What’s Cooking this Thanksgiving? More American’s are Choosing Healthy Side Dishes

It’s no secret Thanksgiving provides a bountiful feast, but it doesn’t have to leave you lethargic and loosening your belt a notch. 

More and more we hear about ways to stay healthy and avoid excess weight by cutting back on sugar and processed foods.  Exercising and trying to decrease stress in order to minimize inflammation helps prevent chronic illnesses and autoimmune disease. 

Things like diabetes, anxiety, depression, ADHD, high blood pressure and other cardiac diseases can all be reversed when you begin a whole food regime and improve other aspects of your life.

You are what you eat!  According to Google searches by state, American’s choose “veggies” as a popular Thanksgiving side dish.  People are searching for new and exciting ways to prepare vegetables such as sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, butternut squash, green beans, and mushrooms. 

This is encouraging and says that more people are getting the essential nutritional benefits out of their side dishes with less calories.  

Traditionally, casseroles are one of the most popular side dishes, which tend to be high in heavy cream, butter and cheese, adding unwanted calories resulting in extra pounds.  

Recipes that call for roasting and sauteing a variety of real whole vegetables rather than whipping and drenching in high calorie cream and cheese will help to move people’s health in a positive direction in 2020.  

Other popular U.S. searches includes dressing and stuffing. Dressing seems to be the descriptor for southern states whereas stuffing is preferred in New York, and other northern areas of the country. 

So what’s the difference between dressing and stuffing? The ingredients are pretty much the same. The difference is that dressing is prepared in a pan where as stuffing is used to stuff a turkey or some other foods such as mushrooms, or squash.  

Either way you like it, the good news is that both dressing and stuffing also have vegetables, such as onion, celery and seasoning made up of herbs and spices. 

Starting your holiday season with healthy habits and more vegetables can help to avoid those unwanted pounds in 2020 and help prevent disease. 

There are more than 30 days until the end of the year. It only takes 21 days to create a new habit, so why not start now, and choose a uniquely healthy side dish for all your holiday meals.  

Every body is unique and so too should be your approach to food and your health. Need help getting started with a healthy and happy 2020? Learn about my programs or call me at 518-221-9923.