Meatless Monday: Heart Healthy Diet

One Step At a Time...

You Can Go Meatless

For All Three Meals

Eating a Heart-Healthy Diet

Eating a heart-healthy plant-based diet, limiting your sources of animal fat and reducing processed food helps prevent heart disease, heart attacks and strokes. Cardiac dietician Christine Bond explains the three main components to a heart-healthy diet.

Eat plenty of fiber
Fiber helps keep your cholesterol controlled and lowers bad cholesterol. It also helps you feel full, which is important for weight control. Maintaining a healthy weight is another part to having a heart healthy diet.

Choose your fats wisely
The healthiest fats are plant based, such as avocados, nuts and seeds; nut butters, including peanut butter and almond butter; and healthy cooking oils, for instance, olive, peanut and canola oils. Fish is also an excellent source of healthy fat.

Limit your sodium intake
Too much sodium can raise blood pressure, contribute to fluid retention and increase your risk for heart attack and stroke. Adults should not consume more than 2,300 mg of sodium per day. Most of the sodium we consume is in the form of salt, and the highest amount of sodium is found in processed and restaurant foods.

Healthy Meatless Recipe:

Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas

(adapted from The Roasted Vegetable by Andrea Chesman)

Ingredient:

• 1 poblano chile, cut into matchsticks
• 
 2 red bell peppers, cut into matchsticks
• 
 1/2 head of cauliflower, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
• 1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 1 1/2 cups
• 
 1 medium onion, halved and slivered

• 1 cup corn kernels, fresh or frozen

• 3 T heat-safe oil like grapeseed or coconut

• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 
 2 garlic cloves, minced

• salt and black pepper
• 
 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 
 2 cups homemade or store bought salsa/pico de gallo

• 2 ounces baby spinach leaves (about 2 big handfuls)
• 
 9-10 corn tortillas, halved (try making homemade tortillas!)
• 
 2 cups shredded cheese (I used a cheddar-Monterey Jack blend)

• sour cream and thinly sliced scallions (green onions) for garnish, if desired

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly oil a large shallow roasting pan or rimmed cookie sheet.

Place poblanos, red bell peppers, cauliflower, sweet potato, onion, and corn kernels onto cookie sheet. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle the cumin and minced garlic over top. Add a generous pinch or two of salt and black pepper, then use your hands to mix everything together. After everything is coated well, spread the vegetables evenly in the pan. Roast for 30-40 minutes until vegetables are tender and begin to brown in spots. Stir or shake the pan every 10 minutes for even roasting. Remove pan from oven and reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F.

Prepare an 8x8x2 or 9x9x2-inch square baking pan with nonstick spray. In a small bowl, stir the cilantro into the salsa. Spread 1/4 cup of salsa into the bottom of the baking pan. Add a layer of tortilla pieces, to completely cover the salsa. Top with 1/3 of the vegetables, a handful of spinach, and 1/3 of the cheese. Make a second layer of tortilla, salsa, vegetables, spinach, and cheese. Top with with a layer of tortillas, salsa, vegetables, and cheese. Cover with aluminum foil.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, until cheese is melted and everything is heated through.

Let it sit for 5 minutes and cut into squares. Serve with sour cream and a sprinkle of sliced scallions. Serves 4-5.

Enjoy and Bon Appetit!

Healthy Weekly Motivator:

Cut Your Meat Consumption

Eating large amounts of red meat and processed meat (like bacon, deli meats, and hot dogs) has been linked to an increase in colon, rectal, and prostate cancer.

Excessive meat consumption can also lead to other preventable diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

This week, start off with a Meatless Monday. See if you can swap red and processed meats for leaner sources of protein like beans, lentils or tofu.

Have a great week everyone and remember a better tomorrow starts with what you eat today!

Do you have a favorite meatless recipe you would like to share with us? Send it my way!

Wishing you health and wellness from the inside out,

Lisa

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" The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."

~Thomas A. Edison ~