Ever since I have been married and in charge of the meal-planning in my home, I have been concerned about the food I prepare. Just like all of you, I want the best for my family, so I have been on a quest to make Healthy Dinners. In conjunction, I try to collect healthy breakfast ideas, healthy lunch ideas, and ideas for healthy snacks for kids.

There’s no mistake in cooking healthy food if you hand-pick your recipes every day, but I don’t think that is very realistic. Most of us have kids or jobs and lots and lots of other things on our mind. I have incorporated different habits in my shopping and meal preparation that have helped me ensure that my family is filling their Five-A-Day quota from the healthy food pyramid.

Here are a few rules that keep us on track:

• Keep fruit on hand that has a long shelf life, like apples and oranges. I just make sure I have 5 to 10 of these at all times, then I can guarantee that there is a healthy choice available when one of us is hungry at off-times.
• Buy high fiber, whole wheat bread. We always refrigerate our bread. It lasts much longer than if it sits on the counter. Also, bread freezes pretty well, but I try not to have it in there longer than three months, to prevent freezer burn.
• I shop about once a week, so I can stock up on veggies to eat with dinner. When I walk through the produce section, I base my meals on what’s on sale. For example, if broccoli is an amazing price, I will plan to make broccoli and potato soup, or maybe chicken and broccoli. If I don’t feel like making a meal out of it, I’ll get it anyway because I know I can nuke it to make a very easy side dish vegetable to serve with ANY dinner that week.
• Keep fresh fruits and veggies to eat with meals, as mentioned above. Some that our family likes are: grapes, cut up peaches, cantaloupe, fresh spinach with dip, sliced cucumbers, bananas, bell peppers with dip, etc.
• When frozen veggies are on sale, buy a bunch. Here’s what our family usually keeps on hand in our freezer: corn, peas, mixed veggies, brussel sprouts, lima beans, soy beans, broccoli/cauliflower mix.
• Buy cuts of meat that are easy and healthy. I only buy these on sale, then I stock up: boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pork loin, extra lean ground beef, turkey breast, round or loin beef, lean beef roast or pork roast.
• Here are some of the fridge items we keep on hand that I can always use for a meal. We try to avoid buying one-use items for one recipe: yogurt, tortillas, light Miracle Whip, olive oil mayo, ketchup, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salsa, cheddar cheese, low-fat margarine.
• Finally here are some of the pantry items we keep on hand, that I know are healthy and I make meals with: white rice, brown rice, oatmeal, boxes of whole grain cereal, dried beans of all kinds, popcorn, peanut butter, olive oil, wheat pasta.

So I hope this will help you learn some tricks to “throw together” some healthy dinners for your own family! If you would like to follow my website, I am blogging about some of the meals I actually make with these ingredients. My site is listed below. I hope the info above, however, will set you on the right track to keeping your family fit and healthy!

Lisa Abercrombie is a mother of three boys who tries to keep her family’s meals healthy every day. Her husband has jumped on the bandwagon and helps her with ideas in creating some pretty healthy dinners for her site.