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Keep your ticker happy and healthy with these five ways to boost your evening meal.
Steak and salad is a quick and easy choice on busy weeknights. With a few simple tweaks, you can turn this run-of-the-mill meal into one that’s bursting with heart-healthy goodness.
+ MORE PLANT PROTEINS
Health-giving legumes like beans, chickpeas and lentils are jam-packed with plant-based protein and heart-healthy fibre.
- Add: A quarter of a cup of canned chickpeas to your side salad. While you’re at it, swap your T-bone steak for a small, lean rump steak for a more balanced protein portion and 18g less harmful saturated fat.
+ MORE VEGIES
To help reach your five-plus serves a day, fill half of your plate with vegetables. Aim for a variety of coloured veg for their disease-fighting antioxidants.
- Add: Five cherry tomatoes, half a cucumber and a quarter of a capsicum to your green salad for an extra two-and-a-half serves of veg. Added bonus: this amount of capsicum contains your entire day’s needs of vitamin C.
+ MORE FLAVOUR
Butter and store-bought dressings add stacks of flavour — along with unhealthy saturated fat and sodium.
- Add: Fresh herbs to the pan while cooking your steak in olive oil, and swap store-bought dressing for a drizzle of flavoursome balsamic vinegar. This will reduce the sodium content of your meal by around 250mg, or 13 per cent of your daily maximum intake.
+ MORE GRAINY GOODNESS
White bread has a high GI: the carbohydrates break down quickly and your blood sugars spike. Grainy breads have a lower GI, so the carbohydrates are digested slower and your blood sugars gently rise and fall, which leaves you feeling more satisfied.
- Swap: White dinner roll for a grainy one. This simple swap contains twice the fibre.
+ MORE HEALTHY FATS
Enjoying healthy unsaturated fats in place of unhealthy saturated fats improves your cholesterol profile. Good fats are found in olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds and oily fish, while saturated fats are found in butter, fatty meats and pastries.
- Swap: Butter for olive oil when cooking your steak. Try adding avocado to your dinner roll, too.
Heart healthy dinner
Small lean rump steak cooked with thyme and olive oil, served with a grainy dinner roll with ¼ avocado, and a salad made of rocket, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum and chickpeas dressed in balsamic vinegar
Per serve: 1899kJ (454cal), 31.3g protein, 21.3g fat, 4.2g sat fat, 27.6g carbs, 8.6g sugar, 11.9g fibre, 437mg sodium
For more advice on heart health, we recommend: 12 steps to a healthier heart or Measuring heart health
www.healthyfood.com
