How to Make Healthy Food Choices!

It's Thursday afternoon, you have thirty minutes to get from work, go by the house and pickup Heath, Jamie's already at basketball practice, oh, and what about dinner? Does this scenario seem familiar? If you're a working Mom, I can promise that it is a familiar scene.

So how do you make healthy food choices, when you only have fifteen minutes to prepare your meals? Well, the first thing you should realize is that quite often, healthy choices do not necessarily equate to two hour meals. You can make healthy food choices that are as quick to prepare or pickup as the unhealthy ones.

For example, sub sandwiches are a healthier alternative than pizza or burger and fries, but do not really take any longer to pickup. Salads can be prepared in just a few short minutes, and provide for the necessary vegetable daily requirement. Don' care for the usual salad? Make a Waldorf or fruit salad, either way you've changed it up a bit, and still provided a health choice. As for the dressing, oil based or vinegar based dressings are much better for you than the cream based, and are really more tasteful. Okay, suppose salads aren't what your kids like. What about other prepared foods that are also healthy foods? Healthy Choice is a brand of frozen entrees or meals that take only a few minutes in the microwave to prepare, and are still healthy alternatives. Baked rather than fried is always a better choice, and many supermarkets today offer baked products fresh from their bakery, ready to go.

Still aren't satisfied? You want a place to go and actually sit down and eat. There are still many healthy alternatives for a family when going to eat at a restaurant. Restaurants that offer buffet style meals are great choices. Thanks to many of the health conscious consumers out there, buffets have added baked, broiled, and fresh food choices to the display. Fresh fruits and vegetables are usually always available on food bars, along with broiled or steamed vegetables. Meats are just about as varied, with many of the choices being offered in a fried and baked option. And if you're up for dessert, watermelons and grapes are just as satisfying as the Boston cream pie.

You can always throw up objections when it comes to healthy eating, the real trick is in realizing it's your body that will suffer. Or your children that will suffer from the unhealthy choices you make. Why not start with healthy options, set the right example, and you will have children that make health conscious intelligent decisions about their eating.

Okay, now back to our Thursday afternoon juggling act. You've dropped Heath at baseball practice, picked Jamie up from basketball, and you have exactly fifteen minutes to make a decision about dinner. As you sit at the red-light contemplating your options, there is a Subway, a Pizza Hut, and a grocery store with a deli in the same shopping center. How can this still be a difficult choice to make?

DISCLAIMER: This information is not presented by a medical practitioner and is for educational and informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read. Since natural and/or dietary supplements are not FDA approved they must be accompanied by a two-part disclaimer on the product label: that the statement has not been evaluated by FDA and that the product is not intended to "diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

This article was published by Hans Hasselfors from http://www.SubmitYourNewArticle.com. Visit our article directory for more articles about health food.

Advice on Choosing Health Food And Healthy Foods And Reading Nutrition Labels

Health food doesn't need a definition, does it? We all know what health food is it's yogurt and granola, whole-grain cereal and organically grown vegetables and fruit. It's 100% natural, no preservatives or dyes, unadulterated, pure. When you put all that together, you should have healthy food, yet all too often, what's marketed as health food these days barely classifies as food, let alone health food.

Take a look at one of our favorite health food choices - yogurt. It hit supermarket shelves in the early seventies, though it had been available before that in health food stores and restaurants. Real yogurt has two ingredients: milk (whole, skim or low fat) and live yogurt cultures. That's health food - calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, protein. Next time you're at the supermarket, take a look at the dairy case. You'll find row after row of hyper-sweetened brightly colored rainbow swirled and candy-sprinkled yogurt packaged in ways that appeal to our littlest consumers - children. Millions of parents buy the enticing packages, secure that because it's yogurt, they're buying food that's healthy for their children.

One look at the label, though, and it's clear that these kiddy yogurts (as well as most of the yogurt that's marketed to adults) are a far cry from heath food. Some of the most popular yogurts for children contain anywhere from 3 to 10 added teaspoons of sugar. Considering how many teaspoons of yogurt are in a single serving, you might as well hand your child the sugar bowl. In addition, most yogurts include "natural" ingredients that have little to do with health food. Ingredients like pectin (to thicken yogurt), carrageenan (a seafood extract that gives some yogurts their body, and annatto (for color) add little nutritionally to yogurt. They're in the mix to serve one main purpose: to help yogurt survive its trip from the factory to your table.

