Bake - and spread - good fats If you've been eating margarine or spreads made with hydrogenated vegetable oil, the new about trans fats may find you rethinking your preferred spread. Don't throw in the towel and return to butter. Instead opt for products made with olive oil. These have heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and may come with added omega-3s.
Check your favourites online Many food chains - from fast-food places to coffee shops -
list the trans fat content of their menu items on their websites. If you've got a favourite check it out.
Drink coffee, not fat Love special coffee drinks? Order a latter or cappuccino with skimmed milk, then sprinkle cinnamon, cocoa powder and vanilla over the foam. You'll get a serving of bone-building, calcium-rich milk and avoid saturated fat: a mocha drink, for example, can pack nearly 500 calories and 16g of fat, much of it saturated.
Replace butter in recipes and sauteing with good-for-you oils Use olive oil for baking - a good rule of thumb is 3/4 tablespoon of oil for every 1 tablespoon of butter called for. Keep an oil mister loaded with olive oil near the hob and spray pans before cooking - you'll get flavour but keep the calories down.
Have a fancy fruit salad deluxe instead of premium ice cream Fancy ice creams can contains as much fat as a fast-food double cheeseburger. Switching to an all-fruit sorbel is a better choice but will still flood your body with loads of extra sugar in most cases. The best choice: indulge in an over-the-top fruit salad. Layer frozen raspberries, sliced mango, super-sweet fresh pineapple (buy it precut in the fresh produce department), mandarin oranges packed in juice and whatever else you love. It's colourful, sweet and fun to eat - and gives you a bonus of age-defying antioxidants and fibre.
SUGARS
We all know that eating too much sugar can pile on the pounds (especially because many sweet foods are also high in fat), but did you know it can also raise your blood sugar, increasing your risk of
Processed-food
manufacturers - not Mother
Nature - encourage us to crave sweetness
diabetes heart disease and stroke? According to a review in the British Medical Journal , 'sugar is a dangerous as tobacco' - and fat more important in terms of world health because the burden in life-long, whereas tobacco-related diseases tend to strike in middle age or later. 'Sugar should be classified as a hard drug, for it is addictive and harmful.'
How can we be addicted to sugar? The more we eat, the more we want. Why? A big shot of refined sugar makes blood sugar skyrocket, then plummet as the hormone insulin ushers the sugar into cells throughout the body. Sometimes it can fall to a lower level than before you drank that giant cola or ate those 35 jelly babies. As a result, you feel tired, hungry and cranky - and crave more sugar habit and get off the roller coaster.
Replace soft drinks with healthier slips As we've discussed, one of the best things you can do for your health is to replace fizzy drinks, sweetened teas, fruit drinks and other sweetened beverages gradually with water, unsweetened tea or diluted fruit juice. To start, try pouring some grape or orange juice into carbonated water for a low-sugar spritzer. Or add a squeeze of lemon or lime juice to filtered water. Visit the herbal tea section of your supermarket and bring home new flavours to drink hot or cold. Treat yourself to one glass of real fruit juice - without added sugar or sweeteners - each day, and venture beyond just orange. Yes, real juice has calories (between 100 and 140 per 0.21 glass), but it counts towards your daily fruit servings and the full-bodied flavour and natural sweetness is intensely pleasurable.
Buy 100 percent fruit juce Many ordinary fruit drinks are heavily laden with sugar - some fruit squashes are basically sugar water with a bit of added fruit concentrate. So don't assume the juice you buy is all juice. Read the label; if the ingredients include sugar, put it back and look for one that's 100 percent pure fruit juice.
Look at other labels as well It's worth checking almost all packaged food you buy, be it biscuits, salad dressing or pasta sauce. If sugar is listed among the first five ingredients, it's probably sweeter than you need.
Have fruit for dessert six days a week, then indulge on the seventh Sometimes the best way to give something up is to have a little once in a while. You might not fall off the wagon when you pass the bakery on Wednesday if you know you can have two homemade chocolate biscuits on Saturday night.
