Lifestyle

6 Food Hacks to Eat Healthier in 2015

By Cristina Girod at University of California — Los Angeles

Haven’t fulfilled your New Years resolution of eating well? Yeah, me neither. But with these food substitutions, you’ll be able to eat healthier without sacrificing your favorite meals.

Start the year off right:

1. When making breakfast at home…

Try switching your regular yogurt with Greek yogurt. This may sound like an small solution, but Greek yogurt has many more health benefits— it’s high in protein and has way less carbs and sodium than regular yogurt.

2. When having breakfast out…

Don’t give up breakfast omelettes quite yet. Instead, ask for egg whites and spinach. Substituting eggs with egg whites saves you about 100 calories and 373 mg of cholesterol (one serving of egg whites is ~50 calories versus the usual ~155 calories). Adding spinach also packs in a lot of essential vitamins to start your day off right.

3. When making lunch at home…

Stick to whole wheat or whole grain bread in your sandwich. Instead of using mayonnaise, try mashed avocados. They’re a great source of fiber and potassium and although avocados have a high fat content, since it’s a good fat it actually helps lower your cholesterol (Fun Tip: Avocados can also be used as a substitute for butter or oil when baking.)

4. When having lunch out…

Order a salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing.  Not all salads are healthy, and the usual culprit is the fattening dressing. Olive oil has been found to lower your risk for heart disease, so this light and healthy substitution is the way to go.

5. When making dinner at home…

Try organic black bean pasta instead of normal bleached pasta. Black beans are Superfoods packed with protein and they lack the heavy carbs of regular pasta. Plus, you can hardly even taste the difference.

6. When ordering dinner out…

Substitute white rice with brown rice (or no rice at all!). White rice is refined brown rice, meaning it is stripped of its iron, zinc, magnesium, and other nutrients. Although it’s hard to tell, one sushi roll has a cup of rice and this small substitution will make your meal a lot healthier.

With these simple substitutions, start eating healthier this year.