 Hi, I'm Chef Robin and today's hands in the kitchen workshop is all about preparing that healthy plate So we're going to discuss Why you would want to prepare a healthy plate what a healthy plate is composed of and How to go about putting a healthy plate together? So the first question of why? You may have some personal goals of your own that you want to address through your diet You may want to gain weight. You may want to lose weight You may have some health issues that you want to address You may want to hold on to as many brain cells as you can so you're consuming blueberries by the pint Or you may be following some doctor recommendations so One thing that we want to think about as we grow older and we become less interested perhaps in food and Definitely less interested perhaps in spending a lot of time in the kitchen prepping or cleaning up after food prep or cleaning up after food Meal preparation is that even if we are living a more sedentary lifestyle even if we aren't as physically active as we were in our younger years our Systems in our body our circulatory system our skeletal system our nervous system all of those systems that we learned about in health class many many years ago are Still operating 24-7. They haven't stopped just because we have stopped being physically active And so we want to prolong The optimum condition of those systems for as long as we possibly can And in order to do that Just like a car that needs tune-ups and fuel We need to fuel those systems and by eating healthy That's going to maintain those various physical systems inside of our body in a more proactive way for us to enjoy good health as we get older so We may have personal goals that we want to address we may have doctor recommendations, but Most importantly, we need to consume healthy fuel to maintain healthy systems So that's the why of this workshop So the what of this workshop? What is a healthy plate? The components of a healthy plate have changed since we learned about the food pyramid way back in elementary school Now we're looking at a plant forward diet. That is what the American Heart Association is promoting. That's what the American Medical Association is promoting. That's what your physician is probably guiding you towards and that's what we know now to be Healthiest for us is a plant-based diet. So That said our diet and our healthy plate is going to be half vegetables and fruit A small portion of protein and a small portion of grain And a very very small portion of a healthy oil or fat So half of our healthy plate is going to be vegetable and fruit forward Whole grains fruits and veggies protein rich foods low salt low sugar low saturated fat and low or zero Trans fat that is going to compose our healthy plate. So a variety and a variety of these food items low sugar low salt low fat So how are we going to go about? Prepping that healthy plate or putting that healthy plate together And the first thing I want to remind you of is to just trust yourself If you have been cooking hundreds of meals By this time in your life you have some idea of what makes you feel better What makes you feel worse? What puts you to sleep immediately? What gives you energy? So trust yourself to recognize those patterns in your own eating That do lend themselves to be more healthy or more unhealthy So also know yourself as far as what you are going to take on And how physically adept you are at challenging yourself to spend more time in the kitchen Or less time in the kitchen or more money out of your pocketbook Just know where you are when you set your goals and set realistic goals If you feel like you want to change up your diet Maybe not every three meals every single day Maybe pick a day of the week and change one meal One day one week Maybe look at your weekly schedule and if you have friends or family or caregivers that come on a particular day Or that you get together with on a particular day Maybe that is a day that you can enlist some help To do some food prepping Ahead of time in order to make your meals more healthy throughout the rest of the week So trust yourself Know yourself be realistic with yourself And set realistic goals so that you're not Taking yourself to task when you haven't all of a sudden turned into a vegetarian overnight So if we look at the vegetable poster The reason we want to consume vegetables Are all over the place There are nutrients and vitamin and fiber rich low in fat low in calories They contain no cholesterol at all so that makes them very heart healthy So all of those stored items Are good for you and good indicators that if you have vegetables On half of your plate You're going to be getting all of these special qualities of those vegetables and a variety So the serving size For men two and a half cups That's really a small amount of food to eat per day of a vegetable and for women two cups Is really a small amount if you can see my examples here A cup is only three stops of broccoli Very small amount of food A cup is only one carrot A cup is a small bell pepper and a cup is a small sweet potato so Within your healthy diet you should be able to consume Two cups of these items a day Or bury them up but easily Reaching two cups per day through three meals so Heavy on the vegetables heavy on the fruits. Why would you want to eat fruits again? Super heart healthy Again risking the risk of chronic disease and stroke Obesity because they have very little calories. They're very low in fat They contain very little to any sodium They're vitamin and mineral rich So they're dense and nutrients calorie for calorie. You're getting more good stuff From fruits and vegetables than necessarily other snacky processed foods And how much food fruit do you need a day? Just a cup and a half A very small amount is what's recommended for your daily intake of fruit So that would be eight strawberries 18 grapes A small apple small orange a small peach or a small pear So a very small amount of fruit also In order for you to achieve Your rda or recommended daily allowance of fruit Why would you want to include grains in your diet? So grains are also source of healthy fiber source of healthy nutrients They contain iron which is necessary for good blood and circulation magnesium vitamins copper and zinc and niacin I'm not going to break down for every mineral or nutrient Here what it does in your body But I can just assure you that if you don't have these necessarily in your diet You will be lacking In some system in your body will be calling out Or niacin or copper or folate or any of the wondrous Things that we get from healthy good food and grains also Reduce chronic inflammation Which is a big issue with some people as we age So lowering your cholesterol to be heart healthy reducing chronic inflammation And grain also is very easy to incorporate in your diet You want six to nine servings a day And a slice of bread is a serving a half cup of rice is a serving Or grits or millet or oatmeal Oatmeal is super healthy a half cup of pasta A cup of whole grain cereal A half of a bagel is a serving Or three cups of popcorn is a serving So it's very easy to get to these six to nine servings throughout your day and eating So now because I spoke about our diets becoming more plant forward Today, we're also going to talk about including in our healthy plant plate plant proteins When proteins are recommended for us, they're recommended on the leaner side boneless skinless chicken Not a lot of bacon things that are low in saturated fats low in calories So if we look to plants to get our protein sources They're going to be automatically heart healthy for us And again nutrient dense so calorie for calorie What we get from plant protein is better for us than a 12 ounce t-bone Which has also protein But a lot of saturated fat that our body has to consume and break down Whereas plant proteins are very little fat if any Low calorie and plant proteins are also pocket book friendly In the grocery store one of the most expensive items are those meat based protein items So you can find them on sale, but also you may want to consider having meatless monday Or changing up your diet to where you start to incorporate more plant protein food items And plant protein food items, this is a small list of them and none of them are incredibly exotic But you may not be totally familiar with some of them King wall is a grain So if you're eating a grain and it's also a plant protein Twice as much value tofu and tempeh and edamame Are from the soybean and they're cultured and they're easily to versatile in the kitchen lentils and chickpeas and most beans are very protein rich and iron rich Almonds are very iron rich and protein rich peanuts are very vitamin dense And also nutritional yeast which is a source of b12 And it's also a healthy fiber so I just brought So you can see What these plant proteins look like tofu usually comes packed in water You can saute it. You can crumble it up and add it into stir fries or Casseroles you can roast it in the oven. You can marinate it. You can have it with salads This is tempeh, which is also Kind of in the family of tofu There are soybeans that have been treated or processed or culture and Turned into a little cake Same kind of thing you can saute it you can bake it you can roast it you can marinate it You can have it as your main Kind of protein on your meal or with a salad Edamame Are shelled soybeans. They're a complete protein. In other words, they need nothing else With them in order to get all of their protein from them So they can be Sauteed they can be eaten raw or on salads They can be toasted in the oven Very fun and if you check on the back of most packages They will tell you what a serving size is for this product or that product And for edamame a cup is going to give you the rda of edamame that you need for the day Another plant-based protein that most people are not Used to thinking of a protein, but it's just the humble little green pea so In the list of vegetables and proteins from vegetables the green pea is a hero And it has a pack full of protein for you These are Lentils you buy them dry you can buy them from the co-op And take as many as you want because they're packaged in a bulk variety or you can buy them at the store They