Healthy at McDonalds?

CAN McDonald's be healthy? That's the thought that's running around my mind. Naturally, as you might guess, I'm probably biased against the restauarant and you might be able to guess how this article will turn out. But stick around; I'll try to be creative and come up with ways they possibly could. If I can. For the sake of healthiness, it certainly WOULD be great if there was a fast food restaurant out there that you could actually trust was serving you healthy food.

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A Healthy Morning Routine

Image by [phil h] via Flickr

Starting a day off in a healthy way is important because it usually also sets up how you're going to feel throughout the day. If you wake up late, and skip breakfast - or eat an unhealthy one - for example, your motivation to reset back to healthy habits is often lost.  On the other hand, mornings are also often seen as the stepping-off point of the day and it's important to get through them with a good, strong pace. You'll need to balance ease and speed with health, so here are some tips to get you going.

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Breakfast at Yedda

Check out this interesting answer on Yedda

Healthy breakfast

If I'm going to eat a processed grain, Kashi would be one of the ones that seems generally acceptable to me, however avoid cereals just as you would (should) any processed food. They're not as healthful as you might think. Especially do not trust the big names - and Kashi is simply Kelloggs by another name.

Also, do some research into why you should avoid cereals. For example, processing a grain to produce puffed wheat/rice/etc. is done at high temperatures and pressure, which actually makes them toxic.

If you want to feed your children a healthy breakfast cereal, prepare it the evening beforehand; cook some steel cut oats - here's a recipe at RecipeZaar: http://www.recipezaar.com/101101 Mind you, it's cooked which gets rid of some of the nutrients, but it's cooked less than the processed cereals and it's amazingly delicious.

(Yaronco, all those cereals you listed range from tolerable to horrible. For example, Cinnamon Toast Crunch has sugar listed three times within its ingredients. It also has preservatives and modified ingredients; it is far from natural and far from healthy. I checked out that link... oy - they even recommend Cracklin' Oat Bran, which tastes delicious but the stuff is literally held together by sugar. I do not agree with that site's recommendations. The author seems to base his suggestions on having whole grains listed first, but he doesn't seem to understand that corporations simply use multiple types of sugars to avoid listing SUGAR as first.)

(Joosh: Smart Start is bad for you. Not only does it have sugar listed three times, but one of those sugars is high fructose corn syrup - pretty much the worst sugar man makes. Note: This is why it "tastes better than Kashi.")

Topics: health, cereal

Answered by Winkyboy on February 05, 2008

View the entire discussion on Yedda

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A grapefruit note

My wife has a habit acquired from her mother or grandmother: When eating a grapefruit she will peel it completely to the point where only the prime, juicy contents of each slice are left for heavenly consumption. It really is the most delicious way to enjoy a grapefruit, made even better only by chilling the fruit prior to eating.

Prior to our marriage I would only eat grapefruit sliced in half, removing the contents of each slice with a grapefruit spoon. This method takes a little less time, regardless of whether you use your knife to free the flesh from the bitter skin before diving in with the spoon or not. On the other hand, it seems a bit messier and a little more wasteful as you're always left with but a little of the flesh stuck inside.

Both of these methods, however, fail to truly capture the benefits of this fruit in their entirety, because grapefruit have a layer of bioflavonoids such as hesperidin and rutin stored within the bitter white rind just under the outer skin. These bioflavonoids help maintain the body's small blood capillaries, and set the body's "fat thermostat" a little higher, making them especially useful in chemically "burning off" excess stored fat.

A great way to capture these elements is to peel the grapefruit lightly, leaving as much rind on as possible, and sending it through a juicer.

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