A Healthier Frozen Meal!

Many of the clients I meet with for private counseling tell me they rely a lot on frozen meals for their dinners or lunches. I can understand this because they are incredibly convenient and often times very filling. Unfortunately, however, they are not very healthy.

Several months ago I won a giveaway on Missy's blog. The giveaway was for a free package of Macaroni Grill's frozen entrees. I requested the Grilled Chicken Florentine, and I dare you to click on that link and check out the nutrition facts! There is a whopping 1090 mg sodium (half of a day's worth) in one half of the package. Considering that the new Dietary Guidelines recommend no more than 1500 mg sodium/day for most of the population (see the executive summary of the new Dietary Guidelines, here), this meal could be disastrous!

Of course, a little (or a lot..) sodium didn't deter me from finally making this for dinner one night! I followed the directions on the package and added the contents to the pan. Next, I did what I tell my clients to do; "Add more veggies to the meal!". Yep, I poured an entire bag of frozen collard greens into the frozen dinner.


The collard greens added more volume, causing us to eat less calories, fat and sodium from the actual frozen meal. Nick and I were both pleasantly full from just 1/4th of the large bag, each (which means we each consumed 550 mg sodium). And of course this meal became much more nutrient dense with the addition of the collard greens.


The other half of this meal was a great addition to Nick's lunch the next two days. Imagine one frozen dinner making it through four meals!

QUESTION: Do you ever add extra veggies to frozen meals?

I also do this with canned soups or chicken broth. With the canned soups I always add extra veggies for better taste, more volume, and more nutrients. If I just buy broth (low sodium) I will throw in whichever vegetables I have prepared and also some protein, such as grilled chicken.

That's SO MUCH Food!

In order to promote healthy eating and the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, one of my recent major events at work was the New Year, New You event. The event took place each weekend in January and I had a table set up with food models depicting what a well-balanced diet might look like. I used MyPyramid.gov to determine how many servings (approximately) of each food group the average American needs each day, then I displayed the servings on paper plates with these fun food models.

Grains: ~ 5-6 ounces

Vegetables: ~ 3 cups

Fruits: ~2 cups

Milk: ~ 3 cups
(1.5 ounces of cheese counts as one cup. There are 3 ounces of cheese in the picture below.)

Meat and Beans; ~ 5-6 ounces

Oils: ~6-8 tsp
(one packet of Hogsdon Mills travel flaxseed counts as 3 tsp oil)

You wouldn't believe how many people came up to me and said, "Seriously, I have to eat all of this food?!" Yep, this does look like a lot of food! But in truth, many Americans get more calories than this each day, without even realizing it! Can you guess how many calories are depicted in the photos above? It's about 2100 calories, which is a normal amount of food for most Americans. But looking around and seeing that about 70% of American adults are either overweight or obese, indicates to me that many Americans are eating more calories than this each day.

So why does this look like so much food?

• Many people don't consider two important concepts when they eat; volumetrics and nutrient density. Both of these concepts are important when you're trying to either lose weight, or just be healthier overall. The focus is on eating foods with less calories and more nutrients, per unit of volume, or per serving. If you focus on these two concepts you will get full faster (larger volume of food!) while eating less calories and consuming the right amount of nutrients.
  

• To put this into perspective consider that many people are used to getting 500 calories from a very small calorie dense burger or piece of pizza, when they could get 500 calories from a slice of whole grain bread with 1 T nut butter, a cup of yogurt, a piece of fruit, and a string cheese (much greater volume of food, same amount of calories).

• Most Americans don't get even close to the recommended amounts of fruits and veggies, so seeing a plate full of fruits and veggies does look like "a lot of food" because it takes up a lot of space (volume) on the plate, but also provides very few calories and tons of great nutrients.

• Many people see all of the grains in the first picture and think, "I am supposed to eat that much grain?!". Well, in truth most Americans do eat that much, and sometimes more! The problem is that they are eating the wrong kinds (mainly refined grains) and they are often eating it all in one sitting (thus they aren't even realizing how much grain they are eating!). Think about restaurant plates of pasta, which can be up to 6 ounces of grain (1/2 cup pasta=1 ounce grain). That's an entire day's worth in one sitting, which most people don't even consider a problem.

QUESTION: What do you think about the concept of volumetrics? Do you use it in your daily eating routine?

One example I have is when I make eggs for dinner. I like using one egg, then the rest egg whites. This allows me to have more volume of food, for fewer calories, and plenty of protein (and lutein, vitamin D, iron, and choline from the real egg). And of course I also add more volume by adding lots of cooked vegetables! More volume, fewer calories, tons of nutrients and taste.