Vegetables and Fruit
• Eat whole fruit more often. Whole fruit may cost more than juice, but you'll get the added benefits of fibre and, in some cases, more vitamins and minerals.
• Use canned fruit in yogurt, smoothies, milk shakes, puddings and fruit salads and on fruit plates. Toss mandarin orange segments and toasted walnuts into green salads. Nutritionally speaking, canned, fresh and frozen produce are all approximately the same.
• Plain frozen vegetables are a good buy because they're quick and easy to prepare, with less waste.
• Cut up your own celery and carrots; it's much more economical than buying precut. As well, precut vegetables are prone to quicker nutrient loss because more of their surface area is exposed to the air.
Milk Products
• Use lower-fat milks (skim and 1%), as they are heart-healthier choices and contain as much calcium as higher-fat milks. Milk is fortified with vitamin D, which plays a role in bone formation and maintenance and helps your body maintain normal blood levels of calcium.
• Choose cheeses that contain 20 per cent or less milk fat (MF), such as lower-fat mozzarella and feta. Generally, lower-fat cheeses cost the same as full-fat cheeses and provide lots of calcium, though they may not melt as nicely and may be less flavourful.
• Use yogurt cheese made from lower-fat plain yogurt – instead of cream cheese or sour cream – in desserts and dips, or flavour it with herbs or garlic and spread it on crackers. A 1/4-cup (50 mL) serving of regular cream cheese has 17 grams of fat and only 39 milligrams of calcium. The same-size serving of sour cream (14 per cent MF) has seven grams of fat and 51.8 milligrams of calcium. But a 1/4-cup (50 mL) serving of 1 or 2% plain yogurt (12 per cent MF) provides only one gram of fat and approximately 107 milligrams of calcium.
Page 2 of 3 - Read page 3 for info on grains, and meat and alternatives!
