126. Observe the threequarter plate rule: That’s how much of the food on your dinner plate
should be grains, vegetables, legumes, and fruit, leaving just onequarter for meat, chicken, or
fish. This will help you get a good mix of nutrients, control portion sizes, and cut down on
calories.
127. Snack on dried fruits, but weigh the advantages and disadvantages. Because drying the
fruit reduces water, it greatly concentrates the minerals (iron, copper, and potassium), beta
carotene, and fiber. But it also concentrates the sugar and thus the calories; the sugar, combined
with the sticky texture, makes dried fruit bad for teeth. In addition, the drying destroys most of
the vitamin C and any heatsensitive phytochemicals. About 1% of Americans, primarily
asthmatics, are sensitive to the sulfites that are often added to dried fruits to preserve their color.
128. To improve your blood cholesterol levels, eat oats. The FDA allows oat products to bear
a hearthealthy claim because oats reduce LDL (“bad”) cholesterol without lowering HDL
(“good”) cholesterol. Still, it takes several servings of oats a day to get a significant effect. You
can also get soluble fiber from many other plant foods, including beans, barley, apples, oranges, and carrots.
129. Cottage cheese is salty (about 450 milligrams of sodium in half a cup), but the lowsalt
varieties don’t taste very good. As a compromise, buy lowsalt cottage cheese and add one-
quarter teaspoon of salt to the 16ounce tub. That will cut the standard sodium content by more
than half. Or mix equal amounts of regular and lowsalt cottage cheese.
130. You’d have to eat two cups of cottage cheese to get the calcium in a cup of yogurt or
milk. Cottage cheese retains only 30 to 50% of the calcium of the milk it is made from. A cup
has 100 to 200 milligrams of calcium (and drycurd has only half as much). A cup of milk has
300 milligrams; a cup of yogurt, 300 to 400 milligrams.
131. If you’re trying to cut back on meats, think of a baked potato as a dinner main dish.
Opened and slightly mashed with a fork, a potato can be topped with lima beans, corn, and salsa;
broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, and tomatoes can also be cooked together for a tasty filling. A
small amount of Parmesan or other grated cheese will add flavor.
132. Discard most moldy fruit. Fruit molds are generally not toxic (the most toxic molds tend
to grow on grains). Small fruits, such as grapes or berries, should certainly be thrown out if
moldy. Cutting mold out of an apple, pear, tomato, or cucumber and then eating the fruit is
usually okay. But the visible mold may not be all the mold there is—its rootlike system may
penetrate the fruit—so it’s important to cut widely around the mold.
133. Eat kiwifruit. Ounce for ounce, it has more vitamin C than an orange and more potassium
than a banana. It also supplies some folate, vitamin E, and lutein (a carotenoid that may help
keep eyes healthy). This furry fruit is rich in fiber.
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