Making healthy food choices
This recipe combines two nutritious colorful fall favorites, apples and red cabbage (often available year-round). Who says you can’t add a bit of sweetness to make it more fun? The holidays are all about color and flavor. This combination is super-crunchy, sweet and refreshing. You can even serve it warm, if desired.
Ingredients
2 cups apple juice or cider
2 TB apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp allspice
3 cups red cabbage, shredded
1 cup grated fresh apple (red or pink-hued of your choice)
pinch of salt
In a medium-sized saucepan, bring the juice or cider, vinegar and allspice to a boil. Add other ingredients and simmer for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Nutrition Facts (per 1/4 recipe)
96 calories
<1 g fat
24 grams carbohydrate
1 g protein
3 g dietary fiber
85 mg sodium
While many types of fresh fruits and vegetables are out of season during winter time, there are some very nutritious choices including winter squash, pears, apples, navel oranges, sweet potatoes, sweet bell peppers and grapefruit.
Wondering about winter squash? There are several types: butternut, Hubbard, turban, acorn and banana – and any of these can be used in recipes calling for winter squash. Winter squashes can be a tasty and filling treat, are great in casseroles, pies, soups, or mixed with grains and beans and are actually more nutritious than most summer squashes. One serving (~ ½ squash or 1 cup cubed) packs 6 grams of dietary fiber and is a good source of potassium, vitamin C, folate, magnesium, iron and calcium. Butternut and acorn squashes are members of the yellow-orange family of fruits and vegetables which means that they are abundant in the antioxidant beta-carotene, which is a precursor to vitamin A and may aid in prevention of certain types of cancer and macular degeneration. Try this sample recipe:
Sweet Buttered Squash
1½ pounds yellow squash, sliced thin (peeling optional)
1 small sweet onion, sliced thin and halved
1 medium green bell pepper, sliced in slender strips
1 TB brown sugar
1 – ½-oz packet of butter sprinkles
¼ tsp fresh cracked black pepper
Place onion, green pepper and squash in pan and cover. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. When squash begins to get tender, add brown sugar, butter flakes, and black pepper. Cook until desired tenderness is obtained. Serve immediately. Note: Do not add any salt until you have tasted the squash. Serves 6.
Nutritional facts per serving:
44 calories
< 1 g fat
10 g carbohydrate
3 g dietary fiber
0 mg cholesterol
349 mg sodium
Pumpkin is a delicious and very nutritious fall squash. Sweet and mild, if you don’t want to cut, seed and cook a pumpkin look for unsweetened pumpkin puree, which is full of beta-carotene, a form of vitamin A, and dietary fiber. Adding seasonal, colorful fruits and vegetables to your diet is an easy way to improve diet quality, ensure freshness and better quality. Increasing the variety of a food group encourages you to consume more foods within that group overall. Different types of produce offer unique health benefits. Experimenting keeps you from getting bored. Try these 3 suggestions for using pumpkin puree. It’s not just for pies!
Water is essential to life and many of us don’t drink enough to stay optimally hydrated. You likely already knew that. A lesser known fact is that adequate hydration promotes a healthy environment for the growth of diverse gut microbiome. Because optimal hydration promotes laxation (going to the bathroom), it decreases transit time of waste through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The more quickly waste passes through your GI tract, the better. Drinking water keeps things fluid and lubricated.
Furthermore certain beverages, such as green and black tea, and kefir, a fermented yogurt beverage, directly increase the amount of beneficial bacteria in the gut. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition in 2022 studied the effect of different types and sources of drinking water on gut microbiome. Those that drank more water, particularly well water, had more diverse and numerous healthy bacteria levels. A healthy gut promotes wellness in all areas, including your immune, digestive, and endocrine systems, to name a few.
Have you ever bought fresh beets? Beets are back ‘in-style’ and add much more to your plate than vivid color. If you have not heard about the health benefits of beets, keep reading…not a fan? Well, maybe that’s because you’ve never tried this hearty root vegetable FRESH. Try ’em the grown-up way (uncanned) and get ready to love a food you never thought you’d like. It’s easy to love fresh beets, and not just for their nutritional advantages. While we often think of beets having a reddish-purple hue, some varieties are white, golden-yellow or even rainbow colored. The sweet, buttery taste of beets reflects their high sugar content making them an important raw material for the production of refined sugar. In fact, they have the highest sugar content of all vegetables, yet are very low in calories.
Peak season for beets is June – October (when they are most tender) and are easy to prepare at home. Pass by blemished bulbs with wilted greens and look for healthier bulbs. You’ll find the prettiest beets at your local farmer’s market. By the way, don’t throw out those greens so fast! They are chock full of nutrients such as beta-carotene, vitamin C, iron and calcium. Greens can be sautéed in garlic and olive oil. Beets are rich in folate, potassium, magnesium and dietary fiber and contain powerful nutrient compounds that help protect against heart disease, birth defects and certain cancers, especially colon cancer.
Beets can be peeled, steamed, and eaten warm with butter as a delicacy; cooked, pickled, and eaten cold as a condiment; or peeled, shredded raw, and eaten as a salad. Pickled beets are a traditional food of the American South. It is also common in Australia for pickled beetroot to be consumed on a burger.
An increasingly popular preparation method is roasting beets. To roast beets, trim the greens away from the beets (leave about 1/4″), thoroughly clean beets with a veggie scrubber and place in a baking dish. Add 1/4″ of water to the dish. Cover. Place medium beets (4-6 oz) in the oven and roast for 40-45 minutes (a little less or more time for smaller and larger beets, respectively). They’re done when a knife easily penetrates the beet. Allow to cool in the baking dish. Cut away the ends and slip off the skins. Roasted beets are wonderful on their own or dressed with a vinaigrette, and they’ll keep, refrigerated, for 5 days in a covered bowl.
Approx Nutritional Information: 1 roasted beet: 44 calories; Total fat: < 0.5 g; cholesterol 0 mg; sodium 77 mg; Total carbohydrates 10.0 g; Dietary Fiber 2.0 g; Sugars 8.0 g; Protein 1.7 g.
