Healthy eating can sometimes take a backseat during the holiday season, only to reappear come Jan. 1. With busy schedules and festive gatherings, it can be challenging to carry healthy habits through the winter months. Fortunately, even seemingly small decisions can make a big difference. Use one or more of the following tips from Health Canada to keep your diet balanced and healthy during the holiday season, while still enjoying your favourite foods:
1. Enjoy your "must-have" treats. It can be easy to overindulge, with treats at every turn; be choosy about what you eat. Are you really going to enjoy that leftover, hard-as-a-rock Halloween candy? Or would you rather eat a Nanaimo bar after supper? Make trade-offs with your indulgent choices throughout the holidays, to help ensure you're following a balanced diet without feeling deprived.
2. Eat regularly. Skipping meals can lead to overeating later on, since many people tend to overcompensate for missed meals. Eat small meals and snacks every three to four hours to keep your energy levels up and your hunger under control.
3. Load-up on colour. Fill half your plate with vegetables. Not only will you be increasing your intake of valuable nutrients by including more dark green and orange vegetables, but the extra fibre from all those veggies will help keep you fuller for longer and prevent overeating calorie-rich foods.
4. Use smaller plates. Use smaller dessert plates, instead of dinner plates for meals. You can still enjoy your favourite foods around the holidays by keeping your portions in check. Half your plate should be vegetables, a quarter starch and a quarter protein.
5. Watch your drinks. Whether alcoholic or not, calories from drinks add up quickly. Drink slowly and choose low sugar, low calorie, alcohol-free choices more often. If you do choose to drink alcohol, alternate with non-alcoholic, low calorie options such as sparkling water, low-sodium vegetable juice or cranberry juice with club soda. Keep in mind that egg nog is a calorie-rich drink; try watering it down with low-fat milk or treat it as a dessert in itself.
6. Try a new vegetable side dish. Create a new tradition by adding a healthy vegetable side dish to your holiday meals. Serve roasted carrots and parsnips, baked acorn or butternut squash with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese, sautéed collard greens or herb-roasted mushrooms instead of a heavy green bean or potato casserole.
7. Makeover your holiday favourites. With a few small substitutions, you can lower the calories, fat and sodium of some of your holiday standbys, without sacrificing flavour:
Use sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes for more fibre and beta-carotene.
Replace the butter or cream in your mashed potatoes with buttermilk.
Make stuffing with whole grain bread, wild rice or quinoa, instead of white bread.
Add carrots, celery, a small amount of dried fruit and nuts instead of sausage to stuffing.
Use lower sodium broth when making gravy.
Try thickening your gravy with cooked, pureed carrots instead of flour.
Skip the cream soups and opt for a lower sodium or no salt added broth-based soup.
Replace half the butter or oil in your quick bread recipe with applesauce, pureed prunes or mashed bananas.
Reduce the sugar in your quick bread recipes by one-third to one-half.
Substitute half the white flour in your recipes with whole wheat flour.
For more healthy holiday recipe ideas go to the Dietitians of Canada recipe website at www.cookspiration.com .
- Kelsey Leckovic is a Registered Dietitian with Northern Health working in chronic disease management.
