March is National Nutrition Month®  according to the folks at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the “world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals”. With the excesses of the winter holidays behind us, and warmer weather quickly approaching, March is a great time for us to pause and reflect on the type of fuel we’re putting in our bodies.

While it can be tempting to paint in broad strokes about what food is “healthy” versus “unhealthy”, the truth is more nuanced. A good diet for one person looks different from that of another, with factors like activity level, budget, and dietary restrictions playing large roles.  Here’s registered dietitian Jim White to tell you more:

Eat Right for Your Lifestyle

There are all sorts of resources out there to help guide your food choices. Start by determining your caloric needs using the USDA’s MyPlate Plan. If you have specific health and fitness goals, you may have heard it’s helpful to calculate your ideal macronutrient targets (carbs, proteins, and fats) as well. Apps like MyPlate and MyFitnessPal let you set and track those macronutrients each day, and you can find other macronutrient calculators online, too (like this one from Bodybuilding.com). That said, we always encourage readers to schedule a meeting with a registered dietician if they want to drill down into the specifics. Find an RD near you on this page.

Once you know your nutritional targets, you have some flexibility in choosing how to hit them. Tracking your food intake with an app or notebook can be helpful in this regard. Some people will have to change very little, while others may need to learn some new recipes, adjust portion sizes, or rethink their snack choices. The Academy provides tips on these topics, and many others, including how to eat right on a budget and how to get more for your dollar by reducing food waste.

Eat Right on a Budget

Whatever your health and fitness goals are this year, take some time this month to reflect on the role that your diet plays in those goals. Ultimately, you get to choose what you put in your body, and having some guidance can make a big difference. More resources are available on the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics website.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to replace medical advice or professional guidance. To ensure that you’re choosing food that’s right for you, we encourage you to consult your doctor and a registered dietitian.

Excited for Thanksgiving and the holidays, but hoping to avoid the dreaded holiday weight gain? We’re with ya! The good news is that if you heart is set on enjoying traditional Thanksgiving dishes, you can still enjoy your favorite flavors while cutting back on calories, fat, and sugar.

We took a look around for some lightened-up spins on our favorite Thanksgiving dishes. As always, we tried to find whole food recipes that are comparatively low in calories and fat. We know there is more to consider with a dish than calories and fat content, but we include those numbers below for comparison. (Where nutrition content wasn’t included in a recipe, we turned to MyFitnessPal’s recipe importer to get a nutritional estimate.) Here’s what we’ve found:

Mashed potatoes: Who doesn’t love those mashed potatoes? The catch is that, especially if made with cream, they can run anywhere from 200-400 calories per serving! (This classic Food Network recipe has about 291 calories per cup, and 8 grams of fat.)

In addition to using lower-fat ingredients, you can make a healthier dish by mixing other veggies in with your taters. You can also cut white potatoes entirely and still enjoy the textures and flavors you love. Check out some of these recipes for ideas:

• Skinny Taste’s Skinny Garlic Mashed Potatoes  and Skinny Garlic Sweet Potato Mash have 151-165 calories per serving and around 3 grams of fat.
• Eating Well’s Mashed Cauliflower recipe gets great reviews and has 107 calories per serving with 7 grams of fat.
• Not ready to go full mashed cauliflower? Dip your toe in the water with this Rosemary Potato and Cauliflower Mash recipe from Bowl of Delicious, which has 154 calories and 3.7 grams of fat per serving.
• Try swapping potatoes for turnips! Spruce recommends this Easy Delicious Mashed Turnips recipe as a complement to any hearty roasted meat dish, and has just 76 calories and 5g fat per serving.
• Mix the two with Martha Stewart’s Turnip and Potato Mash, which has 120 calories and 3 grams of fat per serving.

Green Bean Casserole: Green bean casserole is a sleeper when it comes to unhealthy holiday dishes. We plugged a popular recipe in MyFitnessPal and saw it clocks in at almost 300 calories and over 13 grams of fat! While most dishes may not be quite that loaded, many clock in at over 200 calories per serving.

Sauteeing green beans with almonds or balsamic can provide a beautiful dish with a flavor profile your party will love, or you can find lightened up versions of traditional casseroles that use low-fat yogurt, sour cream, or almond milk. Here are a few ideas:

• The American Heart Association’s light Green Bean Casserole has 77 calories and 2 grams of fat per serving.
• Paula Deen shares a Honey Balsamic Green Beans recipe that has great reviews, and comes with just 83 calories and 4 grams of fat per serving.
• Emily Bites’s Garlic Roasted Green Beans with Almonds will bring amazing flavors to your table with just 80 calories and 5 grams of fat per serving.
• The Kitchn’s Stove Top Steam-Fried Green Beans with Mushrooms provides the classic casserole flavors with just 108 calories and 4.5 grams of fat per serving.

Sweet Potato Casserole: With its layers of ‘mallows and brown sugar, sweet potato casserole is more like desert than a side dish. A typical version can pack around 215 calories, 9 grams of fat, and over 20 grams of sugar. The good news is you can leverage the natural sweetness in sweet potatoes to create healthier dishes with similar flavors.

• Ellie Krieger of the Food Network provides a lighter recipe that has 160 calories and 4 grams of fat per serving.
• Try Hasselback Sweet Potatoes for amazing flavor and fun presentation. Food Network’s recipe has just 150 calories and 4 grams of fat per serving.
• Health.com’s Roasted Maple Butter Sweet Potato recipe will bring sweetness to your table with just 155 calories and 3 grams of fat per serving.
• Try this Honey Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potato side dish from Buns in My Oven for classic flavors with less than 100 calories and 7 grams of fat per serving.

