We’re offering a Winter Special: Sign up today and you’ll get the course for $19.99 – 50% off the original price of $39.99.

To give you a taste of a recipe on the cooking course, we have unlocked this Roasted Carrot and White Bean Soup just for you. This dish also happens to be one of our most popular recipes on TikTok with more than 1.1 million views!

https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeetofficial/video/6852278307744910597

Why This Roasted Carrot and White Bean Soup is Healthy:

Carrots and celery are packed with vitamins and turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory spice and can help with reducing inflammation and aid in digestive concerns.

Why It Works for Weight Loss:

One serving of navy beans provides 19 grams of fiber, which is more than half of the recommended daily value of fiber for women (which is 25 grams according to the USDA) and exactly half of what men need (38 grams a day for men according to the USDA).

Notes: 

Leftovers: Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 4 days, or freeze for up to 6 months.

Serving Size: One serving is approximately 2 cups.

No Immersion Blender:  Use a regular blender instead, ensuring there is a place in the lid for the steam to escape.

Carrot Tip:  If using different-sized carrots, aim for about 0.5 lb. of carrots per serving.

No Carrots: Use sweet potato instead.

Add Toppings: Greek yogurt, avocado, roasted vegetables, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, cinnamon, or extra turmeric.

Nutrition: Calories 426; Fat 13; Carbs 67g; Fiber 23g; Sugar 18g; Protein 16g; Cholesterol 0mg; Sodium 887mg; Vitamin A 46529IU; Vitamin C 22mg; Calcium 269mg; Iron 7mg

The post The Beet’s Plant-Based Diet Recipe: Roasted Carrot and White Bean Soup appeared first on The Beet.

We all know that fad diets don’t last. That’s not what this is – this is the start of a lifestyle change for you. We’ve developed this plan as a way to teach you how to create balanced, plant-based meals, learn valuable meal prep skills, and help you achieve your weight loss goals.

Get The Beet’s Plant-Based Diet in a beautiful e-Book to download, print, and keep handy!

Your password to open the ebook is: “GoVeganGetHealthy2022”

Instead of sharing the e-Book with friends (since they won’t have access to all the great content online) have them sign up for The Beet’s Plant-Based Diet and do it together. They will get all the daily newsletters, expert tips, and helpful online support that you get.

Enter to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!

How to win: Invite a friend to join The Beet’s Plant-Based Diet, tag your friend on The Beet’s Instagram account – and both sign up for the diet. When we see that you are both signed up and tagged on our IG post, you’re both entered to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card and a tote bag from The Beet. (Both you and your friend have to be in the program for you to win your gift cards and tote bags.)

Get all access to The Beet’s Plant-Based Diet on your phone or computer, anytime!

Here is Everything You Need to Succeed at Your Weight Loss Goals

Each of these meals is designed to provide approximately 1,500 calories a day, with about 65 to 80 grams of protein each day! This amount of protein will help you maintain lean muscle mass and keep you full. Your micronutrient needs are also being met with this meal plan, including iron–which can be especially hard to meet on a plant-based diet.

The only vitamin that you will need to boost when following this meal plan is a vitamin D3 supplement and vitamin B12. As a Registered Dietitian, I don’t just want you to cut calories, I want you to eat nutrient-rich, whole foods, so that you are satisfied and energized!

This plan will work for you and you don’t have to work to fit it! You won’t feel deprived and you will want to stick with it. This is why it will be the foundation for sustainable results for a healthy, lean body now and in the future.

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Meet the Creators, an Accomplished RD with the Editors of The Beet

Nicole Osinga is a Registered Dietitian with the College of Dietitians of Ontario, holding a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Human Nutrition. She provides personalized, evidence-based nutrition solutions for her clients and audience.

“Eat real, whole foods. Eat mostly plants,” she says. “Focus on the texture, taste and quality of the food; don’t get hung up on calories or points. Nourish your body instead of restricting yourself. Prepare most of your food yourself.”

Nicole creates personalized strategies for her clients, to help them achieve their nutrition and health goals. She also provides meal plans that fit her clients’ lifestyles, encouraging them to prep meals in advance. Nicole has an encouraging, motivational, and understanding approach.

The Beet is your all-in-one guide to a  plant-based diet for the sake of your health, the planet, and animals, covering health news, the culture, recipes, weight loss,  product news, and disease prevention through a plant-based diet. Edited by Lucy Danziger, former Editor-in-Chief of SELF magazine, The Beet takes an inclusive approach, welcoming anyone who wants to get further along on their plant-based journey. The Beet turned to Nicole as the perfect partner to create  The Beet’s Plant-Based Diet.

How to Be Successful: Start With Some Simple Meal Prep

To set yourself up for success, I recommend that you do a little bit of meal prep. With this plan, you receive a grocery list for the recipes of the week. I would recommend doing your grocery shopping on a day other than the one you chose for your bigger meal prep. This is simply to prevent feeling overwhelmed.

I recommend you choose one day a week where you do a bigger prep. For me, it’s Sunday, but it doesn’t have to be for you. Use that day to create lunch and dinner meals from Monday- Wednesday. You can do another one or two small preps throughout the week for later lunch and dinner recipes.

Breakfast recipes can be made in advance (such as with the overnight oats) or the morning of. Snack recipes can be prepped in advance or the morning of as well, depending on time.

If you would rather not meal prep in batches, you don’t have to! You can simply follow the meal plans, cooking each day. However, I’ve found that the people who have the most success with the plan do some form of meal prepping to set themselves up for success. Happy Prepping!

If you want to get alerts from the Editors download The Beet’s free app!

Remember to join The Plant-Based Diet Group on The Beet’s Facebook page for support, updates, and live visits from the editors and experts.

Happy, healthy Plant-Based Dieting to you!  Be in touch. We want to hear from you!

– Lucy & Nicole

The post Welcome to <em>The Beet’s</em> Plant-Based Diet, The Natural Way to Lose Weight appeared first on The Beet.

First, know your personal weight-loss style. Perhaps you’re trying a weight loss meal plan, like The Beet’s Plant-Based Diet, or you are simply eating less junk food and more weight loss-friendly meals (hello, endless non-starchy veggies!).

If weight loss is a New Year’s resolution of yours, what happens over the next few weeks is the key to your long-term success. (Almost every study tells us that about 80 percent of resolutions will get abandoned in February.) Instead of over-restricting your diet, and then allowing yourself to backslide into bad habits, there are ways to keep the healthy weight loss going and keep it off. Here are six tips to help you maintain weight loss, over the long term, from a registered dietitian.

