How to "Spring-Clean" The Nutrition in Your Kitchen

Megan O'Reilly, AFPA Certified Nutrition & Wellness Consultant, FCS: Option Dietetics B.S.

Spring is here! Time to open the windows and tackle your spring-cleaning. Before you pull out cleaning supplies, consider starting your 'spring-cleaning' in the kitchen.

New Year's is a fine time to make health resolutions, but spring can be an even better time of renewed energy and motivation. Good food choices will lead to better health and lowered disease risks. It's that simple. We all know that our bodies feel better after eating fruits and vegetables, rather than Doritos and Coke.   We feel lighter and happier when we fit comfortably in our clothes, after just a few weeks of making healthier choices. So I urge you to get started cleaning out your kitchen. Let's begin with some easy how-to tips below.

 

Step One: Read the Ingredient List and Toss the Downers:

• Partially hydrogenated fat: Get rid of any food that contains partially hydrogenated fat, as they are the primary dietary source of artificial trans-fat. This artery-clogging ingredient is so bad for your body that the FDA is requiring food manufactures to remove it by June 2018 from ALL foods.
• Sugar check: Ditch foods with a lot of added sugar. The American Heart Association recommends women consume a maximum of 25 added grams a day, and men 36 added grams a day.  If the label lists high fructose corn syrup, corn sugar, corn extract, or anything ending in -ose (such has fructose or sucrose) in the top five ingredients, you might want to toss it. If you must keep it, consider it a dessert or occasional treat rather than an everyday food.
• Refined grains: Throw out most of your refined and fiber-low grains such as white bread, white pasta, white rice, white flour tortillas, etc.  
• Canned soups: Dump the high sodium, high fat, high calorie soups. The American Heart Association believes a soup over 600 milligram of sodium is too high. When over-done, diets high in sodium can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend we consume no more than 3,400 mg of sodium each day.
• Obvious culprits: Toss candy, sweets, potato chips, sugary cereals, fatty meat cuts, and other obvious unhealthy foods.
• Not-so-obvious culprits: Depending on your personal nutrition goals, you may consider ditching all products with fake, processed ingredients like monosodium glutamate (MSG), sulfites, sulfates, carrageenan, food dyes (like red #40), butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), splenda, low-fat ingredients, fat-free ingredients, guar gum, modified food starch, "natural and artificial flavors", soy lecithin, malt extract or yeast.  

Step Two: Restock with Healthier Choices

• Fruits and vegetables: Load up your refrigerator and freezer with pre-cut, fruits and vegetables. Place them next to dips such as hummus and salsa for a quick grab and go snack.
• Smarter condiments and a variety of nuts and seeds. Try fresh salsa or hummus.
• Whole grains:  Choose breads that list either "100% whole wheat flour" or "whole wheat flour" as the FIRST ingredient.  Look for breads with two or more grams of fiber per slice.  Stock up with whole grain pastas, brown rice, quinoa, and whole wheat wraps such as the Ezekiel wraps.  The National Fiber Council recommends 32 grams of fiber for a healthy adult, and the American Heart Association states 25 grams of fiber for the average 2,000 calorie diet.
• Canned or boxed soups: Stock up on soups fewer than 600 mg of sodium.  Check out brands such as Amy's Organic, Pacific Organic in a box, Healthy Choice, and Progresso.
• Cereals and oatmeal:  Use the rule of five when selecting cereal: five grams of fiber or more and five grams of sugar or less. Some good choices:  Uncle Sam Original Whole Wheat & Flaxseed Cereal, Shredded Wheat, Nature's Path Smart Bran Cereal Barbara's Puffins Original, Kashi Cereals - GO LEAN Crunch, Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal, Barbaras Multigrain Squarefuls, steel cut oats.
• Lean protein sources: Stock your cabinets with canned tuna and salmon, or choose BPA-free pouches. Choose chicken breast, fish, and ground lean turkey/beef as your go-to meats. There are also several delicious tasting black bean and other vegetarian burgers in the freezer section that make for a great meal base. When it comes to a healthy high protein Greek yogurt, FitnessMagazine.com recommends Fage Total 0% Cherry Greek Yogurt, Stonyfield Oikos 1.5% Organic Greek Raspberry, and Chobani 0% Blood Orange Greek Yogurt as some of their top choices. Stock up on eggs as well.

Some choices may be harder for you than others. For example, if you feel like the star of Hoarders, stubbornly remaining overly attached to your bag of Cheetos, I want you to relax. Spring-cleaning your 'kitchen nutrition' does not have to be an all or nothing painful task. Even small changes can grow, and motivate you to make larger changes in time. If you can't part with a particular unhealthy food, a small change might be to portion it out in individual serving baggies. Sign up for one of Pearce's upcoming nutrition classes to learn more about how you can choose foods that work for you!