Healthy Eating for the Whole Family with Canada’s Food Guide
Many people think that it takes too much time and effort to eat healthy meals everyday. Although it can be hard to plan meals around work, school and a busy family life, using Canada’s Food Guide can make meal times at home quick, easy and healthy for the whole family.
What is Canada’s Food Guide?
Canada’s Food Guide is a basic educational tool that was created to help Canadians eat a healthy and nutritious diet. It takes the science of nutrition and presents it in ways that are easy to understand and apply to everyday eating.
There are four food groups in Canada’s Food Guide:
1. Fruits and vegetables
2. Grains
3. Milk and Alternatives
4. Meat and Alternatives
What is a Canada’s Food Guide Serving?
A Canada’s Food Guide serving is the amount of food that makes up 1 “serving” of that food group. For example ½ cup of fresh, frozen or canned vegetables is equal to 1 serving of fruits and vegetables. A food guide serving depends on your age and sex. Female teens between the ages of 14-18 should be eating 7 servings of fruit and vegetables per day; where as male teen between ages of 14-18 should be eating 8 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Female adults between the ages of 19-51 years of age should be eating 2 servings of meat and alternatives, compared to men of that same age group who need 3 servings.
How do I plan Healthy Meals for my Family?
The first step in creating healthy meals for the whole family is planning. You need to plan your meals for the week; this will guide your grocery list. Make lists based off the weekly meal plans and stick to the list when shopping.
When planning meals keep in mind that you want to get as many food guide servings in a meal as possible to make sure you and your family are eating the recommended amount of servings per day. For example if one dinner choice is stir fry, make sure to have lots of vegetables like yellow peppers, red peppers , broccoli, and carrots. If adding a meat to the dish make sure to choose a lean meat low in fat and salt, or tofu for protein but keeping it a vegetarian meal.
Prep work can make meals quick and easy, chopping vegetables and meat the night before and storing in the fridge can increase speed in the kitchen. Get the whole family involved and have teenage family members in charge of the prep work for meals. Sticking to healthy meals is easier when everybody helps!
More tips for Healthy Eating
Choose whole fruits and vegetables over juices, make half of daily grain products whole grain, eat one dark green and bright orange fruit or vegetable everyday and select lean meats with little or no salt and preservatives added.
For more information on healthy eating with Canada’s Food Guide Visit the Health Canada website.
Live Well… Chinweoke
Steps to Increase Your Daily Exercise
Exercise can be such an overwhelming thought when you think you have to buy a gym pass, find time to go to the gym and then spend two hours sweating. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming experience though. Adding little “tricks” throughout your day can help you increase your daily exercise and build a healthy habit.
It takes 21 days to build (or break) a habit and if you start small with something you can do, then it will be easier to increase the time when your 21 days are up. If you are someone who never exercises right now then make your goal to do “something” everyday. When I did this little challenge for myself I found myself doing standing leg lifts while brushing my teeth, sit-ups during tv night, squats while washing the dishes and lunges every time I went from the kitchen to the living room. If you are someone who works in an office, try to get up and stretch or move around a little bit every hour. Get up and go talk to a co-worker rather than emailing or calling them, walk to the cafeteria to refill your water bottle, take the stairs instead of the elevator, park at the back of the parking lot at work, walk for your lunch break and encourage walk and talk meetings instead of sit and eat meetings.
For those of you who are already active and looking for something more try to add 10 minutes every morning and evening of interval training. This is not a scary term but rather something that is great to try and work into your day.
For instance, let’s say you take half an hour to make supper, set the table and get everyone to the table. While making supper take 1 minute intervals of jumping jacks or jogging on the spot. When your are done your minute, let your heart rate calm down and continue with supper; when your heart rate is back to normal do it again. When you are setting the table get your plates and do lunges all the way to the table and back until you have everything you need. When you need to get everyone to the table instead of yelling and getting frustrated at the lack of response, do a high knee jog or a cross country ski movement to each room to get everyone. Having something active to do during dinner making time will also keep your mind off of snacking and eating too much before supper even begins.
After supper, the tv is on and every time a commercial comes on do a different exercise: jumping jacks, sit-ups, leg lifts, squats, lunges, and toe touches. If you were to do that for a 1 hour show you would get close to a 20 minute workout.
Try to think of this as a 21 day challenge and the reward at the end will be a healthier, more active YOU…with a brand new habit!
Keep Well… Kristy
I love making stir fries for my family. It is a great way to have a lot of wonderful vegetables and the protein can be fish, beef, pork, chicken or tofu. I think of stir fries as so versatile and it doesn’t take a lot of time to cook. Where it is time consuming is cutting up the vegetables. If I plan that week that I am going to have a stir fry, I always try to cut up the vegetables earlier in the week, usually on a Sunday. Then they are cleaned, chopped and ready to go for a stir fry or for dipping with hummus as a favorite snack for my family.
Eat Well… Ellen
