydrate, Fat, and Fiber Needs)

Lean Cuisine Products: Nutrition Information (Look for Wellness Tools then Nutrition Information. It is only available as a download.)

Fruit and Veggies: More Matters

1. This organization provides lists of what fruits and vegetables are available by season. Very nice! This can be quite useful when you are planning meals for the week but you can’t remember if it is the right season for a certain fresh fruit or vegetable.

Fruits and Vegetables: Availability by Season

(Be sure to check my lists on the Women and Weight Website for which fruits and vegetables are your best bets as far as calories and fiber content:

Fall Fruits and Vegetables: Low Calorie and High Fiber

Low Calorie, High Fiber Winter Fruits and Vegetables

High Fiber, Low Calorie Spring Fruits and Vegetables

Low Calorie, High Fiber Summer Fruits and Vegetables

2. Something else you might want to explore is the recipe section for the Fruit and Veggies site. I spent a few minutes looking around and found some recipes I’d like to try! The calorie counts for certain recipes seems to be reasonable but do pay attention to the serving size.

Fruits and Veggies: More Matters - Recipes

There’s also a menu choice (see the sidebar on the right) that offers recipes that can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.

If you would like more information on sites that offer healthy recipes or where to go to get nutrition information you may want to check out two of my previous review articles:

Healthy Low Calorie Recipes: 8 Super Sites to See

Nutrition Calculators: Review of the Best Sites Online

Till next time, watch those calories and remember to eat healthy!