How to Maintain Weight Loss On a Plant-Based Diet

1. Enjoy Your Food

If you search for the ‘best diet for weight loss’ you will get many different answers. All these diets are basically designed to put you in a calorie deficit – which will lead to weight loss – however if you don’t like what you are eating, you won’t maintain that weight loss.

If a diet is designed to restrict you from your favorite foods, you will be miserable and there is no way that you will stick to it long-term. Too much restriction may also cause you to binge on your favorite foods on a later day, and lead to a hard-to-escape restriction and binge cycle.

2. Experiment With New Vegetables

Expanding from the first tip, the one thing that all weight-loss diets have in common is that it’s recommended to eat a lot of vegetables. Vegetables are nutrient powerhouses, providing fullness and energy, with a low-calorie count. Try to load half of your plate with veggies at each meal –– this may seem daunting, but it gets easier the more you experiment with new types of vegetables or prepare your favorite types of vegetables in new ways.

Try adding some riced cauliflower to your bowls or in your smoothies. Make a zucchini or eggplant lasagna. Scramble up a bunch of veggies and add to your tofu scramble –– the possibilities are endless! The more you experiment with different types of veggies and preparation methods, the more veggies you will be adding to your diet.

3. Familiarize Yourself With Your Eating Patterns

You may or may not be tracking your food during your weight loss journey –– if you’re not, you may want to start. Tracking your food can be as simple as writing it down in a food journal. The goal here is to simply be aware and mindful of your food choices.

Tracking doesn’t have to be a punitive tool, instead, it can be a tool to help you learn more about yourself and your hunger. Approach tracking with a sense of curiosity vs judgment – i.e., you can assess why you were hungrier on certain days (are you eating less protein-rich foods, or are you at a certain time in your cycle?). Tracking your food can also be a way to help you with meal planning.

4. Meal Prep and Plan

Speaking of meal planning –– do it. Don’t leave it to chance that you will just make healthy choices when mealtime comes – it’s hard to make healthy choices when you are starving.

Usually, more nutritious choices take a bit more time to prepare, so your best bet is to get into the habit of meal prepping. It’s important to make this a habit and not just a one-time thing. Mark some time in your calendar each week to set aside some time for meal planning and meal prepping.

To master the art of meal prep, sign up for The Beet x Rouxbe’s Healthy Plant-Based Diet Cooking Course.

5. Don’t Try to Out-Exercise a Poor Diet

Exercise has many benefits; however, your workouts may not necessarily be helping to maintain your weight loss efforts. This is for a few reasons. First off, we tend to overestimate how many calories we burn during exercise. Research has even shown that high-tech watches overestimate the calories we’ve spent working out.

Sometimes seeing how much we burned working out can provide justification to consume more calories –– if we aren’t hungry. Or if we are hungry, it is common to over-reward ourselves with food after a workout. As well, this is a justification in our minds that since we worked out, the quality of the food doesn’t matter –– however, this is so far from the truth. We could end up consuming processed or high glycemic index foods, which can lead to insulin spikes, which can lead to extra fat storage.

6. Look Beyond Weight Loss

When I’m discussing how to maintain weight loss with my clients, I normally recommend capturing those reasons for change beyond weight loss. What does that weight loss represent, that is important to the person? Is it a reduction in cardiovascular disease risk which runs in their family? Does that weight loss mean that the person has more energy to play with their kids? Would weight loss mean more confidence?

All these end goals are important to highlight, as they will likely help the person further commit to the changes that they are making to achieve weight loss. Weight loss is more than aesthetics.

Bottom Line: Use These Strategies to Maintain Weight Loss.

If you follow these tips, you are more likely to maintain that weight loss that you worked so hard to achieve. Sometimes the biggest battle is maintaining.

For more expert advice, visit The Beet’s Health & Nutrition articles. 

The post How to Maintain Weight Loss On a Plant-Based Diet appeared first on The Beet.

Let’s be clear –– there is room for everything in our diet. However, it would be advantageous to look for ingredients that add nutritional value (i.e. more fiber, vitamins, minerals, etc.) and offer us bang for our food buck. Looking for more nutritious baking ingredients will simply keep our body more nourished and happier –– decreasing the chance that we are going to have a holiday dessert binge session at the end of the night.

Also, traditional holiday baking ingredients aren’t always plant-based, so we certainly need to make some substitutions to insert more plant-based goodness into our diet, while enjoying delicious baked goods.

Healthy Cooking During the Holidays

Today I will help guide you to find the best ingredients to bake with, add nutrition to your holiday desserts, and make them more plant-based!

Ingredients to Avoid While Baking

Ingredients that we can look to minimize, to make our desserts healthier include:

1. White Flour

We know that white flour contains carbohydrates – which, let’s just clarify for a moment – carbohydrates aren’t the problem. Carbohydrates are what our body uses first for energy. Our body loves carbs. The concern is that white flour is processed and stripped of its nutrients during processing.

The bran and the germ part of the grain are removed, leaving behind only the endosperm. White flour is low in fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals. Having a lot of white fiber during the holidays will essentially leave you feeling zapped of energy and not your greatest.

2. Oil

Oil certainly has a functional purpose in baked goods. Baked goods call for oil to keep them moist and tender. By attaching to dry ingredients, it encapsulates the gas released by the action of the baking powder and soda, slowing down the formation of gluten and creating light and fluffy foods.

However, in general, oils have minimal nutritional value besides providing fat. We do need fat in our diets, as fat helps with various bodily functions, including helping with the absorption of various nutrients, however, I do prefer us to get our fat from whole foods sources. As well, some oils (ie coconut oil) are high in saturated fat, which can be a contributor to cardiovascular disease risk.

3. Table Sugar

You may have seen this one coming. Table sugar has a similar story to white flour – we want to choose a sugar that isn’t refined and provides extra nutrition. Table sugar has a high glycemic index which encourages extra insulin to enter our bloodstream. This can lead to weight gain and insulin resistance over time. Not to mention a high intake of table sugar can zap all of our energy after a blood sugar spike- not a fun way to enjoy the holidays!

4. Eggs

Eggs act as the binding compound that helps cake or baked goods keep their shape. It’s the balance between eggs and flour that help provide the height and texture of many of the baked goods that we typically have enjoyed.

Of course, eggs are not plant-based, so finding an alternative is needed for those following a plant-based diet. Eating eggs too often can add too much saturated fat and cholesterol to our diet, which isn’t ideal for heart health.

5. Milk or Buttermilk

Traditionally, buttermilk was a by-product of making butter. Now, it’s made from pasteurized milk that has cultures added to thicken it up and give it a tangy texture. Its functionality in baking is to provide acidity to lend leavening power when it reacts with baking soda, as well as breaking down gluten formation for a more tender final product.