cook very easily and very quickly And they are packed with protein also and they're very inexpensive This is the quinoa that we were talking about before as a grain I'm not sure if you can see that as well, but It also can be bought at the co-op Out of the bulk section you can buy as much as you want or as little as you want Or most grocery stores now are also carrying quinoa that you can buy in a box And this is one of my go-to proteins at home I'm not promoting any kind of brand But canned beans are usually very straightforward They're already cooked for you You might want to rinse them out underneath water because some beans do have salt added to them This particular item does not it's just the bean and water So it's very clean product and easy to use again. You can cook them. You can have them raw on salads However, you'd like to enjoy them, but very easy very useful And also relatively inexpensive So that was why we would want to eat plant proteins because calorie for calorie. They're packing a big punch without a lot of fat Or calories to them Let's talk about how to put that healthy plate together First you want to trust yourself First you want to know yourself your weekly schedule whether you're going to have any help whether you're going to have any assistance But we're going to go down these 10 tips And hopefully by the end of those 10 tips you might see some kind of Window for you to address a little bit of change in your diet moving towards that healthier plate So the first tip is to revamp the routine so if you have four five six or maybe two three Routine dishes that you make all of the time because they're your easy go-tos and you like the taste of them And it's easy for you to find them in the grocery store but You don't think they're quite as healthy as they should be or you've just gotten into a rut as far as addressing How to you know, you're just making the same thing over and over Let's revamp it a little bit. Let's take one element of that meal and change it up You may not even be eating all four elements of the food plate so if you're not having a vegetable or fruit or grain or A healthy protein That may be the part of your meal that you need to address And add in one of those four items So if you are only having A small amount of tuna salad for lunch and that's it consider adding in some healthy whole wheat crackers consider adding in Four apple slices on the side consider adding in some sliced tomato Something to kind of bulk that up complete the picture of the healthy plate So after you've decided that your routine is a rut And you have some dishes that you want to change up and revamp Look for inspiration Now you may think that's difficult But actually finding inspiration now is so easy Because all of the grocery stores Want your dollars and they are going out of their way To draw you into their store And they're doing that with sales But they're also doing that with reward systems And they're also doing that by putting things at a lower price 10 for 10 Or coupons So we all get grocery flyers Every week either in the mail or in the paper And I always look through them I definitely look for the coupons In this grocery flyer Eggs were 99 cents Eggs are a great protein They're easy to fix. They're very versatile So I definitely am thinking that I'm going to cut that coupon out and have Eggs at home Eggs also when they're in the shell will last for Three months in your refrigerator If they are in the shell and have not been Cracked open or anything happening to them They can last up to three months without an issue So eggs are a great bargain to have and hold on to You may find inspiration in the newspapers daily food section Most newspapers will have one day of the week Will they dedicate a whole section Or a couple pages To food and they run recipes in that section So This is from the new york times It has photographs of the recipes that they're running. They're very well written out. They're very easy to follow Also at the neighborhood co-ops This one is from city market. They also have pamphlets there that you can take That explain the bulk food section or the produce section or the dairy section And they'll have recipes in them. You'll have a list of items nutritional values Very nice resource to have To find inspiration from and actually on the back of this one Is a quinoa tabooly recipe Tabooly is a nice verbal salad that will be enjoying in the warmer weather And this one is made with quinoa So it has all the ingredients that you need and how to run through the recipe Other inspirational places to look Our our little pamphlet then our little Guide that we made for healthy eating Cookbooks this is a cookbook Called cooking for one the pleasures of cooking for one And then cooking magazines Okay are always in the grocery store or subscriptions Oh I'm sorry. This is I wanted to show you Gershwin are also doing their own magazine and yes, they oftentimes are filled with that store's product But this is actually full of all kinds of crazy recipes to put together They break it down. They will give you the nutritional content that you need to know