Get ahead in 2024! Explore healthy eating on this episode of Fabulous Foods with Victoria Fabbo! Victoria shares practical insights on creating a balanced plate, incorporating protein, fruits, veggies, dairy, grains, how to master portion control and so much more!
Tune in for an informative chat as we gear up for a healthier approach in the New Year! 🥗🎉🍓
Hey everyone happy New Year this is fabulous foods with Victoria Fabo I’m really excited we’re here today today we’re going to have an open conversation about healthy recipes and what it means to eat on your plate otherwise may be known as my plate so today we’re going
To talk about a PowerPoint going to go over some recipes okay so what’s on your plate for breakfast what are you having let’s go to the next slide and see what are some recommendations for us for fruit right uh part of my plate we have five components five food components our
First one we’re going to talk about is fruit so how much fruit do we think each person should have here you’ll see a chart and it will go through toddlers children girls and boys and women and men how much they should be having per serving per day okay so a serving size
Is a one cup of Fruit a half a cup of dried fruit and one cup of 100% fruit juice so something I like to bring up is why do you think there’s a difference between fresh fruit and dried fruit right so at fresh fruit um it’s great
It’s whole we can eat it whole that counts as a a whole fruit serving dried fruit right it needs to be rehydrated or what we can talk about is that the dried fruit we only want a half a cup because if you’ve ever eaten dried apricots right you could probably eat four dried
Apricots but if you remember you’re actually eating four whole fresh ones right so what that means is to remind yourself of how much quantity you’re having at one time a little bit of a reference is with the one cup of 100% fruit juice I always like to think about
Would you ever eat three apples right so a lot of people would say no I wouldn’t eat three apples in one day right so then why would you have three cups of apple juice in one day right and why do I say that I say that because of sugar
Content and as we continue to age and as we give children we’re introducing them fluids in their to their diets we always are going might give them juice but we might want to stop think about what we’re actually giving the child right or what we might be giving our older adult
Um parent or something right who doesn’t want sweetness in their life but what we want to think about is what is their serving size and what is their daily recommendation allowance okay so things to keep in the back of our head is are we getting all these servings in a day
And great point for fruit is fiber right so we want fiber and the micronutrients within fi within the fruit for our diet so the fiber will help keep us not being constipated right that’s something that as a dietitian I’m always wondering and thinking about for other people um and
To keep them hydrated too with breakfast we have our fruit and we also want to think about Dairy option too cuz that can be a nice time in the during the day to get in your Dairy option so a dairy size is one cup of milk yogurt or soy
Right and 1 and 1 12 ounces of natural cheese okay so you might have noticed within the dairy choices it’s milk yogurt or soy so no almond milk oat milk or cashew milk is noted there right why do we might think that so A couple of things almond milk only has
About 2 grams of protein where cow’s milk has eight grams of protein okay that’s a really big difference especially when you’re making a smoothie or you’re drinking it um just by itself right you’re not getting the same protein content and the C calcium and vitamin D quantities may be different
Too really important too is when you’re making your purchase for yogurt or milk you want to see What vitamin D level and calcium level is there okay if there’s not there’s no vitamin D in the uh when you’re looking at the back of the nutrition label if there’s no vitamin D
But there’s calcium well your body might not be able to absorb the calcium right we really need Vitamin D in our diet in order to absorb calcium okay so when you’re looking at the back of the package pay attention to that another fun thing I like to think about is I
Love chocolate milk it’s kind of the only way I really enjoy drinking milk um or if it’s hot hot chocolate or warmed up milk it’s a great time but what I have to pay attention to is the chocolate milk and on the back of the nutrition label what’s the sugar content
What’s the added sugars to that yogurt or to that chocolate milk so I’ll go to the grocery store and I’ll turn around four different chocolate bottle chocolate milk bottles and I’ll compare the the the amount of sugar right because I if there’s something that’s 20 Gams of added sugar and something that’s
10 grams of added sugar right that’s how you can make your judgment to what’s the better choice right it may not necessarily be the best choice but if we can make a better choice right so those are some things we want to think about especially when we’re getting our yogurt
It’s really nice that they have the added fruit to our yogurt sometimes when you go to the grocery store the bad part is that though it may taste really yummy the sugar content it may be EXT very very high um so on you’ll look at a back
Of like a small yogurt package and they’ll actually add 20 grams of added sugar on the nutrition label right so that’s where I recommend you not to get that yogurt at all um and keep it there on the Shelf but maybe you can get um whole fat or 0% fat plain yogurt and
Then that’s where you can add your own fruit in and you can add your maybe some honey in Granola so you can make it your your special self for a breakfast we’ll talk about that in the next slide so here’s the recommendations for daily allowance on the uh for dairy so three
Cups and how we can get that in our diet let’s go to the next slide so we can talk about breakfast all right so a yummy parfait for breakfast right we have our plain yogurt we’re making it sweet by adding our fruits whatever kind we want strawberries blueberries bananas
You name it what I like to do is I actually like to heat up my fruit and make a comp so I’ll get frozen berries and I’ll put them on the stove I’ll let them heat up keep them on as long as you want maybe 5 10 minutes and then it’s
Called a compot at that point c o m p o t right so we have a fruit compot you can cool it down and you can add that to your yogurt and then it there’s your fruit yogurt right you can add granola to make it crunchy you can actually add
One walnuts pistachios for additional protein what I do for walnuts and pistachios I actually will uh bang them and I will make them ground up pretty much essentially and I will just sprinkle that on um into each layer just so I get the taste of the nut but I
Don’t have te necessarily the texture because when I’m eating a parfit I want it to be like smooth consistency for the most part but some people might like it a little crunchier or chunkier so you choose whatever you want things to think about when you’re sweetening it um I do
Like to do maple syrup honey or agave I don’t necessarily want to do white sugar or brown sugar um just for a morning routine right something I just don’t want to get in the habit of doing but if you want to sweeten a little bit with
Honey or maple syrup feel free then on the bottom you’ll also see a little recipe guide that you can go by so pick whatever whatever Choice you’d like and then these are just some quantities you want to do and make it fun right always get the kids involved uh at at their age
Level see what they can do to help you in the morning right we’re really busy all the time as any adult right and so any Helping Hands is really beneficial all right so we’ve talked about breakfast let’s go on to the next one okay so one other recipe you can think
About for breakfast is a banana oatmeal pancake okay so why is this one a healthier choice so we’re adding fiber in it we’re adding fiber by adding whole wheat flour and oats those are two whole grain components that we can add and that gives us more fiber content which
Is always great we’re also going to add bananas in you can slice up the bananas thin or you might want to mash them up and uh fold it into the batter so it’s that it’s evenly distributed depends on how you want it um some people might
Want slices some might want to add it smoothly so that’s your choice adding an egg and milk and whatever other fruits you might want in order for the batter to be to your desire um and then here’s just a little bit of ingredient uh instructions a fun little thing to
Always remember when you’re making pancakes is that the pancake when you pour it you want to make sure that little bubbles are forming or popping up onto the pancake before you flip it okay and before you flip it if you want to add any fruit at that time go ahead and
Add your fruit add a little bit more batter and then flip it unless you want your your fruit to be a little bit um caramelized you can say then don’t add the batter but it’s up to you all right we talked about breakfast let’s keep going all right snack time if anybody
Knows me they know I’m a snacker I’m a huge Grazer throughout the day so let’s go into snacking and some options all right so here’s a few different options you can do for yourself and this is really nice if you can get the kids involved I kind of like
To think of it as as an iron shf challenge right because if you’re making different bars or whatever let’s talk about it so we’re going to make roasted chick peas so this one’s nice and easy you get their can of chicka peas um you rinse them thoroughly right any caned
Products we rinse thoroughly so that we remove any additional salt and sodium with that said the roasted chicka peeas I actually like to add Pizza seasoning to it uh another version I might do is paprika another version could be like everything bagel seasoning um and so I sprinkle that seasoning on
The chicken peeas I add olive oil I rub it around good to make sure they’re covered in the seasoning well and I put them in the oven for 40 minutes at 400° and some people might like them crispy like a chip some people might like them a little softer so play around
With it and see what you’d like but it’s a great protein um addition right Rin eating some chicken peeas and they’re kind of like a chip okay what else you could do is a quinoa energy bar so go ahead and cook the quinoa and if anybody
Has an insta pot I’m actually a newcomer to these insta pot um I’m teaching at Ma college and I need an insta pot for the day so I bought one and I cooked with it and it’s fabulous it makes everything under an hour and I was really happy by
That anyways so get your insta pot add the quino water done what you can do then is you can add dates coconut oil almond butter uh you add protein powder if you like if not keep it to the side vanilla extract coconut flakes chia seeds if chia seeds flax seeds hemp
Seeds if you can get these seeds they’re additional fiber and micronutrients and protein okay so and iron with the micronutrients essentially um we add those to this recipe we ground it up in the food processor right so that it all becomes one consistency We can spray it
Out spread it out thin right and then we’ve made our own breakfast bar so for this is really nice because you can get the kids involved they can help measure out the ingredients they can spread the dough out so it’s nice and flat and then they are more excited to try the snack
Right if their hands are touching the food they’re more likely to eat it so another dish they could do is um cucumber pepper avocado salad and I was recently talking to someone and they said my kids don’t like the word salad I said Okay so let’s call it cucumber
Pepper avocado Delight or something right just come up with a different word if your kids don’t like the word salad but introduce all those different vegetables to them right maybe you can add a jalapeno and see how they taste with the text uh taste with the spice
Add an onion and tomato mix that all together and then you have a great vegetable medley right okay another thing that kids could get involved with is a creamy peanut butter honey oats walnuts craisin bar right again just mix that all together in a food processor or
By hand spread it out thin let it cool in the fridge and then it’s done it’s really nice and easy and you’ll notice some of these recipes use the same ingredients which for me is always much easier at the grocery store right so something to think about too how can I
Make as utilize all my ingredients on different recipes and that’s where the Iron Chef comes in with the kids right they can decide okay today I’m going to be creative and add this so let them choose what they want to do okay snacks are good let’s move on to the next all
Right lunchtime right what are we going to be having for lunch let’s talk about it so protein is something we always want to be thinking about for throughout our day right so here’s a daily recommendation these charts for the daily recommendations are actually my plate Government website the government
Designed this so we used to have food pyramid now it’s my plate so these are recommend foundations that are used okay so use that guideline to help you plan your meals for your family for protein it’s really great 1 oz of meat we got a half a cup of brown beans uh cooked
Beans is a recipe right that counts as a daily protein recommendation just one egg a tablespoon of peanut butter half an ounce of nuts or seeds and a half ounce of tofu and I really think that’s great to have these I um these recommendations in our head so that we
Know how much of a portion we want right that’s the greatest part so we think okay well I had a half ounce of nuts for a snack time um and now for my lunch I’m going to have two tablespoons of peanut butter on my peanut butter and jelly
Sandwich right so now you know you’ve had three servings and then if yours is women’s 5 to 6 ounces then you know you’re you’re have two and a half gr done and then maybe you can save the rest for dinner right or you might have
A snack later with um cooked beans up to you the variety is the best part all right let’s move on on the next one okay so vegetables I really want to change the perspective on vegetables because vegetables can be so yummy it just depends on how we prepare them right so
One cup of raw or cooked vegetable or vegetable juice counts um or two cups of raw leafy salad greens okay those are serving sizes so again I’m going to stick with women uh 2 to three cups is a serving size for women again with the vegetables it’s great fiber and micronutrients right
That we need Vitamin K Vitamin A right we need all these different micronutrients in order for our bone growth for our cell growth to be um as best as it can right because that’s what we’re doing when we’re eating we’re eating for our body to be sustained and
For it to be the best it can be so protein vegetable let’s go on so we got a vegetable we can add any vegetable we want to quinoa right and again we’re going to make a quinoa salad I think it’s just easy you make a huge pot of it
On the in the insta pot and you can cool it and you can have whatever variety you want so quinoa if you want to add cucumber peppers onions Right add some lemon juice to it add cranberries you can do that that’s one salad if you want
To add avocados to it lemon zest Ginger zest right you can make the flavor whatever way you want and I think that’s the best part about quinoa it’s so versatile and you can do whatever you want so quinoa salad is a great lunch option because you get protein and you
Can add any vegetables you want let’s go to the next slide okay another option for protein is lentils something I feel like isn’t used too much in everyone’s diet I know at my house we’re slowly introducing it back in and really I think it’s because of the insta pot it
Cooks it so quickly um you can use a crock pot too it just takes a little bit longer but hey if you have the time use it right so I think of a lentil carrot sweet potato soup especially as the Winter’s coming soup is my love right so
We got lentils we can do sweet potatoes carrots right and the fun flavor is you can add as to it could be cumin Ginger cilantro onion garlic right the more garlic the better in my life you can even add shallots make it fun make it flavorful even you could add cayenne pepper think
Of the soups you might want for lunch and make it in the insta pot the night before and then you have lunch for the next day all right let’s go to the next one so for dinner what are we going to have for dinner let’s talk about it okay
A simple Italian classic that I like to do that’s easy enough is you get your chicken you can get some potatoes some asparagus and you just add some olive oil lemon juice garlic parsley Rosemary and you just sprinkle it all over mix it all together and pop it in the oven I
Think that’s the best when they all can be the one same one seasoning just add ol olive oil pop it in the oven walk away I think that’s a great day just remember always to cook your chicken a 165 so if you can get a thermometer to
Insert your meats and to clean it after each use it’s really beneficial so you make sure that nobody gets any foodborn illness just something in good practice last but not least for our five food groups is our daily grain recommendation again you’ll see the chart so we actually have whole grains and we
Actually have grains so whole grains would be whole wheat flour um and just a regular grain would be allpurpose flour right so that’s something that we want to keep in consideration because we actually want half of our grains whole wheat so we could do whole wheat pasta
We could do brown rice we can do quinoa right those are really great grain whole grains say you’re making a sandwich and you have six to eight servings a sandwich is actually two servings so you want to make sure that that bread is whole grain so what you want to do is
You want to look at the back of the nutrition label and make sure that one slice is 3 Gs of fiber or more that’s how you know you’re getting the best choice for bread in my my opinion okay you can get one cup of ready to eat
Cereal or a half a cup of cooked rice or pasta that’s really important a half a cup cooked rice or pasta a lot of people want a full cup okay and that really may depend on their diet and not just their diet but it also might depend on what
Portion of the day it is right so for breakfast maybe we’re going to have a cup of oatmeal at lunch we’re going to have a cup of rice and at dinner time we’re going to have a cup of pasta right so are we spreading it out evenly are we
Making sure we’re meeting all of our basic recommendations and then we want to make sure that we’re not getting too much right so this is how we got to keep track of our portion control we can have our one cup for each but then we want to
Remember it’s only meant to be a half a cup right so then in reality for breakfast with your oatmeal of one cup you’re having two Serv lunch with your rice you’re having again two servings and at dinner time with your pasta you’re having two servings so
That’s six so if you’re supposed to have 6 to 8 you just want to make sure that when you’re snacking you’re not going overboard or late at night when we want to snack again we just want to make sure that we’re snacking on the right things
So these are just a few things that we want to keep in mind when we’re doing our plate right so just a few little thoughts okay guys thanks for joining me on my plate in in this happy New Year I really hope that you and your family can
Come up with some fun recipes and stick with the recommendations that are provided and always remember enjoy it have fun with the process if you’re not smiling then no one else is right so always smile and make sure the food is tasting yummy and if you guys have any
Questions about portion control or food sizes or where to grab some food feel free to reach out to me and I’d really great to ask me any questions so I can tell you the next time thanks for having me and thank you for watching fabulous foods with Victoria Fabo