We need the functionality that buttermilk provides; however we can find a vegan alternative for the same function. Finding a vegan alternative would also allow us to minimize fat in the recipe, particularly saturated fat. 

Healthier Baking Ingredients

1. Alternative Flour

Instead of using nutrient-stripped white flour, try using chickpea or almond flour instead!
Almond flour is rich in protein, fiber, and healthy fats – having twice the amount of protein and fiber as regular flour. Almond flour is a perfect alternative in baking – you’ll just want to use less almond flour than you would white flour due to the higher fat content.
Chickpea flour is high in protein and fiber as well. It’s ideal for baked goods like bread and biscuits, because of its dense, chewy flavor.

2. Oil Substitutes

Dairy-Free Greek Yogurt is a staple that I always have one hand. It’s a great addition to your holiday baking, as it adds protein and calcium! My favorite Dairy-Free Greek Yogurt is made by Kite Hill.

The pureed veggies may surprise you, but you can use cooked and pureed cauliflower, pumpkin, beets, or zucchini! These ingredients can take the place of oil in a recipe, due to them containing some fat and/or pectin, which is a gluten inhibitor and thickening agent. The added benefit of course is that they add nutrition into the recipe in the form of fiber and micronutrients – which you wouldn’t get from the oil! These oil substitutes also reduce the calories in a recipe that would have traditionally called for oil.

3. Fruits For Sweetness

There are certainly a number of sugar substitutes out there, such as stevia, monk fruit sweetener, dates, honey, or maple syrup (read more about them here), however, my top pick is using a whole fruit or dried fruit.

Choosing your sweetness from minimally processed fruit in baking has several advantages. You will be getting extra fiber and lowering the glycemic index of the baked good, with the dates/prunes, or bananas. You will also be getting extra nutrients such as vitamin K and potassium with this substitution. 

4. Flax/Chia Eggs
There are so many great egg replacement options out there (find out more here) however my favorite replacements have to be flaxseeds or chia seeds. Simply combine 3 tbsp of water with 1 tbsp of seeds. Let that mixture sit for about 20 minutes, until thick consistency forms.
Using a flax or chia egg instead of a chicken egg helps to lower the cholesterol and saturated fat in our diet. This swap also adds in omega-3 fats, which is polyunsaturated fat. It has been found that when you replace saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats like omega-3’s, heart disease risk is reduced by 30 percent, similar to the effects of cholesterol-lowering statins.

5. Dairy-Free “Buttermilk”

Adding two tablespoons of lemon juice to one cup of a plant-based milk alternative (such as soy or almond milk) provides the same functionality that buttermilk would provide. You can also puree one-quarter cup of silken tofu with one tablespoon of lemon juice + a few tablespoons of water.

This provides a great plant-based buttermilk alternative, free of saturated fat, while still providing protein and calcium. The tofu/plant-based milk addition will also bring heart health benefits, as consuming soy regularly can reduce cardiovascular disease risk.

Bottom Line: Use these tricks to be healthier while baking during the holidays.

Remember that no food or ingredient needs to be excluded from our diet necessarily. However, by making these ingredient swaps during our holiday baking, we are certainly adding nutrition – which our body will thank us for at the end of the season!

For more expert advice, visit The Beet’s Health & Nutrition articles. 

The post The Best Ingredients to Bake With to Make Your Holiday Desserts Healthier appeared first on The Beet.

What Are Carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates are essential nutrients that your body turns into glucose, which is our primary source of fuel. They are one of three macronutrients (aka macros), and as you probably know, the other two macros are fat and protein. Our body obtains energy from all three macronutrients and all three are essential for proper body functioning. These macronutrients must be obtained through diet – the body cannot produce them on its own.

The Function of Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates have the following roles:

• Energy Production: As mentioned, carbohydrates are our preferred source of energy. They provide fuel for our brain and for our muscles when they are working.
• Protein Sparing: Carbohydrates also prevent protein from being used as a fuel source – also known as “protein sparing.” Protein can provide energy, however, protein has many important functions in the body. Having enough carbohydrates in your diet allows the protein to do its other jobs.
• Energy Storage: Carbohydrates can be converted to glycogen, which is the storage form of glucose. Glycogen can then be converted to glucose and used for energy when needed.
• Aid in Digestion: Fiber is a type of complex carbohydrate that helps with the elimination of waste products from your body.

Where are Carbohydrates Found

We tend to look at all carbohydrates as if they’re all the same. This can’t be further from the truth. Let me break down the differences, as we learn the nuances of how they get broken down in the body!

Carbohydrates can be simple or complex, depending on their structure

A simple carbohydrate is one or two sugar molecules linked together. Simple sugars include glucose, fructose, galactose, lactose, maltose and sucrose. They include table sugar.

Complex carbohydrates, on the other hand, have three or more simple sugars strung together. This includes fiber and starch. During digestion, your body breaks down those complex carbohydrates into simple sugars, so your cells can use these for energy. But this is an involved process, and like untying knots, it can take time, so the energy is released gradually, meaning your body doesn’t experience the same sugar surge as with simple carbs.

Carbs Fall into Three Main Categories

Dietary carbohydrates have three main categories, some complex and some simple

• Sugar (simple) – can be naturally occurring or added into food products
• Starches (complex) – are starchy vegetables like potatoes, rice, or whole grains
• Fiber (complex) – unlike starches, we cannot break down fiber or get energy from fiber but it is vital for our gut bacteria. Fiber is only occurring in plant-based foods.When you’re reading the nutrition label of a food, understand that the total amount of carbohydrates on the label reflects the total amount of sugar, starch, and fiber in the food product.

Which Carbohydrates Are the Healthiest

Now that we’ve discussed the different types of carbohydrates, let’s take a closer look at how they’re used in the body and their impact on our health, energy levels, and weight.

Let’s start with comparing an apple to a soda. The soda contains simple sugars and would also be considered “added” sugars. Your body will digest the soda very quickly and easily, leading to a quick release of glucose into your blood. Compare that to an apple, which also contains simple sugars (naturally occurring), but in addition, it also contains fiber. Fiber slows down the digestion of those simple sugars, resulting in a slower release of glucose into your bloodstream. That means you burn slow and steady, are less hungry, and your blood sugar stays steady.

Now, let’s throw foods with higher starch contents into the mix. If you were to consume plain white soda crackers, for example, you would actually get a similar blood sugar response to that of the soda. The lack of fiber in the crackers determines the blood sugar response.

The measure of how much a food raises the sugar level in our blood is called the Glycemic Index. Foods that are higher in glycemic index, are digested quickly and result in a large spike in our blood sugar. This triggers a large insulin response – insulin is the hormone that lets sugar into our cells. Too much blood sugar and the cells are overflowing, and the extra fuel has to be stored so your body sends it into fat storage.

A diet high in high glycemic index carbohydrates can make weight loss difficult over time. Why?

• It can lead to insulin resistance (more on that here) which can make weight loss difficult
• We do not feel as full after eating something processed as we do when we eat fiber

What matters most for weight loss is getting into a calorie deficit. We will be more satisfied after eating high fiber, low glycemic index, whole carbohydrate-containing foods. We won’t want to overconsume them either! However, overconsumption is certainly likely when we are eating mostly processed, high glycemic index carbohydrate foods – and that’s when weight gain occurs.

Therefore, the whole notion that “carbs cause weight gain” likely has more to do with certain types of carbohydrates that tend to be overconsumed, which leads to an increased caloric intake and weight gain. You’re unlikely to eat too many starchy vegetables, but crackers? Yes.

How To Pick Your Carbohydrate Moving Forward:

• Fiber Rules! – Fiber is wonderful for digestion, for fullness, for our heart health–and many more benefits! Make sure you’re hitting your daily fiber target of at least 25 grams or more of fiber daily. Where do we get fiber? Plants No animal foods contain fiber.
• Eat Whole Food Carbs – One great first step is to start by eating lots of plant foods. Now, let’s make sure you’re eating the right ones: Load up on those plant-based foods that have undergone minimal processing and are close to how they grew in the ground. You win with whole foods because not only is the fiber still intact, you also get the micronutrient benefits as well – antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and plant pigments that your body needs to build a healthy immune system and fight off aging and disease!
• Watch For Added Sugars – Read labels and try to pinpoint any added sugars in products that you consume. Added sugars will likely increase the glycemic index and calories of the product and also indicates that the product has been processed.

For healthy weight loss, find carbs that are from the plant-based foods groups: Vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains (minimally processed), nuts, and seeds. And eat as many fiber-filled foods as you can!

The post The Secret to Eating Carbs and Losing Weight, According to a Dietician appeared first on The Beet.

To that end here is your Week One, Shopping List. We hope you have some of these at home, but anything you need to buy is easy to source, and you can get it delivered if you don’t want to head out to the market. Just buy what you need for Week 1 now since we will send you Week Two before you need it. Get ready to get healthy,  lose some weight, and give your body the reboot it deserves.

The post Plant-Based Diet Shopping List, Week 1: Set Yourself Up For Success appeared first on The Beet.

Meal prepping is as easy as it is effective, and if you’ve ever been inspired by meal prep ideas and recipes that you’ve seen on social media and thought you’d like to learn more about how to start, you’re in the right place. Today I will break down not only how to meal prep, but specifically focus on how to meal prep for a healthy vegan diet, to take the guesswork out of what to eat this week.

Why should you meal prep?

For me, meal prepping is a necessity, as I work 12+ hour days a number of days a week and just simply can’t be bothered to cook from scratch every night! The clients I work one-on-one with have also seen a huge benefit after beginning meal prepping. During their weight loss journeys, many of them have discovered new meal prep ideas for weight loss, which have been the keys to their success.

Here are 5 reasons why you should be meal prepping if you aren’t already:

• Less time cooking, which means more free time
• Less money spent on food, which means extra cash
• Less waste by using up whole ingredients
• Less stress around food and mealtime
• More brain space for what’s important to you!

Now, let’s talk about the health benefits of meal prepping:

• You will be able to eat more whole foods
• You’ll be eating fewer preservatives and additives
• Your diet will be more nutrient-dense
• As you start doing more home cooking, you will develop a better relationship with food
• You will be more likely to achieve your goal weight and reduce your risk for chronic diseases

How to Start Meal Prepping

You’re going to need to stock up on a few things before you get started on your meal prep journey. Those include:

1. Quality meal prep containers

There is one thing that you can’t start meal prepping without, and that is quality meal prep containers. You will be using these containers, again and again, sometimes freezing food in them, along with heating food up in them. I highly recommend glassware instead of plastic. Glass holds up better over time, stains less, works well under almost any temperature conditions, and doesn’t pose the risk of leaching undesirable chemicals into your food.

I typically choose Pyrex glass containers, which are microwave safe, dishwasher safe, oven safe, and freezer safe. Lids are BPA-free and microwave safe. You’ll want to get a variety of sizes – I like to use the 2 and 3-cup sizes the most often.

2. Mason jars

Mason jars are great for packing snacks in, along with smoothies, chia puddings, overnight oats, dressings, etc. You can also pack salads in them, keeping the dressing on the bottom, and mixing them when ready. Have a variety of sizes in your possession – 2 cup, 1 cup, and 1/2 cup sizes.

3. Mini containers

Grabbing some mini containers for sauces, that can be added to individual meal prep containers, can prove helpful. You can purchase a wide variety of these at your local dollar store. Or go on Amazon and find a set of 20 that you can use over and over again.

4. Cookware & accessories

• Baking sheets pans (small & large)
• Saucepans
• Casserole dishes (~2-qt & 3-qt)
• Blender
• Vegetable spiralizer or julienne peeler
• Muffin tin
• Toaster
• Mixing bowls (small & large)
• Knife set
• Spatula
• Whisk
• Wooden cooking spoons
• Parchment paper

5. Pantry staples

• Avocado oil (high smoke point)
• Extra virgin olive oil (low smoke point)
• Maple syrup
• Nut butter (almond/peanut/tahini)
• Seeds (chia/hemp/pumpkin)
• Nuts (almonds/cashews/walnuts)
• Protein powder
• Vinegar (apple cider/balsamic)
• Spices (cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, paprika, oregano chili powder, nutmeg, basil)
• Liquid smoke
• Nutritional yeast
• Flour (chickpea, almond)
• Vanilla extract
• Soy sauce or tamari

Different Types of Meal Prep

Meal prepping doesn’t have to look the same for everyone – really! Some may choose to do a full-on weekend meal prep (my preference) but some may choose to prep only ingredients instead – whatever suits the person best! Let me explain the meal prep types below.

1. Full weekend meal prep

This is the type that I fall under. Weekend meal prep involves creating meals for the week, ahead of time – two to three days in advance. This works great for someone who doesn’t want to cook during the week and doesn’t mind a bit less variety in their menu. The type won’t work well for someone who likes plenty of variety or someone who doesn’t want to or can’t dedicate ahead of time to eat during the week.

Note that leftovers don’t usually keep longer than 3 o 4 days in the fridge, so you will usually have to be freezing food that you will be prepping ahead of time if you plan to eat it after 4 days. I will typically have a stash of meals that I’ve frozen ahead of time, to help me get through the last part of the week.

2. Ingredient prep

I sometimes refer to this type of meal prep as ‘buffet meal prepping’ – since you create parts of a meal rather than a complete meal ahead of time. For example, you may be chopping vegetables, boiling rice, and roasting tofu over the weekend. Then as the week goes on, you can put together new combinations of foods to create a meal, depending on what you are wanting to eat at that time!

The advantages of ingredient or buffet meal prepping are that it allows for you to be flexible with meals but also allows for you to plan ahead. The cons are there is still some assemble required throughout the week, and this may not be best for you if your schedule involves you being away from the home for long periods of time. However, this type may work really well if you have multiple people in your household with different food preferences – it would allow you to mix and match!

3. Hybrid meal prep

You certainly don’t have to stick to exclusively a full meal prep or an ingredient prep style – you can follow a combination of the two! For example, maybe you find that it is helpful to do a full breakfast and lunch prep ahead of time, however, you just want to have some ingredients prepped for dinner, so you can mix and match. Or maybe when you are going into the office, you want to do a full meal prep ahead of time but prep ingredients for the days that you are home. I encourage you to be flexible in your meal prepping!

Important Meal Prep Tips

Below are tips to remember when you are getting started on your meal prep journey – to avoid overwhelming yourself along the way!

1. Separate planning, shopping, and cooking days.

It’s overwhelming to do all three steps in one day. This process will end up being too time-consuming and you will end up resenting the meal prep process! I personally aim to have my grocery list planned out by Thursday night, grocery shop on Friday night, and cook on Sunday night.

2. Start slow.

Make meals that are the most challenging to get to throughout the week.
If you have trouble getting a balanced lunch in – prep that! Never have snacks available – prep those! You don’t necessarily have to aim to start with cooking all of your meals ahead of time.

3. Create menus with different cooking methods.

I always recommend having an oven meal, a stovetop meal, and another type of meal that you’re prepping. This helps create efficiency. The oven meal is always done first, as it usually takes the longest amount of time to cook. Then follow that up by a stovetop meal, which will usually require some time to simmer, then move on to that salad, which takes the least amount of time to make.

4. Prep meals that contain similar ingredients

This helps to minimize food waste and makes for a speedier prep.

5. Don’t spend more than two hours cooking at a time

Don’t overload yourself – again you will start to resent the process!

6. Be flexible in how you prep

Perhaps you may just want to prep ingredients (what I call a buffet meal prep) or partially prep some meals. You don’t have to always create all meals from scratch!

Bottom Line: Meal prepping is an easy way to create a routine of eating healthy

If your goal is to eat delicious meals every week while minimizing the time you spend cooking each day, try meal prepping. With these guidelines, you will be closer to calling yourself a meal prep pro! Let us know what you will cook next from The Beet!

The post Want to Eat Healthier & Save Time? Try Meal Prepping. How to Start, By an RD appeared first on The Beet.

The words used on many vegan products can make us think that they’re full of goodness, but are they really? Often the answer is no! That’s why I want to introduce a great evaluation tool that has personally helped me with my grocery shopping. It’s called The Beet Meter, and I encourage you to use this tool the next time you are at the grocery store.

The Beet Meter, from the editors of The Beet, involves a 10-point health grading system, created by a Registered Dietitian. The system takes various items into consideration, including saturated fat, calories, protein, and carbohydrates. Check out the grading system below. The Beet Meter rates products for health and then the products are reviewed for taste, also on a 10-point attribute system.

The Health Criteria

When evaluating the labels, the editors had a rigid set of criteria for a product to get a point, with 10 points being the highest (each health point a product gets is worth half a beet, so the highest score a product can get is five beets). A product gets a point or check mark if it meets the following criteria:

• Protein:  ≥ 3 grams
• Calories: ≤ 300 if it’s a snack or additive (creamer, etc), ≤ 650 if it’s a meal
• Carbs: < 15% DV for snack, ≤ 30% DV for meal
• Saturated Fat:  ≤3 grams for a snack or ≤ 6 grams for a meal (To get a point, Sat Fat has to be Less than 10% of total calories per serving)
• ≤ 10 Ingredients on the label
• No Added Sugar!
• Fiber: ≥ 3 grams
• Sodium:  ≤ 230 milligrams for a snack,  ≤ 650 milligrams for a meal
• The first ingredient on the label is a whole food (oats for instance)
• Good source of micronutrients, meaning it has at least 10% of DV of Calcium, Iron, potassium, or vitamins A, C, or D, etc.

Scoring: This is a 10-point system. Each check is worth half a Beet on the 5 Beet Meter Scale.

The Taste Criteria

As for taste, what good is a product if you don’t like to eat it? that’s where the taste attributes come in. They are equally spelled out, and fun to see if you agree with. The Beet Meter has a “rate it yourself” function that lets users enter their own taste ratings into the system. (The health criteria are not subjective so those are pre-set by the editors.)

Each point on the taste scale is earned if the product is tasty, has no unpleasant aftertaste, or is as good as the real thing it’s replacing (such as non-dairy coffee creamers, ice-cream or dairy-free milk, butter, cheeses, yogurts, cream cheeses, pizzas

The taste criteria are slightly more subjective but more than one tester was recruited to come up with the score. They are:

• Overall Taste: general pleasantness and tastiness. You think: YUM!
• No Aftertaste: Clean. No coconut, metallic or unwanted lingering taste
• As good as the real thing: or better! 
• We’d Buy It! Would the editors purchase it again? Recommend to a friend
• Pleasant Texture. Is it an enjoyable texture?
• Pleasant Smell: Is the aroma pleasant, like natural, with no other smells detected?
• Normal Color: is it the right color for the item? Milk should be white, not grey.
• Good Consistency. Is it too thick? Too thin? Just right? 
• Tastes Healthy: Not processed, clean, and full of goodness. Not too rich.
• Would non-vegans like it? Enjoy it as a substitute. Could you fool them?

Scoring: This is a 10-point system. Each check is worth half a Beet on the 5 Beet Meter Scale.

How to Use the Beet Meter While Shopping

The Beet Meter is a fantastic tool that provides a simple product grade for consumers to evaluate their food choices. It would be tough to navigate the grocery store without a tool or guideline to assist us with making the best choices possible.

I tested out using the Beet Meter at the grocery store recently, to evaluate plant-based yogurts. The Beet Meter was helpful in identifying yogurts that have filling qualities (fiber and protein) but also yogurts that could be considered a dessert in disguise (way too much sugar) or that would not be heart-friendly since they contained a large amount of saturated fat or sodium.

Mush Oat Yogurt: Beet Meter Health Rating –  9 out of 10 points or 4.5 Beets

This yogurt checks all of the boxes, except it isn’t a good source of micronutrients. I would like my yogurts to have at least 15-30% DV calcium, as it can be harder for plant-based diets to get enough calcium. I also would like a bit more protein in my yogurt, personally.

Harmless Harvest Coconut Yogurt: Beet Meter Health Rating – 7 out of 10 or 3.5 Beets

This yogurt is fairly low in protein and has a lot of added sugars (10 g/serving) and isn’t a good source of micronutrients. Surprisingly, saturated fat was low, which is rare for a coconut product.

Siggi’s Coconut Blend: Beet Meter Health Rating – 5 out of 10 points of 2.5 Beets

This yogurt is fantastic for protein, as it has 11g per serving! If this is important to you, then this may not be a bad choice, however, it also has a lot of added sugars (9g/serving) and a lot of saturated fat (8g/serving).  I would also like more calcium as well.

Kite Hill Greek Style Yogurt: Beet Meter Health Rating – 9 out of 10 points or 4.5 Beets

I LOVE this yogurt! It has an impressive 17g of protein per snack serving, which comes primarily from the soy protein isolate, and only has a few simple ingredients. It’s amazing how there are 0 grams of sugar and it contains some iron! This yogurt lost a point because it didn’t contain enough fiber, but that can easily be made up by mixing in some chia/flax or berries with the yogurt. This one is my top pick!

So Delicious Dairy-Free Coconut Yogurt: Beet Meter Health Rating – 5 out of 10 or 2.5 Beets

This yogurt has a TON of added sugar (17g) so I wouldn’t recommend it, even though it has some calcium and is lower in calories. The saturated fat is too high as well (4g) and it has less than 1g of protein. I don’t think this yogurt would be too filling.

Forager Project Soymilk Yogurt: Beet Meter Health Rating – 7 out of 10 or 3.5 Beets

Due to the fact that this yogurt is made from soy protein, it has a good 10g of protein per serving. The ingredient list is on the longer side, however, this is partially due to the added vitamins and minerals (calcium and B12) which are important to us plant-based eaters! This one is a bit higher in sugar (9g of added sugar) so I would prefer an option that didn’t have as much added sugar.

For more product ratings based on health and taste, visit The Beet’s Beet Meters. 

The post Use This Simple Tool to Find Healthy Foods at the Grocery Store, By a Dietitian appeared first on The Beet.

The result is that rather than burn off the sugar you eat, you get into a cycle of craving more and feeling unsatiated, so it makes it harder to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight when you arrive at one. The point is that added sugar, as opposed to the naturally occurring complex sugars in fruit, vegetables, and starchy vegetables or whole grains, need to be avoided wherever possible, since even if you try to cut out all added sugars, it’s nearly impossible unless you limit your food choices to plants you could grow on your own soil.

Added sugars, also known as refined sugar or processed carbs, are sugars that have been processed from whole foods (such as grains) and stripped of their nutritional value and then added to various foods. Unlike naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables or whole grains, added sugars don’t contain any vitamins, minerals, or fiber.

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Why Should You Limit Your Sugar Intake?

Added sugars provide calories without a lot of fullness and cause our blood sugar to spike fairly high after consuming them. Due to these factors, consuming an excess amount of added sugars can have negative health effects including an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

How Much Sugar Should You Have Per Day?

As discussed, it is the added sugars (the ones that have a high glycemic index and little nutrition value) that we should be trying to limit. Please don’t try to limit the naturally occurring sugars that are found in fruit in your diet!

The most recent 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that individuals should get no more than 10 percent of their total daily calories from added sugars a day. For a person eating a 2000-calorie diet, this translates into 50 g of sugar a day. However, The American Heart Association recommends consuming no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day for women and children, and no more than 37 grams per day for men.

Types of Sugar to Eat and Avoid

It can be tough to spot sugar on an ingredients list, as it isn’t always plainly listed as ‘sugar’. Added sugars go by many different names.

A note as well about ‘natural’ sugars – just because sugar is in a natural form, such as pure maple syrup, doesn’t mean it is not considered an added sugar. It becomes an added sugar when it is extracted from a fruit or other food in the first place and then processed.

Also, remember that ingredients are listed by descending weight on the ingredients list, so spot where these names for sugar land on the ingredients list.

Sugars to Limit

There are many types of sugar that can be on the ingredients list – some of these ‘natural sugars’ (ie agave) and some of the ‘refined sugars’ (i.e. cane sugar). At the end of the day, sugar is sugar and we ideally want to minimize the amount of added sugars in our food.

Check out this chart below for names of added sugar.

11 Foods with Hidden Sugars

Recently when I was in the United States for a trip, I checked out Whole Foods and Safeway to see which products contained high and low amounts of hidden sugars.

1. Marinara and Barbecue Sauces

These sauces that we add to our meals for flavor enhancement can have quite a lot of sugar in them! The S&F BBQ Sauces had around 16 g of added sugar per 2 tbsp serving, while the Born Simple BBQ sauces only had 4 g of added sugar for the same serving. In terms of marinara sauces, the Classico marinara had 1 g of added sugars, while the Whole Foods 365 and Organico Bello sauces both contained no added sugars.

2. Soups

A place where we may not picture hidden sugars is in soup! The Pacific Foods soups tend to have 10 + g of sugar per serving (from vegetables such as sweet potatoes and tomatoes), and only 3-4 g of added sugar per serving. We can still decrease that added sugar though! Instead, I picked up Amy’s soups – specifically the quinoa, kale & red lentil one – which had zero grams of added sugar per serving.

3. Protein Bars

Protein bars can definitely pack in a lot of sugar! Clif Bars have 16 g of added sugar, however, One Protein Bars have no added, hidden sugar – they are instead sweetened with sugar alcohols (limit if you have tummy troubles!).4. Non-Dairy MilkMost plant-based milk brands have sweetened and unsweetened varieties – the sweetened varieties can carry a ton of hidden sugar! Silk, for example, has an unsweetened almond milk that has zero grams of sugar, but they also have chocolate almond milks that have 17 g of added sugars – choose wisely!

4. Nut Butter

The popular Skippy peanut butter brand has 2 g of added sugars per 2 tbsp serving, while Justin’s peanut butter has zero grams of added sugar.

5. Plant-Based Protein Powder

Actually, all of the plant-based protein powders that I found in the store were great – I especially like this one –  Garden of Life protein powder, which has zero grams of added sugar. Avoid this one though – Swanson Vegan Protein, which has 20 g of added sugar per serving.

