Eating A Healthy Dinner: A Simple Matter Of Planning

Dinner is probably the healthiest meal for most of us. We often overlook breakfast and eat lunch on the run, but for dinner, most of us take more time in preparing and planning how to eat a balanced, healthy dinner.

But there抯 also a lot of pressure on dinner. It抯 the last meal of the day and if you are lacking important nutrients in your diet that day, you have an opportunity to make up those nutrients in your evening meal. But you don抰 want your meal too heavy or you might not sleep well. Conversely, eating too little will not only likely leave you lacking in nutrients, but could also leave you ravenous for breakfast 12 hours later.

So how do you make sure dinner is a balanced, nutrient-packed meal? Plan, and plan some more. Although we are more likely to spent time preparing dinner versus other daily meals, it抯 also a meal that can easily get derailed. You plan to grill chicken breasts and vegetables, but then belatedly remember your son has a baseball game or it抯 open house at school. So it抯 chicken nuggets all around.

Planning keeps you in synch with your schedule. If you plan a week抯 worth of meals, you can think about the various obstacles you might find that week in actually bringing your plans to fruition. You can plan a quick pasta salad on open house night, and healthy, veggie-packed sandwiches on baseball night. This keeps you out of the fast food lane.

What are some other tips for planning healthy dinners?

*Don抰 cook separate meals for picky children. If you know that your salmon and saut閑d spinach will also result in you making mini hot dogs and fries for the kids, you might rethink it, not having the time or energy to make two completely separate meals. Then you suffer, and they do as well. It抯 important to expose your children to a variety of foods, so make the salmon and spinach. Be sure to offer applesauce, whole wheat bread and some fruit. Then everyone gets a healthy meal and your children just might surprise you by actually eating some of the 揳dult?meal.

*On weeknights, stay away from involved meals. Think of things that can be prepared in less than 45 minutes, though it抯 ideal to keep your meal prep to 30 minutes whenever possible.

*Do as much prep as you can ahead of time. If you抮e planning grilled chicken and vegetables for dinner, say, then you can clean and slice your vegetables in the morning before you head out for the day. Marinate the chicken. In the evening, all that抯 left is tossing a quick bag salad and grilling your meat and vegetables. This saves on clean-up time as well.

*If you must eat out, apply the golden rules for restaurant eating: Stay away from white or heavy sauces, order oil and vinegar to dress your salad, and eat only half the entr閑, pack the rest and enjoy it for lunch the next day.

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