about it They'll give the prices that you need to know they'll change it up This is actually a really good reading for me and it's free Or this one is you need to spend three dollars at your grocery store and then it's free And that one this one is from hana fur but marker 32 also does one I'm not sure about y'alls, but So revamp your routine find inspiration And number three take advantage you may be thinking take advantage of what so grocery stores now like I said a minute ago are vying for your spending dollar When I was in marker 32 just recently I looked through the produce section There were over a hundred or more items Of produce that were already taken to some stage of preparation For cooking there was diced onion that you could buy there was diced butternut squash that you could buy There was diced onion carrot and cucumbers that you could buy for salad. So There's bag salad mixes that you can buy Yes, that it is a little bit more expensive to buy something that has already been processed or taken A step further in the grocery store than just a raw product But if you are not eating fruit Because you cannot stand to segment out a grapefruit There is grapefruit in cups There is grapefruit in jars Nothing else just grapefruit There is pineapple in cups There is pineapple cherries and strawberries in cups So if you are denying yourself vegetables or fruit Because you do not want to stand in the kitchen and create the mess Or maybe you just don't have the ability to stand in the kitchen and work a knife through a pineapple I know I don't care to do that You can spend a few more cents And enjoy that product From the grocery store taking that task out of your hands There was spiralized zucchini There was so many I was just astounded at so many products Cut green beans Cut cauliflower and broccoli and these were fresh vegetables But vacuum packed into bags So fresh vegetables that have already been Processed some for you or frozen vegetables are very clean and a way to Enjoy a vegetable or a fruit Without having to do a lot of prep work to enjoy it Also when you buy that kind of product You can close it up and seal it and use how much you want to use at a time Rather than buying having to buy a whole head of broccoli And maybe having some of it go bad on me because you don't necessarily want to eat broccoli for the next 20 meals So But really take advantage of things in the grocery store also the deli you can buy as Few as five slices of cheese if you want You can buy chicken That's pretty clean and not necessarily the rotisserie with the skin and otherwise You can buy fish that's already cooked but so just Bear in mind that the grocery store is doing a lot of work That it would like for you to take advantage of and spend money on Yes, you have to spend a little money on but if you are missing out on vital things In your menu or your diet Because you just do not have the energy or wherewithal or maybe even knowledge Of how to tackle that Then let the grocery store Once a month twice a month three times a month whatever your budget will allow To do that for you so that you can start getting some healthy Proteins healthy fruits healthy vegetables into your diet Then maybe you have not been going because you don't want the extra work if some Thought to seasonality Seasonality also is a good way to save money Because generally the fruits and vegetables and even meats that are in season are going to be a little bit less expensive Maybe you really desire to have lamb But lamb is out of control expensive, but towards Easter Lamb is a little less expensive because that is a preferred Easter sundae meal So if you just kind of give some thought to what might be in season even though Now we can get kiwis from South America. We can get Any number of exotic things All year round If we want our plate to be super healthy We may want to think of those items that are there for the taking because it is the season that they are ripe and fresh and just next door Remember this is a big thing to remember that we talked about before your healthy plate Now needs to be half vegetables and fruit Half vegetables and fruit with a small amount Given over to a protein a healthy protein and a small amount given over to a healthy brain But respect that One half veggies and one half fruit and also For that healthy plate respect the portion size It's really not that large. It's really scary how we have expanded our servings Until our plate is toppling over with so much food You may not be able to wean yourself To this recommended serving size immediately But do know that that is the serving size that All of the health professionals are recommending for us to take advantage of to be considerate of That when we go over Our healthy portion size. We're actually adding on even if we're eating healthy We're actually adding on more food than our body necessarily needs to keep those systems healthy and working well the respective portion sizes and eat a rainbow Just like you were told when you were a small child It's essential that you eat across the spectrum of colors Because everything brings something different And healthy to your plate a carrot is going to have different qualities than a sweet potato Dark leafy greens are going to be that iron rich punch That an apple possibly won't have So it's important That you take advantage of the variety of fruits and vegetables and proteins and grains that are out there because individually those plants proteins Veggies fruits and grains are all bringing something to your table that your body would love to have and enjoy So this eight and nine pull a switcheroo And it kind of goes back to revamping the routine when I say pull a switcheroo what i'm talking about is Taking maybe one thing off of your plate That isn't as healthy as it could be and revamping it or Replacing it with something that is more healthy. So if you like a lot of pasta in your diet You could try To use and again i'm not Promoting any brand i'm just letting you know that now there is a whole grain pasta That is out there that is very tasty. That's very nutty Maybe you don't want to go completely whole grain spaghetti right off the bat But maybe you could do half and half Maybe you could do white spaghetti and a little bit of whole wheat spaghetti and get a taste for It and see it how you like it. So and it's not just spaghetti. There are shells And curly macaroni pastas almost all pasta now can be found in a form that's whole grain If white saltines are your go-to cracker Maybe you want to look for a cracker. That's a hundred percent whole wheat Or maybe you want to look for a cracker that has some rye in it Or maybe you want to look for a cracker that's made of chickpea flour Somehow or other trade out That white flour product for something that has some whole grain in it. So pull a little switcheroo And the same goes for your protein if chicken has been your go-to protein consider creating in your menu that meatless monday And make something that's a little bit healthier with the plant-driven protein Take advantage of using tempeh take advantage of using tofu trying edamame salad Something that's going to boost your protein intake to be more calorie dense and rich in nutrients and minerals so Remembering that quinoa is a complete protein That lentils are very protein forward combining a grain And a bean or a pulse is also a complete protein so that by eating a grain and a pulse or A lentil together or a chickpea together is going to give you that protein protein boost Without a lot of calories without a lot of fat Without a lot of sodium So very healthy, but definitely Healthier for you all around and a little bit less expensive for you all around And the last item as far as 10 tips to a healthy plate is to get cultured And what I mean by that is not necessarily watching opera or listening to opera But to get cultured by introducing some cultured Foods into your diet or probiotics into your diet. So Cultured foods are those foods that have been inoculated or enhanced Or changed by adding some kind of bacterial agent or enzyme to them That changes them to become more healthy and easier for your body to digest and it changes them to Their nutritional value for you is easier to accept so where Maybe the most familiar to you is cultured buttermilk so but One of the cultured products that I think everybody is also familiar with is yogurt So and you can get yogurt that's fat-free You can get yogurt that's full fat. You can get yogurt with fruit in it You just want to be careful about the sugar content and fruity yogurt But yogurt is very digestible yogurt is very protein forward and yogurt is Really tasty and easy to use in a lot of different ways So yogurt is not the only cultured product I said buttermilk as well Another culture product that you're probably familiar with but maybe don't Have it in your diet quite often is sauerkraut sauerkraut is cabbage just Let aged with salt Until it almost becomes like a pickled cabbage But it's very healthy for you and a lot of people now make a kind of Asian sauerkraut That's called kimchi and instead of using just regular cabbage you use Chinese cabbage But again, it's just a pickled Cabbage with salt and kimchi has some fiery red peppers added to it But it's very healthy to you for you And cultured foods are going to be that gut healthy food That's going to be helping your intestines with those uh probiotic positive results so Things that you want to kind of keep your digestive system working cleanly and vitally and Firm in it foods are going to help ferment it or cultured foods are going to help you maintain that so So hopefully these 10 tips Of how to arrive at putting a healthy plate together are going to Open up for you some new ideas how to go about doing that and figuring out how to Maybe address a plate that isn't quite as healthy, but that you enjoy And I would like to thank the Heinenberg Center for Helping me put this on for you and also hands, which is helping and nurturing diverse seniors Non-profit and to let you know that upcoming workshops are going to be addressing grains explained And also probiotic food or our fermented or cultured foods and also plant-based proteins So take care enjoy keep cooking and loving life Bye