Stuffing: Heavy on carbs and fat, traditional stuffing is another Thanksgiving dish that isn’t easy on your body. This classic recipe clocks in at 445 calories and 31 grams of fat per serving. Nix the sausage, and add nuts, vegetables, and whole grains to make this dish healthier! Here are a few ideas:

• They Mayo Clinic’s Wild Rice or Quinoa stuffing has just 91 calories and 3 grams of fat.
• Martha Stewart’s Healthy Harvest Stuffing has 258 calories and 9 grams of fat per serving, and comes with 6 grams of fiber.
• Want a paleo stuffing recipe? Try this one from 40 Aprons for a dairy- and grain-free version that clocks in at 269 calories per serving.
• This Easy Gluten Free Stuffing recipe from Food Faith Fitness is a great choice if cooking for gluten-sensitive guests, and only has 188  calories and 9 grams of fat per serving.

Dessert: You can satisfy your sweet tooth without destroying your day! There are lots of recipes for lightened-up holiday treats. Also consider making smaller-portioned desserts, like these Mini Apple Crumble cups! They’ll bring charm to your table, and make it easier for you and other health-conscious diners enjoy a sweet treat without going overboard.

• Skinny Taste’s Skinny Pumpkin Pie has just 137 calories and 5 grams of fat per slice.
• Try these Paleo Pumpkin Pie Bites from Recipe Runner for just 107 calories and 7 grams of fat per serving.
• Love apple pie? Amy’s Healthy Baking’s Ultimate Healthy Apple Pie has just 129 calories and 4.4 grams of fat per serving.
• Bakerita’s Gluten Free Pecan Pie Bars will satisfy your pecan pie craving in a healthier way, with just 144 calories per serving and 6 grams of fat per serving.

Remember, even swapping out a few dishes for lighter or more nutritious fare can make a difference when it comes to holiday weight gain and your overall health. So try lightened up, whole-food versions of your favorite recipes to make this the year your holidays get off to a healthy start!

We’re nearing the time of year when summer’s fruits and veggies are at their most plentiful. In celebration this month, we’re encouraging you to eat your colors! Yes, you read that right. As it turns out, there’s more to the color of your food than you may have thought.

Antioxidants and Free Radicals

As you probably know, plants contain antioxidants – chemical substances that help reduce the damage caused to our cells by toxins and the natural aging process. Antioxidants stop the harmful chain reaction caused when free radicals (or damaged cells) bounce around from one cell to the next in our body, damaging other cells and creating more free radicals in their wake. Antioxidants are a huge part of why eating fruits and vegetables is so important; without them, your body would struggle to ward off disease and replenish its healthy cells.

Antioxidants come in the form of:

Vitamins – Biological compounds not produced by the body that are essential for normal growth and body function.

Enzymes –  Large molecules that kick start  the chemical processes in the body (like digestion) that sustain life. Most are produced by your body, but require the trace elements and minerals you get from your diet to function.

Phytochemicals  (or phytonutrients) – Plant compounds that provide plants with their color, flavor and smell, and that also protect plants for UV damage, pests and disease. Phytonutrients have the capability to protect humans from disease, as, like vitamins, phytonutrients can stop free-radical chain reactions.

There are thousands of phytonutrients; lycopene, lutein, and resveratrol are a few that you may have heard of. While phytonutrients are not necessarily essential to the body’s survival, most experts agree that consuming foods high in phytonutrients can reduce chances of chronic disease and premature aging.

The Colors of the Rainbow

Interestingly, fruits and veggies of the same color often contain varying amounts of the same phytonutrients, even though they may be quite different in appearance, taste and texture.

For example:

• Tomatoes , raspberries, grapefruit and other red plants contain lycopene, a phytonutrient that, among other things, appears to help in preventing bone loss and tumor growth.
• From squash to pineapple to carrots, orange and yellow plants contain lutein and other carotenoids that prevent conditions like glaucoma or cataracts.
• Blues, purples and deep reds (like blueberries, plums, and eggplants) contain resveratrol, which is famous for promoting heart health and potentially slowing the aging process.
• Greens, like broccoli and kale, contain sulphur compounds known as glucosinolates, which have powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-bacterial effects.

These are just a few tiny examples! There are thousands of phytonutrients in fruits and veggies, and each can have a variety of positive impacts on our bodies. But, ultimately, a food’s color can be an indicator for the types of health benefits you can reap from eating it. So, if you want to expose your body to a variety of health-boosting, anti-aging compounds, be sure to opt for variety when it comes to the color of your produce!

For very cool visual breakdowns of the different phytonutrients in different fruit and vegetable color groups, check out this infographic from Precision Nutrition or this phytonutrient poster from the Missouri Department of Health.

We’re just scratching the surface when it comes to plant color and phytonutrients! If you’re interested in learning more, check out these links:

The Special Nutritional Power Found in Fruits and Vegetables – World’s Healthiest Foods

Phytonutrient FAQs – Produce for Better Health Foundation

Nutrition: Fruit & Vegetable Colors – Livestrong

Disclaimer: As always, this article is not intended to replace medical advice. To best understand their nutritional needs, we encourage readers to consult with health professionals.