You'll find the same situation with other foods that originally made their debut as health foods in the seventies. Granola has become granola bars with chocolate chips and gooey caramel. Whole wheat flour is bleached and denuded of its flavorful kernels. Sunflower seeds are roasted in oil and salted. Even brown rice comes in the instant variety.

Healthy food not health food

The secret to feeding your family (and yourself) a healthful diet of healthy food is to read the labels. The United States Food & Drug Administration has laid out strict guidelines for nutritional labeling of all food products. The nutrition label will tell you all you need to know to choose real health foods. Some things to keep in mind when reading nutrition labels for health foods:

* In the ingredient's portion of the nutrition label, ingredients are listed in order by amount. The ingredient that's listed first is the main ingredient, followed by the next largest amount, etc.

* The nutrition facts label must list each of the required nutrients even if the food provides 0% of the recommended daily value.

* The nutrition facts label must list what portion of the food's calories is derived from fat, from sugar, from protein and from carbohydrates. It will also break down the fat into saturated and unsaturated fat.

Reading labels on everything you feed your family is the best way to tell whether a food is really a health food - or just masquerading as one.

Advice on choosing health food and healthy foods and reading nutrition labels

Health food doesn't need a definition, does it? We all know what health food is it's yogurt and granola, whole-grain cereal and organically grown vegetables and fruit. It's 100% natural, no preservatives or dyes, unadulterated, pure. When you put all that together, you should have healthy food, yet all too often, what's marketed as health food these days barely classifies as food, let alone health food.

Take a look at one of our favorite health food choices - yogurt. It hit supermarket shelves in the early seventies, though it had been available before that in health food stores and restaurants. Real yogurt has two ingredients: milk (whole, skim or low fat) and live yogurt cultures. That's health food - calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, protein. Next time you're at the supermarket, take a look at the dairy case. You'll find row after row of hyper-sweetened brightly colored rainbow swirled and candy-sprinkled yogurt packaged in ways that appeal to our littlest consumers - children. Millions of parents buy the enticing packages, secure that because it's yogurt, they're buying food that's healthy for their children.

One look at the label, though, and it's clear that these kiddy yogurts (as well as most of the yogurt that's marketed to adults) are a far cry from heath food. Some of the most popular yogurts for children contain anywhere from 3 to 10 added teaspoons of sugar. Considering how many teaspoons of yogurt are in a single serving, you might as well hand your child the sugar bowl. In addition, most yogurts include "natural" ingredients that have little to do with health food. Ingredients like pectin (to thicken yogurt), carrageenan (a seafood extract that gives some yogurts their body, and annatto (for color) add little nutritionally to yogurt. They're in the mix to serve one main purpose: to help yogurt survive its trip from the factory to your table.

You'll find the same situation with other foods that originally made their debut as health foods in the seventies. Granola has become granola bars with chocolate chips and gooey caramel. Whole wheat flour is bleached and denuded of its flavorful kernels. Sunflower seeds are roasted in oil and salted. Even brown rice comes in the instant variety.

Healthy food not health food
The secret to feeding your family (and yourself) a healthful diet of healthy food is to read the labels. The United States Food & Drug Administration has laid out strict guidelines for nutritional labeling of all food products. The nutrition label will tell you all you need to know to choose real health foods. Some things to keep in mind when reading nutrition labels for health foods:

* In the ingredient's portion of the nutrition label, ingredients are listed in order by amount. The ingredient that's listed first is the main ingredient, followed by the next largest amount, etc.
* The nutrition facts label must list each of the required nutrients even if the food provides 0% of the recommended daily value.
* The nutrition facts label must list what portion of the food's calories is derived from fat, from sugar, from protein and from carbohydrates. It will also break down the fat into saturated and unsaturated fat.

Reading labels on everything you feed your family is the best way to tell whether a food is really a health food - or just masquerading as one.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Visit this Food Website and Majon's Food directory.