6. Ketchup

I was certainly a ketchup fan growing up! I loved Heinz ketchup, however, it has 4 tbsp of added sugars per 1 tbsp (I’d definitely use more than that) whereas the Primal Kitchen Ketchup has zero grams of added sugar.

7. Non-Dairy Yogurt

Plant-based yogurt is a staple for me and many others, so it’s important that we chose one that is low in added sugars. The So Delicious vanilla yogurt has 17 g of added sugars per ¾ cup, while the Kite Hill Greek-style yogurt has 0 g of added sugar.

8. Instant Oatmeal

Instant oatmeal is convenient for busy mornings, but it’s crazy how many added sugars can be in your oatmeal! The Natures Path instant oatmeal’s have 10 g of added sugar per package, while Bob’s Red Mill classic instant oatmeal has 0 g of added sugar.

9. Vegan Salad Dressings

Funny how sugar can be found in items that don’t seem ‘sweet’ like salad dressings! Drews Organics vegan ranch provides 1 g of added sugar per tbsp, but Organicville non-dairy ranch doesn’t have any.

10. Pre-Packaged Smoothies

Smoothies always seem like a healthy option, right? Well, pre-packaged smoothies can certainly be a sugar bomb. Forager Project probiotic smoothies provide 15 g of added sugar per bottle, while Genius Juice has smoothies with no added sugar.

11. Canned Fruits

We get enough sugar from fruit, so we don’t need to be selecting fruit cups with added sugar! The Del Monte fruit cups pack in 17 g of added sugar, while the Native Forest & 365 Whole Foods fruit cups both provided zero grams of added sugar.

Bottom Line: Try to stick to whole, plant-based foods the majority of the time.

This practice allows the majority of your sugar intake to come from naturally occurring sources. If you are eating processed foods, make sure you read the label closely to identify added sugars.

For more expert advice, check out The Beet’s Health & Nutrition articles. 

The post Why You Should Avoid Refined Sugar and What to Eat Instead, from an Expert appeared first on The Beet.

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) can impair normal metabolic function and lead to more serious diseases and eventually liver failure. When not related to alcohol consumption, a fatty liver often shows up in people with type 2 diabetes and obesity but it can also be tied to a high-fat, high-sugar diet.

It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of adults in the United States have fatty liver disease, which is more than one-third of all the people you know. Given how common fatty liver is, everyone needs to understand what the liver does, what fatty liver disease means, and how to treat it, as well as what you can do to prevent it.

Fatty Liver is largely influenced by lifestyle choices and what you eat can play a big role in reversing it. That’s good news since it means we can influence the amount of fat in our livers by what we eat, drink, and our daily physical activity. Studies have shown that a high-fiber diet of fruit and vegetables can help prevent and reverse fatty liver disease. All you need to do is to eat more plant-based.

What does the liver do?

To understand what fatty liver is, we first have to understand the role of a normal, functioning liver. The liver is the largest internal organ of the body (after the skin) and is located on the upper-right side of the abdomen, above the stomach. It actually has more than 500 vital functions, however, the two main functions of the liver are to:

1. Remove toxins from the blood
2. Process food nutrients. Blood from the digestive system travels to the liver first, before being sent elsewhere in the body.

The liver is like a filter. As blood leaves the stomach and intestines it passes through the liver, which filters this blood and helps to remove toxins that could be harmful and break down nutrients, sorting these nutrients to be carted off and used by the rest of the body.

What is fatty liver disease?

Fatty liver is simply a condition where there is excess fat being stored in your liver cells. Although it is normal to have a certain amount of fat in the liver, the liver is considered fatty if it is more than 5 percent fat. This also causes inflammation, so treating fatty liver means eating foods that lower fat accumulation in the liver and also lower inflammation in the liver.

In most cases, fatty liver doesn’t prevent your liver from functioning. However, it can progress to more concerning states over time. Doctors may warn you that if you don’t get it under control, as the liver attempts to repair and replace damaged cells, scar tissue can form, and when extensive scar tissue replaces healthy liver tissue, this “fibrosis of the liver” can lead to cirrhosis of the liver. This is when liver failure can happen.

What are the symptoms of fatty liver disease?

While it’s possible to have no noticeable symptoms of NAFLD, your doctor can take a blood test to measure markers for the disease. Symptoms of fatty liver disease can be any combination of these, according to the Cleveland Clinic

• Abdominal pain or fullness on your upper right side
• Nausea, loss of appetite, or weight loss
• Yellow skin or jaundiced whites of the eyes
• Swollen abdomen and legs
• Extreme tiredness or mental fogginess
• Weakness in your muscles

Causes and risk factors of fatty liver disease

In addition to genetic factors, you have a great risk of developing fatty liver if you are experiencing any of the following:

• Alcohol Consumption Alcoholic fatty liver is the accumulation of fat in the liver as a result of heavy drinking, defined as having more than 2 drinks in a 24-hour period. The first thing your doctor may do is tell you to quit alcohol to see if this clears it up.
• Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes  Statistically, 70 to 80 percent of people who are obese have fatty liver. It’s especially prevalent among those who have high levels of body fat around the abdominal area.
• High Blood Sugar or Insulin Resistance You are far more likely to have fatty liver if you are diabetic, prediabetic, or have insulin resistance. The liver tends to store more fat when you are resistant to insulin.
• High Triglyceride Levels
  Triglycerides are the major form of fatty acids in the blood cells, whether they are getting transported for use or for storage. The liver is the central organ for fatty acid metabolism, so high triglyceride levels can be a clue that you have fatty liver disease.

Is there a diet that reverses fatty liver disease?

Research suggests that adhering to a healthy, mostly plant-based diet, low in sugar and animal fat, is associated with a lower risk of fatty liver. This could be true for several reasons. A review of studies showed that a Mediterranean-style diet was effective in reducing the risk of NAFLD, since the diet centers around plant-based foods that are high in fiber and low in added sugar and refined carbs.

High Fiber diets have been shown to reduce the progression of fatty liver disease. Fiber, found in plant-based foods like vegetables, legumes, fruit, and whole grains, helps to manage high blood sugar and treat insulin resistance, and therefore reduced symptoms of fatty liver disease. Fiber (which is not present in any animal-based food) also helps keep us satisfied, by making us feel full longer, so it helps us eat less and lose weight.

Keep in mind: Fiber is only found in plant foods! Eat a high-fiber diet of salads, vegetables, fruit, legumes like beans and chickpeas, and whole grains like oatmeal to lower your risk of NAFLD and to reverse it if you have it. Plant-based foods also tend to be anti-inflammatory. When the liver is fatty, it is often inflamed. So choose foods that have been shown to boost liver health and lower NAFLD in studies.

