Seven (7) Tips for Healthy Holiday Eating and Celebrating for Seniors and Caregivers
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, kicking off the holiday season! Soon, we’ll be diving into days filled with eating, drinking, and celebrating—temptations at every turn.
If you are in charge of cooking or selecting the items for the meal here are seven (7) tips for making the healthiest meal.
- Purchase fresh items versus canned items to make your dishes. Fresh items when cooked will retain more vitamins and nutrients. Canned items also often have more sodium. Use fresh apples for your apple pie or fresh cranberries for your cranberry sauce.
- Select white meats like turkey vs other meats like ham, pork, and duck. Turkey is leaner than other meats and leaner meats are heart-friendly.
- When baking substitute white flour with wheat flour when possible. I am in charge of baking the holiday dinner rolls annually at my family’s feast. This year I will use wheat flour in my rolls versus white flour. Wheat flour is more kidney and diabetic-friendly.
- Reduce or eliminate the number of starchy, high-carb, pasta dishes or replace regular pasta with wheat pasta. Wheat pasta, like wheat flour, is more kidney and diabetic-friendly.
- Reduce or eliminate the number of starchy, high-carb, white potato dishes (scallop potatoes, mashed potatoes, etc,.) and replace them with other side dishes. A diet with less starch is more kidney and diabetic-friendly.
- Reduce the amount of dishes and desserts made with white granulated sugar. Substitute all or part of the white sugar in a recipe for your choice of a sugar substitute.
- Cut back or even replace alcoholic beverages with non-alcoholic choices and mocktails. Sober celebrations are becoming more popular.
My final suggestion for staying healthy over the holiday season is to keep moving and to continue your regular exercise routine or even increase your regular routine. Run more, walk more, bike more, or go to the gym one additional time.
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