Diet Tips and the Fruit Season to Have You Look Sizzling at the Beach
Summer is here and the sun is sizzling and if you still want to sizzle at the beach there is still some time left to accomplish this goal or least work your way toward it for the future. One way I feel you can start your way toward this goal is by adding lots of fruit and vegetables to your diet.starting this summer. In this article, I will show how you can accomplish this now and for future seasons and show you how easy, fun and creative you can be with fruit all year long.
First, read carefully all food labels on all food purchases especially canned fruit. Heavy fruit syrup adds unwanted sugar and take away natural fruit taste. Look for canned fruit packed in natural juice. Also, watch out for sugar added to applesauce. Buy plain yogurt and add your own fruit for less calories. Also, be aware real juice has no sugar. Juice drinks are not juice.
Second, try to plan your meals and take quick fast food as your snacks. Eat yogurt, with added cut fruit, cut vegetables with reduced calorie ranch as a dipping sauce, carrots with hummus or pita, try fruits mixed nuts and raisins or apples with peanut butter, or reduced calorie crackers with apple butter or pumpkin butter. These butters are just fruit spreads made with added water and not the added sugar like jelly has. If you plan your meals and snacks in advance you are likely to have less impulse snacks that are high in calories like candy. For your lunch add some nuts, raisins or apples to your tuna or chicken salad, celery to your egg-salad, eat cream cheese with celery sticks and raisins and have some soup with avocado in it or how about eating some apple with cheese with and a nice fruity wine to drink. Remember a salad is great with added fruits or nuts like sunflowers or great with a steak. Add some fruity dressing like a strawberry dressing to top the salad off nicely. Also remember iceberg is the not the only option available for lettuce and there are many types of tomatoes also that each add a unique taste to a salad. Even for coleslaw you don’t have to use cababge but you can use broccoli stems instead. In the summer, where you want to eat lighter meals, try some new salads with some pineapple or exotic fruits like mango and papaya or guava with grilled chicken.
Third, if you hate to eat fruit and vegetable standing alone there is a solution. Buy a blender and whip up smoothies drinks. These are refreshing and good cold drinks to drink in the summer.Plus,these are also great drinks for use at a summer party. Be creative with your fruit smoothie combinations. Also, you combine leftover fruit from smoothie drinks and grill them with meat on the barbecue. Remember if you are sizzling at the beach or backyard put some steak and fruit kebabs or vegetables on the grill while you are sunbathing. Grilled mango and papaya are great at the barbecue as long as you don’t cook them too long. For a unique grilled vegetable try some avocado grilled for your hamburgers topping besides the standard favorites. .
Fourth, for some low-calorie desserts with fruits try the following: for cakes recipes grate apples, and use prune or apple butter as a fat-reduction in place of oil, make a yogurt or pound cake parfait with fruit in glass, how about some strawberry shortcakes. add some banana to chocolate pudding, or how about making frozen 100% fruit juice pops right from your freezer with an ice pop molder or apples dipped with honey or chocolate hazelnut spread.
Fifth, try to eat some vegetarian meals at least once a week. or more. For example, make a zucchini pie, eat some rice and beans with plantains, have a salad as a main meal, pasta primavera or a pasta made without meat sauce but veggie crumble instead.
Sixth, remember try to stop making meat the center of your plate and make interesting creative sides using fruits instead. Add some raisins or dried fruit to rice, add cut apples(in the winter there many great varieties available) to your rice, or mango salsa to top off your fish, or mash your potatoes, minus the cream, by using reduced sodium vegetable broth.
Seventh to stretch meatloaf add some grated carrots, apples or zucchini to your meatloaf. This will give it a new taste and add some important vegetables to your meal. How about you saut�© your chicken with apples mushrooms (how about new exotic mushrooms) and then add wine. Fresh grown basil, with cheese and tomatoes make a refreshing light summer meal.
Eighth, any soup can be made with fewer calories by using a potato in place of high calorie heavy cream. Also, add less meat to soup and more vegetables to hearty winter soups. Try some new winter vegetables like pumpkin soup with apples for a nice change of pace from the traditional vegetable soup. Make a refreshing summer soup called gazpacho that uses lots of summer vegetables or make a strawberry or other fruit soup. Look up some great lighter summer fruit soups or winter vegetable soup recipes on the Internet.
Finally, most fruits and vegetable have websites. Just do a quick search on any fruit’s name on the Internet and you will be surprised on all the hits you get. When you do specific fruit searches you can find the history of the fruit, peak season for the fruit, links to fruit festivals and links to recipes on the many various fruit websites. Did you know there is a blueberry festival every June? If you love wine there even a festival just on wine in September just in time for the fall harvest. There are even some farm tours where you can go with your friends to see how fruit is produced and then you pick your fruit right from the farm. This is great for people who live in city and don’t have the space for a garden. Educate yourself on the process of where your fruit comes from and you may become more interested in eating more sweet fresh picked fruit from the farm in the future.
Remember there are many great fruits options available all year round. The summer vegetable selection is just the beginning of the great bounty of fruits available every season. Once you start your fruit eating in your diet, this summer, it will easily become a part of your diet for all other seasons. Get in shape this summer by starting to eat fruit and all your fruit eating will be a piece of cake for any upcoming season. Your body will thank you a bunch.
