Healthy Eating and Drinking While Out: Part I

I've been engaging in healthy eating (and drinking) in some unexpected places this week.

First, I met a friend at Lil' Chef in Brighton, an institution that was closed in for a while and reopened in a new location. Healthy is not the first thing you think of this local hangout that, when I was the kid, was the only place open after going to a 9 or 10 p.m. movie on the weekends. Regardless, there are some good choices.

If you're in a mood for breakfast, the cooking will make pretty much any egg dish possible with the low-fat egg substitute (basically, egg whites, coloring and a stablizer). If you ask for your eggs with no salt, the staff there also will oblige. Special orders do not upset them. I have gotten a very healthy breakfast there once or twice. You just have to order it the way you want it.

I wasn't in the mood for breakfast, so I asked about the salad. Amazingly enough, when I asked, I learned there were three or four fat-free dressings from which I could choose. There were six salads (not counting your typical side salad) listed. I chose the Michigan Salad, which, strangely enough, didn't have dried cherries in it. I asked for it without the cheese (and should have asked for it without croutons, but I didn't think of it). What I got was salad mix, cherry tomatoes, turkey and evenly-spread real bacon bits with pretty good fat-free honey mustard on the side.

The second place was Starbucks in Milford. I was looking for something decaffeinated without sugar. I hit upon the Tazo Passion iced tea (Starbucks' only caffeine-free iced tea). If you drink it completely unsweetened, your mouth puckers up a bit, so I had my Venti ice tea sweetened with two Splendas. (Next time, hopefully I'll have the stevia packets in my purse.)

Product Review: Van's Waffles

I wanted waffles one day. I didn't want to make them and I wanted something healthier than Eggos.

So, as I walked through the frozen section, I saw Van's waffles. I have one word of caution: do not thaw them before toasting (either in a toaster or a toaster oven). The result is not pretty and led to a thorough cleaning of the toaster, something I do as infrequently as possible without causing burnt toast.

So far, I have tried two kinds of Van’s waffles: Wheat/Gluten Free Totally Natural waffles and Organic Flax waffles. (These links include nutritional information.) Both are excellent spread with peanut butter and topped with a little maple syrup. I generally limit myself to one waffle. The peanut butter helps to ensure I'm not hungry for a while. I shouldn't even mention how good they are with Turtle Mountain's Purely Decadent Soy Delicious non-dairy frozen dessert in Cherry Nirvana. It's your call whether or not to try it.

Where to Find Organic and Natural Foods Coupons

After addressing the "Dirty Dozen," or foods you should buy organic, I decided to give some explanation as to how you can buy organic food without blowing your food budget.

In my own experience, I've found some good deals on organic fruits and vegetables at both Meijer and Kroger, including romaine hearts, grapes, strawberries, grape tomatoes and bananas. Just take a glance around your produce section.

I'd like to direct your attention to a few resources:

Staying Lean in Oakland County had a blog post on this very topic yesterday which I could not have researched or written better myself.

Shannon at For the Mommas has a good post about Buying Organic on a Budget (published about a year ago). It's full of great suggestions, such as checking out your local farmer's market and gives links to several companies that feature organic food and have coupons. I didn't check all of the links, but tested the first two, which worked. 

Also, in 2008, the Grocery Coupon Guide did an exhaustive article about where to find organic and natural food coupons, that, although it's more than a couple of years old, is still a good general resource.

Many of the foods you buy, such as Pacific Natural Foods, or So Delicious Coconut Milk products by Turtle Mountain, have signups for their coupons. In the case of So Delicious, I was unable to sign up (probably due to my lovely dialup), so I sent the company an e-mail explaining I wanted coupons. They asked for my address, and I got them in the mail within a couple of weeks.

Product Review: FIT KIDS Instant Oatmeal Cinnamon Toast & Chocolate Chip

Great-tasting, organic food. Do you hear that combination mentioned often?

I don't, but it precisely describes my favorite organic oatmeal: FIT KIDS Instant Oatmeal, made by Country Choice Organic. Being made for kids, it has to taste good.

I've tried Chocolate Chip and Cinnamon Toast, which come in a combined pack. The chocolate chip tastes like a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie fresh from the oven; the cinnamon toast smells just like Gram LaBerge's cinnamon rolls. (Cinnabon can't even come close to those, by the way. Sadly, she didn't measure precisely, so I have yet to replicate them.)

