We talked to local dietitians to get the scoop on the top veggies most of us are missing out on.
Everyone knows that veggies are important to a balanced diet, but it can be pretty easy to fall into the same routine—broccoli, carrots, rinse, repeat. The good news is, we’re getting into primo veggie season, so the variety and choices at our disposal feel almost endless.
I chatted with local dietitians Lisa Jones, Krista Yoder Latortue and Deanna Segrave Daley to find out which veggies we’re missing out on, why we should add them to our diets, and how to prepare them. Check out the round up below to see their terrific recommendations.
 Kale
A member of the cabbage family, kale has made its way into a lots of recipes lately, from breakfast smoothies to ice cream. When consumed raw, it tends to have a slightly bitter flavor; when cooked, the bitter taste subsides. Kale is pretty hardy and easy to grow, so if you have a home garden, this might be a great plant to grow yourself.
Why it’s great: This green is super rich in potassium and calcium. While kale should be avoided if you take certain medications like anticoagulants (the high level of vitamin K interferes with those drugs), it’s great for preventing inflammation and aiding digestive health. The best part? It’s so easy to incorporate into your favorite dishes and is available year round!
Recipe to try: Red Peppers Stuffed with Kale and Rice [via Eating Well]
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Serve this simple-to-make tuna salad over some greens for a healthy and filling lunch in minutes.
When you read the title on this post, I hope you didn’t imagine the typical mayo-drenched tuna salad you begged your mom not to pack for your school lunch. This is really more of a bean salad that contains tuna and fresh veggies—one loaded with protein, vitamin C and iron, at that.
Although they can be tricky to work into any ol’ recipe, beans should be a permanent fixture in your day-to-day diet. Bursting with fiber (we both know there’s a little ditty written about that, right?), a cup of beans has at least 15 grams of protein and contains good doses of other nutrients, such as calcium and iron. With the addition of garlic, onions, tomatoes and basil, the white beans in this recipe taste impossibly fresh—and all you had to do was pop the lid off the can!
Speaking of cans, I’m totally cool with canned tuna. If you want to be a bit friendlier to Mother Earth, try to purchase pole- or troll-caught tuna (Whole Foods’s 365 brand is a delicious example at a reasonable price), both more environmentally responsible fishing methods than traditional long-line tuna fishing. You should also go for labels that say “light” rather than “chunk white,” as the light versions tend to have lower mercury levels. Lastly, to get the most of the healthy omega-3 fatty acids (and less calories), buy the tuna packed in water instead of oil. Canned tuna is in inexpensive and often overlooked way to get more fish into your diet.
This salad can be eaten by itself or over mixed greens; it lasts at least three days in the fridge and would be great side dish to bring to a friend’s house!
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Trust me—you won't miss that pesky gluten one bit.
If you follow Be Well on Instagram, you know I sampled these cupcakes over the weekend. My friend Abby—yes, of last summer’s Project Revamp acclaim—made them for a little get-together at another friend’s house on Saturday night. After we’d spent about 20 minutes oooo-ing and ahhhh-ing over how pretty they were, Abby gleefully announced, “And they’re gluten free!”
That’s about the time I snapped the above photo and posted it on Instagram. Almost immediately, I got a comment from a follower asking me to post the recipe. And so, here we are.
I should say up front that I’m not posting this recipe because it’s low-fat or low-cal. I mean, it’s a cupcake recipe, people. You’ll find sugar and butter and milk (and marshmallow fluff!) on the ingredient list below. I’m posting it for all our gluten-free eaters who are on the hunt for a seriously tasty, seriously moist, out-of-this-world chocolate cupcake recipe—because that’s exactly what this is.
If you make this recipe, let us know what you think in the comments. And feel free to share your own photo with us on Instagram—just tag @bewellphilly. Enjoy!
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If you're craving a sweet treat—and let's be honest, who isn't?—these sinfully tasty ice cream recipes pack something extra: protein. How's that for a post-gym snack?
Protein Ice Cream
via BodyBuilding.com
This recipe is extremely basic—with just three ingredients and five steps, you have every reason in the world to give this baby a try. Think of it as a gateway protein ice cream recipe into the others: once you’ve had a taste of its easy, delicious final product, you’ll definitely come back for more. In different shapes. And flavors. Luckily, you’re now equipped with this list!
Heather’s Protein Ice Cream
via Heather Eats Almond Butter
This blogger includes a video at the bottom of her post, which is especially helpful for those who might want a visual aid. She doesn’t actually include almond butter in the mix, but she uses it as a topping, which is good enough for me. Also: Look. At. That. Photo.
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Make over your dessert habit with these 85-calorie brownie bites.
My husband and I recently found ourselves elbow deep into an ice cream-every-night routine. I don’t know how we got there—I mean, it was technically light ice cream, but if I’m being totally honest, we were each having multiple servings each night and going through two gallons of the stuff a week. I felt shame. I invited my husband to share my shame, and he accepted the invitation. So we decided to forego ice cream and took it off the weekly food-shopping list, but we needed something sweet to satisfy our late-night cravings.