Rediscover the tang of plain yoghurt Mixed with fresh fruit and topped with a dusting of nuts, plain yoghurt has half the sugar of sweetened vanilla yoghurt and 60 fewer calories.
Sensible
Supplements
You've got car insurance, home insurance, life insurance and perhaps even pet insurance. Isn't it time for affordable, proven and sensible nutrition insurance?
Maybe you think you don't need it. Or you're already taking a load of pricy, super-duper, top-end supplements. Or you have a single dusty bottle of something hidden somewhere in the medicine cabinet. In all these cases, it's time for a sensible new approach. Experts say that after the age of 50, your best 'nutrition insurance' is taking an inexpensive multivitamin plus a calcium and vitamin D supplement every day, with a few fish-oil capsules thrown in if you don't eat fish at least twice a week. These are all most people will ever need to cover any shortfalls. And you don't need high doses, fancy supplements or overpriced pills. Just the basics.
And it's worth saying it again: you don't need high-dose supplements for everyday good health (unless your doctor has a good reason to prescribe one). In recent years, study after study has shown that big doses of vitamins such as A, E and even C don't provide any health advantages - and could be dangerous. In the largest-ever analysis of antioxidants - a look at 68 studies involving 232,606 people conducted by researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark - people who regularly took beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E supplements had a 4 to 16 percent increased risk of death. Some experts have criticised the study's design, but everyone agrees that getting disease-fighting antioxidants from fruit, veg and whole grains is a smarter move.
Even if you're among the 2 percent of us who never, ever indulges in fast food or junk - food, your diet may no longer completely cover all the special vitamin and mineral needs that crop up in your 50s, 60s and beyond.
Convinced? Here's how to buy - and use - your new 'nutrition insurance' policy.
MULTIVITAMIN MAGIC
Our definition of supplement magic? Not crazy, pie-in-the-sky claims or extra ingredients - such as added minerals, herbs or antioxidant extracts. These sound promising but research shows that they probably don't deliver any discernible health benefits. To us, multivitamin magic means finding the right multivitamin magic means finding the right multivitamin at the right price - and not letting the vast array of nutritional supplements crammed on pharmacy shelves confuse you or tempt you to spend extra money for stuff you simply don't need.
Here's how to find, store and take the perfect mutlivitamin.
Spend like a cheapskate A multivitamin that provides sufficient levels of important vitamins and minerals doesn't need to be expensive. You don't need fancy brand names, tablets that can only be obtained from specialist suppliers or exotic extra ingredients. A moderately priced named brand or shop's own make is usually fine.
Trouble swallowing? Ask your pharmacist about alternatives Chewable multivitamins or children's liquid supplements may do the job just as well, though you may need to adjust the dose accordingly.
Look for 100 percent of the Recommended Daily intake (RDI) for the 'big nine' nutrients Look for 100 percent of the Recommended Daily Amount (RDA - the amount a typical, healthy person needs in a day) for thiamin (B1); riboflavin (B2); niacin (B3); vitamins B6, B12, C,D and E; and folic acid. You don't need megadoses - the goal is to get what you'd normally get from food, not to flood your body with extras that will usually just be excreted in your urine (for water-soluble vitamins) or stored in fat tissue (for fat--soluble vitamins). And there is some evidence of harmful effects from taking too many multivitamins, so stick to the recommended dose, usually one tablet daily.
Limit intake of retinol-based vitamin A
More than 5,000 IU a day of vitamin A from retinol may increase the osteoporosis risk. Look for supplements containing no more than 2500 IU of retinol-based vitamin A (it may be listed on the label or in the ingredients as vitamins A acetate or palmitate). Less risky: vitamin A that comes from beta-carotene, which your body converts to A as needed. A big caution: if you smoke, keep levels even of supplemental beta-carotene low since studies suggest high levels may raise lung cancer risk.
