1. Peanut butter made out of peanuts and salt is better than peanut butter made out of peanuts, shortening, sugar and salt. It even tastes better.
2. There’s no reason to use a dinner plate unless you are pregnant or bicycling the tour de France. It holds more food than you can eat without being too full. Use a salad plate to eat a meal off of unless you have company. That way your reasonable portions won’t look so lonely and small.
3. Quarter oranges. Carve out the pulp and toss it into a sturdy blender. Squeeze whatever pulp is left behind in the peels into the blender too. Toss in some ice cubes and blend until smooth and frothy. This is about 1 serving of fruit per medium orange. It’s refreshing and tasty. Good way to get oranges, for someone who otherwise thinks they’re just edible. Good way to get water, for someone who thinks water alone is boring.
4. Another fake milkshake is lowfat frozen yogurt, nonfat milk, and frozen fruit. Lots of fruit, just enough frozen yogurt to sweeten it a little and enough milk to make it drinkable. Blackberries are seedy for this, but okay. Strawberries are very good.
5. Warm up a couple whole-wheat tortillas or chapatis. Heat up some cooked brown rice with a little chopped tomato, water and hot sauce until it’s fluffy. Heat up some cooked beans. Grate a serving of lowfat sharp cheese. Chop some tomato and some lettuce leaves and part of an onion. Maybe some shredded lean meat, but you don’t need it because the beans and brown rice are plenty of protein for one meal. Make all the amounts small, otherwise they won’t fit in normal tortillas. This is a good meal—it’s low in fat and calories, has all the food groups except fruit, and it’s really satisfying.
6. Everyone knows not to buy groceries when you’re hungry. Keep something filling and nonperishable in your car or backpack, that’s fairly good for you, water and something else, like some nuts, some whole grain crispbreads, maybe raisins or something. Even if you’re in a hurry getting home, stop and eat before you leave work. Not only will you buy healthier, cheaper, fewer things at the grocery store, you’ll probably shop faster so it won’t cost you any extra time. Just remember to pick up some more car/backpack food if you eat it all.
7. If you’re like me, sometimes you just have to have a pie. Don’t make a 9-inch pie if you’re not taking it to a party! Get some of those those tiny metal pie dishes. Make pate brisee and freeze the shells you don’t use right away. Don’t mess around with shortening or hard margarine, that stuff is worse for you than butter. Don’t use even a little more sugar than you need to make it taste good, and remember a single-crust pie or tart is less fatty than a double-crust.
8. Some chocolate can be had without any extra fat or sugar. It depends on how you feel about plain unsweetened cocoa powder. I like a dusting of it sometimes over my coffee. It’s another way to have the sense of having some kind of treat, without compromising the healthy eating thing.
9. If you haven’t tried eda mame, soybeans in the pod, try them. Those things rock. Perfect movie watching food. I can’t eat popcorn without missing the butter. Plain popcorn makes me feel deprived. But eda mame don’t seem like they need butter, they’re fine plain, and they have that munchy snack food quality. I just have to watch my portion size, because I would eat them until I’m totally full if I have that many in front of me.
10. Keep your freezer full of chopped frozen vegetables. Fresh vegetables from your garden are best, but fresh vegetables in the store usually aren’t any better than frozen because they’ve been sitting around. Still get fresh vegetables, because they’re good. But you can run out. Having frozen ones in the fridge means you have something easy and good to make any time, takes the pressure off for having to make so many shopping trips, and makes it a lot easier to throw together a vegetable soup in short order.
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