Below are nutrition facts for Chocolate Chip; as you can see, the vital statistics aren't too bad, although the carbs are a bit higher than regular sweetened oatmeal, such as Quaker Oats. On the up side, it doesn't have artificial sweeteners or ingredients.

Serving Size 1 packet (37.0 g)
Amount Per Serving
Calories 150
Calories from Fat 23
Total Fat 2.5g
Saturated Fat 1.0g
Sodium 100mg
Total Carbohydrates 28.0g
Dietary Fiber 3.0
Sugars 13.0g
Protein 4.0g

Magazine Review: Clean Eating

Clean Eating is a fantastic magazine; it's full of tips about how to eat healthier foods. In fact, it's the first place where first I read about the list of fruits and veggies you should eat as organic produce. Of course, it was the top 10 instead of the Dirty Dozen I addressed in a prior post, but it's the same concept.

The general concept involves eating more whole (unprocessed) foods, such as fruits and veggies and whole grains. "Acceptable" sweeteners include agave nectar, honey, stevia and evaporated cane juice rather than processed sugar. See sample Clean Eating menu (and actual recipes for a week) on the website.

For those who like shopping lists, everything you need to feed a single person from these menus  is available (I assume that the four serving menu items could, theoretically, be frozen if you don't use all the leftovers). You can also print a clean copy from the website rather than tear it out of the magazine or photocopy it.

The recipes included in the two-week plan have nutritional information and there is a daily nutritional calculation. If you wish to deviate from the daily choices, you'll have to look up on the labels of what you're eating for the individual meals.

Tosca Reno (who is credited for the popularity of the eating clean movement) has written a couple of books that explain the concept in greater detail. One of them is The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean.

Healthier Macaroni Salad

Healthy macaroni salad sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Let's go with the word healthier, shall we?

1/2 package of whole wheat macaroni (your favorite kind), cooked, drained and cooled
1 Roma tomato
1/2 large red pepper
1/3 English cucumber (peel if desired)
1/2 small, sweet white onion
Miracle Whip Light
freshly ground pepper (1/2 tsp. or to taste)
celery seed (1/2 tsp or to taste)
2/3 can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained (optional)
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and finely chopped (optional)

Boil water; throw in macaroni and cook according to package directions; rinse in cold water until no longer hot while in strainer.

While waiting for the pasta to cook and cool: Wash vegetables thoroughly; peel cucumber if you prefer. Chop all vegetables somewhat finely (not teensy-tiny, but you don't want big chunks), taking out the seeds of the pepper and tomato. (The English cucumber shouldn't have any to speak of, and they're edible, anyway.) Mix all vegetables (including optional ingredients, if desired) as well as the pepper and celery seed in a large mixing bowl with enough Miracle Whip to lightly cover the pasta and

This will serve approximately 8 people as a side dish, four if using a main dish with chickpeas and/or eggs.

Healthy Eating on a Road Trip?

My attempts at healthy eating are not always perfect. Despite some good planning, my friends and I still ate a lot of junk when we were in Louisville this weekend.

Besides being in the car for about eight hours on Friday and Sunday, we were at the Kentucky Exposition Center (which is also the site of the state fairgrounds) for about 10 hours all told on Saturday; that day, healthy eating fell by the wayside, primarily because we didn't feel like hiking the length of the fairgrounds to go to the cooler in our car. I can find healthier food at the Tigers' Comerica Park! Someone could make a killing selling salad along with the pizza sold at the exposition center (that was a hint, by the way).

I did have trail mix in my purse, but it wasn't enough to stave off hunger for hours on end combined with sleeping under four hours that night, even with a decent 1/2 sandwich and salad dinner on Saturday night. We also hung out afterwards, having pizza at 1 a.m. Sunday as well as lunch at Buckhead Mountain Grill in Jeffersonville (just across the river from downtown Louisville) at 2:30 p.m. that day (where we also ate dinner Saturday night). There are some healthy things on the menu, and my entrees were not only excellent, but fairly good for me. Unfortunately, their rolls and cinnamon butter are also wonderful. Stopping at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday at a McDonald's in Ohio didn't help, either.

On the up side, I did stay away from the ice cream and the cotton candy that were everywhere the eye could see at the convention center. The healthiest things there were smoothies and pizza.

If I had to do it over again, I would have tried to get more sleep so I wasn't starving and walked to get the salad, fruit and hard-boiled eggs out of the cooler Friday night and Saturday afternoon. I'd also have skipped the pizza. I'll need to eat very healthy food the rest of the week and do a little exercise to make up for it!