March is National Nutrition Month and a great time to get your fridge working to keep you healthy.  "Taking a look at the foods inside your refrigerator is like taking a look inside your heart and your health," says Debra R. Judelson, M.D., a cardiologist in Beverly Hills, Calif.  Dr. Judelson offers the following suggestions on how to reorganize your fridge to support a healthy diet.
Get organized

• Take stock of what's inside. Once a month, pull everything out and separate the better-for-you foods from the rest.
• Make sure you have more low-fat, high-fiber, and low-sugar foods than other types. If not, gradually adjust the number of not-so-good foods and increase the number of healthy foods.
• Organize by "more" and "less." Divide your refrigerator into different sections of "choose more often" and "choose less often." This could be by shelf or within the shelf, always keeping more healthy foods up front and less healthy foods toward the back.
• "Choose more often" foods include fresh fruits and vegetables; lean meat, poultry and fish; low-fat yogurt and skim or 1 percent milk; low-fat soft or squeeze margarine, salad dressing and mayonnaise; and low-fat frozen foods.
• "Choose less often" foods include fatty cuts of meat and bacon; breaded and fried foods; whole-fat milk or 2 percent dairy foods; regular salad dressing; sugar-based soft drinks; creamy dips; and high-fat frozen foods.

Shelf appeal

• Make healthy food appealing. Keep a food you would love to indulge in next to a healthy food to make it more appetizing. For example, put the chocolate syrup beside the skim milk, ready to be mixed together.
• Make a healthy grocery-shopping list and stick to it. Your "no brainer" list should include lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, plain 1 percent fat yogurt, turkey bacon or Canadian bacon, 100 percent whole wheat bread or other whole-grain bread, skinless chicken, and lean ground beef.
• "Taking time to plan your family's meals and snacks from the point of view of health and taste will help lower their cholesterol and blood pressure and reduce their risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes," says Dr. Judelson.
• Freeze fruits such as bananas, grapes and orange slices to make them more fun and easy to eat. When your children want a sweet snack, offer them frozen fruit rather than ice cream.

"Making these and other changes in the foods you buy and how you store them can improve your family's health," says Dr. Judelson. "Making small changes is much more effective than trying to implement a total dietary overhaul all at once. One key goal is to reduce your intake of saturated fat and cholesterol to help lower or keep blood cholesterol in check."

Learn More

visit www.eatright.org or www.mypyramid.gov for more information on healthy eating.

Article Source:  Vitality Magazine, July 2005 by Barbara Floria.