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Leveling-Up Your Takeout And Prepared Food

Do you feel stuck ordering from the same take-out menu over and over again? Do you sacrifice taste for the convenience of prepared grocery store items? If you’re ready to spice things up a bit, here are our tips and tricks for leveling-up your takeout and prepared foods at home!

Our Favorite Tip:

One thing we have found helpful for enhancing our food is keeping a bunch of green onions, cilantro, sprouts, and a bag of spinach in our fridge constantly. You can add more flavor and nutrients to any of your take-out items such as soups, burritos, pizza, Thai food, and more. Learn more below on how to add flavor to specific dishes!

Level-Up Delivery Pizza:

  • Top your pizza with cheese and order thin crust if possible.
  • Add sliced onions, mushrooms, peppers, olives, and/or tomatoes to your order.
  • From your fridge at home, you can add thinly sliced basil and fresh spinach after your pizza has been delivered. You can even make a salad to go with your pizza!

Level-Up Soups and Pasta Sauces:

  • When the soup or pasta sauce is still hot, take a handful of spinach and toss it in your bowl. The heat will wilt the spinach, causing it to easily mix in, adding a hint of greens to your meal!

Level-Up Your Favorite Take-Out Orders:

  • When ordering Thai food and noodles, try doubling the vegetables.
  • Half the cheese but double the vegetables on your next delivery pizza.
  • Try your favorite burrito with half the cheese to create a mostly bean filling. Then add fajita vegetables if available.
  • Instead of using mayo, try using fiber-rich hummus and/or avocado as a spread on your next sandwich. Don’t forget extra delicious vegetables.
  • Mix a handful of seeds or nuts, olives, and/or avocado into your next salad.

Leveling-up your favorite takeout and prepared food orders is as easy as that. The next time you are wanting to spice up your daily meals, use some of these tips and tricks!

Spice Up Your Fall

As the weather becomes cooler, it is helpful to transition your diet to incorporate certain spices that support circulation, digestion and overall well-being. VEBA Resource Center’s Holistic Practitioner, Dr. V, explains four spices to incorporate into our food and tea during the Fall season.

Ginger – In small amounts, ginger can be used regularly to tonify and strengthen digestion.  Large amounts of ginger, whether as tea or in food, can induce sweating to help move out a cold.

Nutmeg and Cloves – Not only are these spices delicious but they can strengthen the digestive system, and keep the body warm. Add these spices to vegetable stews, coffee or baked goods to reap the benefits this fall.

Cinnamon – A super spice, cinnamon has antioxidant, antidiabetic and antibacterial properties. Feeling a cold coming on?  Add cinnamon and nutmeg to a little black coffee or a pumpkin latte, go for a walk, and then sweat it out.

Pumpkin Spice – Create your own pumpkin spice this fall by combining ginger, nutmeg, clove and cinnamon together. This combination of sweet, hot, and pungent will liven your tea, coffee and baked goods. 

Be sure to use these spices in moderation, as too much may cause you to overheat.  But when used in balance, they disperse toxins from the body and to circulate our metabolism, blood and fluids. They also help relieve excess fullness and stimulate vitality. 

Watch our “Fall Spices” video on YouTube and check out our Fall Wellness Series for more tips on boosting your overall health this season.

5 Ayurvedic Tips for Fall

Have you ever noticed that in the fall your routine naturally changes, you crave certain foods (hello pumpkin spice EVERYTHING) and your overall mood changes? You are not imagining this — fall is a natural time of transition. The season brings with it a drier, windier and cooler environment which makes it a good time to practice Ayurveda, an ancient system of wellness that dates back 5,000 years ago. Ayurveda focuses on whole, mind body wellness not just your physical body but your mental, spiritual, emotional and vibrational health. The VRC offers five Ayurvedic wellness tips for a balanced and healthy fall season.

  1. Enjoy Nature. As the sun sets earlier, it’s important to get out in nature as much as possible. Try and make time to get into nature every day. Keep it simple. Take a drive and find a place where the leaves change colors so you can witness fall in action. Pick apples or head to a pumpkin patch. Go for a long walk with your dog or children on trails or on the beach.
  2. Surround Yourself in the Colors of Fall. Colors like red, orange, yellow and even white help to pacify some of the emotional effects from fall such as unsettledness, nervousness and anxiousness. These colors help settle anxiety and balance our emotional qualities to help us get through the fall. So, whether it’s the clothes that you wear or the decor in your classroom or home, be sure to incorporate the colors of fall to help your emotional well-being.
  3. Eat Earlier and Sleep Sooner. Follow the rhythms of natures. As the sun sets earlier, so do our internal organs. When the sun goes down, our bodies follow the circadian rhythm. Eating before the sun goes down and getting to bed earlier than you would in the summer, allows the internal body to be in rhythm with nature.
  4. Create a Morning Wellness Routine. As the seasons transition to fall and winter, create a new morning routine to help boost your overall health and well-being. Get up a little bit earlier to ground yourself with breathing exercises or a self-oil face massage. Take the dog or your kids for a walk before sitting down for breakfast to get your blood flowing.
  5.  Minimize Dry Foods. Try to minimize dry foods like popcorn, nuts, dried meat and dried fruits. Minimize salads and instead invite warmth and spice into your diet. Minimize caffeine and other stimulants to keep you grounded and whole during the fall months.