Go easy on iron You probably don't need any more than you're getting from a normal diet, and some studies have suggested that high iron intakes may be linked with an increased risk of heart disease. In the UK all flour and many breakfast cereals are already fortified with iron.
Check your favourites online Many food chains - from fast-food places to coffee shops -
Drink coffee, not fat Love special coffee drinks? Order a latter or cappuccino with skimmed milk, then sprinkle cinnamon, cocoa powder and vanilla over the foam. You'll get a serving of bone-building, calcium-rich milk and avoid saturated fat: a mocha drink, for example, can pack nearly 500 calories and 16g of fat, much of it saturated.
Replace butter in recipes and sauteing with good-for-you oils Use olive oil for baking - a good rule of thumb is 3/4 tablespoon of oil for every 1 tablespoon of butter called for. Keep an oil mister loaded with olive oil near the hob and spray pans before cooking - you'll get flavour but keep the calories down.
Have a fancy fruit salad deluxe instead of premium ice cream Fancy ice creams can contains as much fat as a fast-food double cheeseburger. Switching to an all-fruit sorbel is a better choice but will still flood your body with loads of extra sugar in most cases. The best choice: indulge in an over-the-top fruit salad. Layer frozen raspberries, sliced mango, super-sweet fresh pineapple (buy it precut in the fresh produce department), mandarin oranges packed in juice and whatever else you love. It's colourful, sweet and fun to eat - and gives you a bonus of age-defying antioxidants and fibre.
SUGARS
We all know that eating too much sugar can pile on the pounds (especially because many sweet foods are also high in fat), but did you know it can also raise your blood sugar, increasing your risk of
Processed-food
manufacturers - not Mother
Nature - encourage us to crave sweetness
diabetes heart disease and stroke? According to a review in the British Medical Journal , 'sugar is a dangerous as tobacco' - and fat more important in terms of world health because the burden in life-long, whereas tobacco-related diseases tend to strike in middle age or later. 'Sugar should be classified as a hard drug, for it is addictive and harmful.'
How can we be addicted to sugar? The more we eat, the more we want. Why? A big shot of refined sugar makes blood sugar skyrocket, then plummet as the hormone insulin ushers the sugar into cells throughout the body. Sometimes it can fall to a lower level than before you drank that giant cola or ate those 35 jelly babies. As a result, you feel tired, hungry and cranky - and crave more sugar habit and get off the roller coaster.
Replace soft drinks with healthier slips As we've discussed, one of the best things you can do for your health is to replace fizzy drinks, sweetened teas, fruit drinks and other sweetened beverages gradually with water, unsweetened tea or diluted fruit juice. To start, try pouring some grape or orange juice into carbonated water for a low-sugar spritzer. Or add a squeeze of lemon or lime juice to filtered water. Visit the herbal tea section of your supermarket and bring home new flavours to drink hot or cold. Treat yourself to one glass of real fruit juice - without added sugar or sweeteners - each day, and venture beyond just orange. Yes, real juice has calories (between 100 and 140 per 0.21 glass), but it counts towards your daily fruit servings and the full-bodied flavour and natural sweetness is intensely pleasurable.
Buy 100 percent fruit juce Many ordinary fruit drinks are heavily laden with sugar - some fruit squashes are basically sugar water with a bit of added fruit concentrate. So don't assume the juice you buy is all juice. Read the label; if the ingredients include sugar, put it back and look for one that's 100 percent pure fruit juice.
Look at other labels as well It's worth checking almost all packaged food you buy, be it biscuits, salad dressing or pasta sauce. If sugar is listed among the first five ingredients, it's probably sweeter than you need.
Have fruit for dessert six days a week, then indulge on the seventh Sometimes the best way to give something up is to have a little once in a while. You might not fall off the wagon when you pass the bakery on Wednesday if you know you can have two homemade chocolate biscuits on Saturday night.
Rediscover the tang of plain yoghurt Mixed with fresh fruit and topped with a dusting of nuts, plain yoghurt has half the sugar of sweetened vanilla yoghurt and 60 fewer calories.
Sensible
Supplements
You've got car insurance, home insurance, life insurance and perhaps even pet insurance. Isn't it time for affordable, proven and sensible nutrition insurance?
Maybe you think you don't need it. Or you're already taking a load of pricy, super-duper, top-end supplements. Or you have a single dusty bottle of something hidden somewhere in the medicine cabinet. In all these cases, it's time for a sensible new approach. Experts say that after the age of 50, your best 'nutrition insurance' is taking an inexpensive multivitamin plus a calcium and vitamin D supplement every day, with a few fish-oil capsules thrown in if you don't eat fish at least twice a week. These are all most people will ever need to cover any shortfalls. And you don't need high doses, fancy supplements or overpriced pills. Just the basics.
And it's worth saying it again: you don't need high-dose supplements for everyday good health (unless your doctor has a good reason to prescribe one). In recent years, study after study has shown that big doses of vitamins such as A, E and even C don't provide any health advantages - and could be dangerous. In the largest-ever analysis of antioxidants - a look at 68 studies involving 232,606 people conducted by researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark - people who regularly took beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E supplements had a 4 to 16 percent increased risk of death. Some experts have criticised the study's design, but everyone agrees that getting disease-fighting antioxidants from fruit, veg and whole grains is a smarter move.
Even if you're among the 2 percent of us who never, ever indulges in fast food or junk - food, your diet may no longer completely cover all the special vitamin and mineral needs that crop up in your 50s, 60s and beyond.
Convinced? Here's how to buy - and use - your new 'nutrition insurance' policy.
MULTIVITAMIN MAGIC
Our definition of supplement magic? Not crazy, pie-in-the-sky claims or extra ingredients - such as added minerals, herbs or antioxidant extracts. These sound promising but research shows that they probably don't deliver any discernible health benefits. To us, multivitamin magic means finding the right multivitamin magic means finding the right multivitamin at the right price - and not letting the vast array of nutritional supplements crammed on pharmacy shelves confuse you or tempt you to spend extra money for stuff you simply don't need.
Here's how to find, store and take the perfect mutlivitamin.
Spend like a cheapskate A multivitamin that provides sufficient levels of important vitamins and minerals doesn't need to be expensive. You don't need fancy brand names, tablets that can only be obtained from specialist suppliers or exotic extra ingredients. A moderately priced named brand or shop's own make is usually fine.
Trouble swallowing? Ask your pharmacist about alternatives Chewable multivitamins or children's liquid supplements may do the job just as well, though you may need to adjust the dose accordingly.
Look for 100 percent of the Recommended Daily intake (RDI) for the 'big nine' nutrients Look for 100 percent of the Recommended Daily Amount (RDA - the amount a typical, healthy person needs in a day) for thiamin (B1); riboflavin (B2); niacin (B3); vitamins B6, B12, C,D and E; and folic acid. You don't need megadoses - the goal is to get what you'd normally get from food, not to flood your body with extras that will usually just be excreted in your urine (for water-soluble vitamins) or stored in fat tissue (for fat--soluble vitamins). And there is some evidence of harmful effects from taking too many multivitamins, so stick to the recommended dose, usually one tablet daily.
Limit intake of retinol-based vitamin A
More than 5,000 IU a day of vitamin A from retinol may increase the osteoporosis risk. Look for supplements containing no more than 2500 IU of retinol-based vitamin A (it may be listed on the label or in the ingredients as vitamins A acetate or palmitate). Less risky: vitamin A that comes from beta-carotene, which your body converts to A as needed. A big caution: if you smoke, keep levels even of supplemental beta-carotene low since studies suggest high levels may raise lung cancer risk.
Go easy on iron You probably don't need any more than you're getting from a normal diet, and some studies have suggested that high iron intakes may be linked with an increased risk of heart disease. In the UK all flour and many breakfast cereals are already fortified with iron.
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