Building a Heart Healthy Plate
This topic has been updated. Please read our February 2024 highlights for the latest information.
Get the basics, or sharpen your skills, around nutrition. This month we will outline the foundation for heart healthy nutrition: guidelines that’s helpful for everyone. Understand best choices when it comes to ingredients and why those choices benefit you immediately and long-term. A healthy nutrition lifestyle doesn’t have to be boring or bland.
Important Education Takeaways
Build a balanced plate. Make ½ of each meal colorful produce, ¼ lean protein, and ¼ whole grain or starch.
Choose heart healthy fats and oils. Aim to eat fish twice a week and opt for mostly plant-based fats such as olive oil, nuts, seeds and avocados.
Focus on fresh and minimally processed foods to get more nutrient value from your diet. Minimizing added sodium and sugar.
Eat more plants. That’s right, the more fiber-rich plant foods the better!
Strive to include a variety of colorful fruits and veggies, hearty whole grains, pulses, nuts, and seeds. Pulses include dry peas, beans, chickpeas, and lentils
Recipes
Recipe of the month: Enjoy-a-Bowl
As always, this recipe is the showcase of our live taught, virtual cooking class. Our chef and registered dietitian bring the recipe to life as they walk you through food prep, swaps to meet dietary or taste preferences, plus tips and tools to support you being your own healthy chef at home.
Bonus recipe: Cashew Cream Tomato Sauce
From Jamie’s kitchen to yours, our monthly bonus recipes are published on our website and social media the 4th Wednesday of each month. We invite you to browse our recipe collection and come back often to find more flavorful and heart-healthy recipes.
We invite you to join us for the live taught, virtual nutrition classes each month to gather more information on our nutrition topics. This is also an opportunity to ask topic-related questions of our experts as well as connect socially with attendees for idea sharing. As a registered participant for our In the Kitchen program, you receive a few reminders ahead of each scheduled monthly classes, but here’s an easy to remember schedule: Nutrition Education (30-minutes, 2nd Wednesday, 12pm), Cooking Class (up to 60-minutes, 3rd Monday, 12pm).
Contributing authors: Kayla Guillory, MS, RD, CDCES, diabetes educator, Providence Community Teaching Kitchen; Jamie Libera, RD, LD, CCTD, registered dietitian, Providence.