Watch these tips in our video here, and for more videos on staying healthy this fall, check out our Fall Wellness Series playlist.

Simple Breakfast Tips to Keep You Fueled & Focused

Some consider breakfast as the most important meal of the day. Start your day off right with a simple, healthy breakfast to keep you fueled and focused. VEBA’s Chef Leslie Myers offers simple breakfast tips to keep you going all day long.

  1. Have Ingredients on Hand: Every week when you meal prep, don’t just think about dinner, think about breakfast, too. Be sure to have eggs available as those can be used for almost any breakfast recipe but also add turkey bacon, whole wheat English muffins, chopped veggies and low-fat cheese to your list. If you eat dairy, don’t forget the milk (if you don’t eat dairy, buy a milk alternative).
  2. Add More Vegetables: Instead of ‘avoiding this or that’, try adding in more vegetables. Try and get a variety of colors: red peppers, green peppers, white onions, green scallions, white mushrooms, etc. to include with your omelet or breakfast skillet.
  3. Change Up the Spices & Add-Ins: Even if you use the same main ingredients every day — eggs and vegetables — you can change up the spices and add-ins to create a new taste. You can change from cumin to garam masala to oregano and basil for a new taste every day. Then, if you change up your add-ins, like avocados for omelettes or pumpkin seeds and granola for your yogurt, you’ll have something new to try.
  4. Don’t Overthink It: Your mornings are already busy enough. Save the massive breakfast feast for the weekends, and focus on creating quick, healthy breakfasts for your family. An egg omelet with whole wheat toast or a yogurt “parfait” with fresh fruit and granola are the perfect ways to start your day.
  5. Eat Together as a Family: Who says dinner is the only time to eat together as a family? This may not be possible but if it is, give it a try. You don’t need to do it every day — maybe you designate certain days your kids have to roll out of bed earlier to sit with the family — but it will be worth it. 

Breakfast is a must, and making sure everyone is fueled and fed for a focused day is so important. For breakfast recipe ideas, check out VEBA Resource Center’s library of recipes.

Healthy Living Tips to Promote Health for You and Your Family: Part 2

Connecting, Cleaning & Consideration

Living a healthier lifestyle is more than just eating well and exercising. It’s also important to take care of your mind and spirit. With so much information available, it’s sometimes hard to know where to start. In Healthy Living Tips to Promote Health for You and Your Family: Part 1, Dr. Angie Neison, Co-Medical Director of VEBA, shared tips on how to make small adjustments to help you, your family and even the planet!

In part two of this healthy living series, you’ll learn ways you can use food to create memories, keep your gut happy and unleash your superpower! Read on for five more tips to easily maintain a healthy lifestyle!

Healthy Living Tip #6: Connect Through Food

Did you know that food can connect you with loved ones? Whether it’s getting together for a meal with extended family or baking a cake with your kids, some of the most fond memories people share with loved ones centers around food. Choose ways you can use your kitchen to increase family bonds and become more healthy! 

While your kids are home, invite them into the kitchen to help prepare a meal. Little ones can toss together a salad while older children can measure out ingredients for your recipes. If that’s not possible, just try to eat one meal a day without devices — it can be breakfast, lunch or dinner! If THAT’S not possible, aim for at least one device-free dinner together one or two times a week. 

Healthy Living Tip #7: Feed Your Microbiomes

Learn to love and feed your microbiome. Our microbiome is our gut bacteria, and it is tied to prevention of chronic disease, allergies and immunity. It has been shown, according to Dr. Neison, that the microbiome thrives on fiber — it LOVES fiber. It has been shown that the healthiest microbiomes have traces of 30 different plants consumed in a week. Keep your gut happy by eating more plants!

Healthy Living Tip #8: Limiting Sugar

Be kind to your body by limiting excess sugars — especially in sugar-sweetened beverages. The American Heart Association recommends limiting sugar in adults to 6-9 teaspoons of added sugar per day. But did you know that the average American consumes 20 teaspoons a day? Rethink your drink. Stick to water — flavor your water with fruit or citrus. 

Healthy Living Tip #9: Mindfulness

Make mindfulness and awareness your superpower. When you walk into a supermarket, be aware that you are the target of marketing. Vegetables don’t have fancy labels even though they should! They should say: high in fiber, low in calories, high in nutrients, vitamins and minerals, anti-cancer, anti-diabetes, anti-heart disease.

Be mindful of when your body, mind and spirit need nourishment. Having an indulgence every once in a while is ok — but you should know when you are stress eating, or compensating with food. Take note of when you reach for a snack and ask yourself if you are tired, need water or maybe just need to move a little. Breathe deeply for a few minutes every day to help keep a clear mind.

Healthy Living Tip #10: Rest

None of the Top 10 Healthy Living Tips would be possible without sleep. One of the most important gifts you can give your healing body is sleep and rest. Aim for eight hours of sleep per night, and consider other activities that allow you to reset and rest your brain. Activities like meditation, reading, cleaning, listening to music or crafting will help your brain reset. Even having a light-hearted, positive conversation with a friend gives your brain a break. Consider combining activities to give your mind a rest, like gardening while listening to podcast or taking a walk in nature and then end with some meditation.

Healthy Living Tips Videos & Resources: