Get Started on Eating Well

These tips can help you have healthy eating habits:

• Start every day with breakfast. Try oatmeal, a whole-grain cereal like raisin bran with fat-free or low-fat milk, whole-wheat toast spread with jam, or fat-free or low-fat yogurt. Enjoy some fruit with your breakfast too.

• Try kidney or butter beans in hot dishes, on salads, or plain. Protein is important to your health as you age. Beans are loaded with protein and cost less than meat.
   
• Choose fat-free or low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese instead of full-fat dairy products.
   
• Choose whole-grain foods like whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, brown rice, and whole-wheat pasta more often than refined-grain foods, like white bread, white rice, and white pasta. Whole-grain foods offer dietary fiber, which helps keep you regular.

• Do not let sweets like cookies, candy, or soda crowd out healthy foods.

TIP: If you cannot digest lactose (the sugar found in milk) try fat-free or low-fat lactose-reduced milk. Or try fat-free or low-fat yogurt or hard cheeses like cheddar, which may be easier to digest than milk. You can also get calcium from calcium-fortified juices, soy-based beverages, and cereals. Eating dark leafy vegetables like collard greens and kale, and canned fish with soft bones like salmon, can also help you meet your body’™s calcium needs.

Make Healthy Meals That Taste Good

You might like the taste of fried foods and fatty meats, but these foods can put too much saturated fat in your diet if you eat them too often or in large amounts. Saturated fat is not healthy for your heart. There are other ways you can add flavor to your food. Try:

• Baking, roasting, broiling, grilling, or oven-frying chicken or fish - season with herbs, spices, lemon, lime, or vinegar (but not salt).
• Cooking collard greens or kale with onions, garlic, chicken broth, bouillon, smoked turkey, turkey bacon, or turkey ham (use broth, bouillon, and cured meats in small amounts because they are high in sodium).
• Topping baked potatoes with salsa or low-fat sour cream.
• Making salads and casseroles with low-fat or fat-free salad dressing or mayonnaise, flavored vinegar like balsamic, or a small amount of mustard (but remember mustard is high in sodium).

Save Time and Money When You Cook

You do not have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen or a lot of money to eat well.

• Cook enough to last. Casseroles, meat loaf, and whole cooked chicken can last for several days. (Be sure to freeze or refrigerate leftovers right away to keep them safe to eat).
• Buy frozen or canned vegetables (no salt added) and canned fruit packed in juice. They are just as good for you as fresh produce, will not go bad, and make quick and easy additions to your meals.
• If your local store does not have the foods you want or their prices are too high, go to another store. Start a weekly shopping carpool, share the cost of a taxi with friends, or ask a relative or neighbor for a ride.