How to Establish Healthy Dinners in Any Home

How to Establish Healthy Dinners in Any Home

Ever since I have been married and in charge of the meal-planning in my home, I have been concerned about the food I prepare. Just like all of you, I want the best for my family, so I have been on a quest to make Healthy Dinners. In conjunction, I try to collect healthy breakfast ideas, healthy lunch ideas, and ideas for healthy snacks for kids.

There's no mistake in cooking healthy food if you hand-pick your recipes every day, but I don't think that is very realistic. Most of us have kids or jobs and lots and lots of other things on our mind. I have incorporated different habits in my shopping and meal preparation that have helped me ensure that my family is filling their Five-A-Day quota from the healthy food pyramid.

Here are a few rules that keep us on track:

• Keep fruit on hand that has a long shelf life, like apples and oranges. I just make sure I have 5 to 10 of these at all times, then I can guarantee that there is a healthy choice available when one of us is hungry at off-times.
• Buy high fiber, whole wheat bread. We always refrigerate our bread. It lasts much longer than if it sits on the counter. Also, bread freezes pretty well, but I try not to have it in there longer than three months, to prevent freezer burn.
• I shop about once a week, so I can stock up on veggies to eat with dinner. When I walk through the produce section, I base my meals on what's on sale. For example, if broccoli is an amazing price, I will plan to make broccoli and potato soup, or maybe chicken and broccoli. If I don't feel like making a meal out of it, I'll get it anyway because I know I can nuke it to make a very easy side dish vegetable to serve with ANY dinner that week.
• Keep fresh fruits and veggies to eat with meals, as mentioned above. Some that our family likes are: grapes, cut up peaches, cantaloupe, fresh spinach with dip, sliced cucumbers, bananas, bell peppers with dip, etc.
• When frozen veggies are on sale, buy a bunch. Here's what our family usually keeps on hand in our freezer: corn, peas, mixed veggies, brussel sprouts, lima beans, soy beans, broccoli/cauliflower mix.
• Buy cuts of meat that are easy and healthy. I only buy these on sale, then I stock up: boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pork loin, extra lean ground beef, turkey breast, round or loin beef, lean beef roast or pork roast.
• Here are some of the fridge items we keep on hand that I can always use for a meal. We try to avoid buying one-use items for one recipe: yogurt, tortillas, light Miracle Whip, olive oil mayo, ketchup, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salsa, cheddar cheese, low-fat margarine.
• Finally here are some of the pantry items we keep on hand, that I know are healthy and I make meals with: white rice, brown rice, oatmeal, boxes of whole grain cereal, dried beans of all kinds, popcorn, peanut butter, olive oil, wheat pasta.

So I hope this will help you learn some tricks to "throw together" some healthy dinners for your own family! If you would like to follow my website, I am blogging about some of the meals I actually make with these ingredients. My site is listed below. I hope the info above, however, will set you on the right track to keeping your family fit and healthy!

Posted by heriyansyahp

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