He opted for those old-fashioned caramel cream candies. And although I was tempted to go that route, too, I wanted something that would provide nutrients while still hitting the spot. After much searching and tweaking, I came up with the recipe below and excitedly pulled out my heavy food processor. I was honestly surprised and completely thrilled with the end result: a chewy, sweet-tart, chocolatey bite that I could feel good about eating. I quit the light ice cream that had an ingredient list full of words I couldn’t pronounce, and replaced it with a mindlessly easy recipe full of healthy, recognizable foods. Win.
I told my husband he could keep his caramels; I was no longer interested.
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A dozen healthy takes on the humble chickpea.
 My lunch today. This version includes roasted corn from Trader Joe's. Yum! I amazed my friends over the weekend when I let it slip that I’ve eaten the same thing for lunch pretty much every day for the past year. And no, I’m not remotely bored with it.
What is this magical dish, you ask? A chickpea salad. More specifically: a salad with chickpeas, tomatoes, quinoa (or brown rice) and baby spinach, topped with cumin, lemon juice and a light drizzle of olive oil. It’s amazing for three reasons: I can throw it together in less than five minutes, the ingredients are super cheap, and it doesn’t wilt or get soggy, even though I make it in the morning and eat it five hours later. Oh, and this salad is ridiculously filling, too, so there’s that.
Of course, whether or not you like my salad hinges on whether or not you like chickpeas. I can’t get enough of them (clearly), so this is just fine by me. And it’s a good thing, too: the half cup I eat in my salad every day lends about 7 grams of protein and 6 grams of fiber to my daily intake.
If you’re a chickpea lover like me, here are 12 other recipes in which garbanzos play a starring role.
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The taste and colors of summer in a warm, hearty stew—all for less than 230 calories.
We’re right around that time when the itch for spring is palpable. At school, the kids are wearing shorts (even though it’s still 50 degrees!) and the spring sports teams are in full swing. All of a sudden, the wintry comfort food seems dreary but the grill is still stored away—I call this culinary limbo.
This Mexican quinoa stew is brightly colored and studded with the promise of summer; green cilantro and creamy avocado present a “think-spring” meal while the spices, potatoes and hearty quinoa warm the bones and fill up the tummy. I love a dish that makes double-digit servings, as the leftovers can serve double duty as lunch for a few days. Plus, lots of food for a low number of calories (just 224!) can also help you get ready for the impending bathing-suit season.
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Add something extra to your food (and we're not talking about calories).
 Let’s be honest for a second. Sometimes eating healthy can get a little, um, boring. And if you’re not careful, your meals can end up downright bland. So what do you do to spice things up? You add a little sauce here, a little dressing there. No harm, no foul … right?
Wrong. All these extras can seriously add up—we’re talking a hundred or more calories before you even know it. If you’re looking to make a smarter sauce, we can help. Check out our roundup of 19 sauce and dressing recipes that will add some great flavor to your dishes without breaking the scale.
Italian-Inspired Sauces and Dressings
Salsa Palermitana
via Eating Well
This palermo-style sauce is the perfect topping to any pasta or roasted fish entrée.
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Need an easy, healthy dinner idea for tonight? Look no further.
I’m usually pretty wary of the word “creamy” when it comes to food. More often than not, it signals a splurge-worthy dessert or pasta dish typically reserved for the no-no list. So I wondered: Is it possible to create a yummy, creamy chicken dinner that’s low-cal and low-fat to boot?
Yes, friends, it’s possible. I paired this tasty dijon chicken with brown rice and steamed broccoli for a nutritious weeknight meal and made a mental note to stash this no-fail recipe away for company. Even better, the total prep and cook time for this entree is just 20 minutes. But you can totally tell your guests you slaved away for hours—I won’t tell.
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A study that's rocking the Internet today found that eating more fish, nuts and olive oil could seriously cut your heart-attack risk.
 Wow, this is pretty crazy: A large new study published on the New England Journal of Medicine’s website today found that sticking to a Mediterranean diet—that is, one rich in fish, nuts, olive oil, beans, fruits and veggies—can cut your risk for heart attack, heart disease and stroke by as much as 30 percent. Reports the New York Times: “The study ended early, after almost five years, because the results were so clear it was considered unethical to continue.” Say it with me, folks: Daaaang.
People are kind of freaking out over this study for three reasons: 1) it was huge, involving 7,447 people who were randomly assigned to follow either a Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one; 2) researchers intentionally used subjects who were either overweight, had diabetes, smoked or demonstrated other risk factors for heart disease; and 3) it took place in Spain, rather than a Mediterranean country, where previous studies on the diet have been conducted, weakening the linkage between the Mediterranean diet and good health (critics say the good results in those studies could have been attributed to a variety of factors).
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