10 Plant-based foods that help fight fatty liver disease

Edamame

Soy protein has been shown to help reduce fatty liver. A review from 2019 found that soy protein reduced fat buildup in the liver. Soy protein contains antioxidants called isoflavones that help improve insulin sensitivity. Improving insulin sensitivity helps to reduce overall body fat and fat buildup in the liver.

Whole or minimally processed soy protein examples include:

• Tofu
• Edamame
• Tempeh
• Soy Milk
• Miso soup

Soy contains a high content of the protein β-conglycinin — a common protein in legumes noted for its ability to help lower triglyceride levels and protect against visceral fat buildup. Additionally, tofu is a low-fat food that is a good source of protein, making it an ideal choice if you’re trying to limit your fat consumption.

Coffee

Coffee consumption appears to have a protective impact on NAFLD and liver fibrosis, though researchers warn that the topic needs further study. In a review of 11 studies of coffee drinkers, regular coffee consumption was associated with a significantly reduced risk of NAFLD.

Coffee also was shown to lower the risk of fibrosis in patients already diagnosed with NAFLD. Be aware that adding spoonfuls of sugar and full-fat creamers may negate this benefit since fatty liver is made worse by added sugar and fat in the diet.

Spinach

Spinach is high in antioxidants and polyphenols that have shown protective effects against liver diseases in experimental studies. One study put 225 newly diagnosed NAFLD patients ages 20 to 60 years on a diet high in raw spinach. The researchers found an inverse association between spinach intake and symptoms of NAFLD, meaning the more spinach they ate, the less likely they were to have NAFLD.

Legumes and Beans

Legumes, which include beans, lentils, soybeans, chickpeas, lupins, and peas, are rich sources of complex carbohydrates, proteins, dietary fiber, and minerals. Resistant starches in the legumes are converted into short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) by the gut microbiota, which has been shown to have positive effects on glucose and lipid metabolism.

In a small randomized controlled trial of 42 premenopausal women with obesity, a diet rich in legumes showed a significant improvement in fat metabolism after 6 weeks. A separate case study showed a significant association between patients who ate a greater intake of legumes and a lower risk of NAFLD.

Cruciferous Vegetables

You know Brussels sprouts and broccoli are good for you, but they also appear to help block fatty liver as well as fight tumor cells growth, at least in animal studies. Brussels sprouts and broccoli sprout extract were given to mice in the lab and shown to boost levels of detoxification enzymes and protect the liver. In the same study, when mice were given broccoli, they developed less fatty liver disease and fewer tumors than mice that were not fed broccoli. So eat your broccoli!

Grapefruit

Grapefruit has been shown to lower lipids in the blood as well as reduce inflammation, which is helpful in the case of fatty liver. The antioxidants in grapefruit, along with other citrus fruits, cranberries, and grapes, all are known as hepatoprotective phytochemicals that help protect the liver from fat buildup.

Two specific antioxidants in grapefruit, naringenin and naringin, have been shown in animal studies to be beneficial for the treatment of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome, all of which increase risk of fatty liver disease. Researchers have shown that grapefruit extract, given to mice on a high-fat diet, boosted the enzymes needed to burn fat, and help prevent fat from getting clogged in the liver.

Whole Grains

People who eat more whole grains and unrefined flour, such as oats, quinoa, rye, barley, and farro, were able to prevent and reverse NAFLD. In a study where two groups of participants were given either whole grains or regular cereal (made with refined flour), and after 12 weeks, the ones eating the diet with whole grains did better. The study “demonstrated that consumption of whole grains for 12 weeks had beneficial effects on hepatic steatosis and liver enzymes concentrations in patients with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease”  the researchers wrote.

Walnuts

Foods high in omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to reverse fatty liver in studies. A meta-analysis review of studies in 2016 suggested that consuming omega-3 fatty acids improves levels of liver fat and raises HDL (aka good) cholesterol levels in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. These are heart-healthy fats from plant-based sources such as nuts, seeds, and algal oil, derived from algae.

Good sources of omega-3 fatty acids include:

• Walnuts
• Flax seeds
• Hemp seeds
• Chia seeds
• Algal oil

Another review of studies done in China in 2019 found that people who ate a diet rich in nuts had a decreased risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Nut consumption has been associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance, all of which raise your odds for NAFLD. The researchers found that diets with a higher intake of nuts are associated with a decreased risk of NAFLD, particularly in men.

Tea

The flavanoidsd in tea are helpful to help flush fat out of the liver, studies have found. Research has suggested that a higher flavonoid intake is associated with a lower likelihood of fatty liver, across various ethnicities. Flavonoids are plant chemicals (or phytonutrients) that provide health benefits through cell signaling pathways and antioxidant effects. Flavonoid-rich foods are foods of a plant origin and include:

• Tea, especially green tea
• Fruit, specifically apples, cherries, and citrus
• Vegetables, especially leafy veggies and onions

What to avoid with fatty liver disease

All Meat
A review from 2019 noted that saturated fat intake from meat increases the amount of fat that builds up in and around the organs, including the liver.

Alcohol
This one is obvious, but alcohol is the most common cause of fatty liver disease. A person with fatty liver should reduce their intake of alcohol or remove it completely.

Added Sugar
Sugar that occurs naturally in fruit or whole foods (such as vegetables) is not a bad thing since it comes with fiber. However, we want to avoid added sugars, as they can contribute to high blood sugar levels and excess fat in the liver. Studies suggest that high fructose intake is associated with a fatty liver. But don’t give up fruit since fruit is packed with nutrients and fiber, and is a minor source of fructose. The biggest source is high-fructose corn syrup. Get rid of all sweetened drinks, pastries, cookies, desserts, and breakfast cereals.

Salt and Hidden Sodium 
A recent study suggests that high salt intake is associated with elevated risks of developing NAFLD. A Korean study in PLOS One measured salt in the urine for 24 hours and high levels correlated with markers for fatty liver disease. This could be because salt disrupts the blood pressure system, which impacts the liver, or because salt is prevalent in high-fat, high-energy foods, most likely to cause fatty liver.

Bottom Line: You can get rid of fatty liver

If you can remember the acronym SOF, for Soy, Omega 3’s, and Flavonoids, when planning your whole-food, plant-based diet, you’re on your way. Cut out all alcohol and added sugar and you have a very good chance of reversing or preventing fatty liver!

For more expert and research-backed health news, visit The Beet’s Health & Nutrition content.

The post What to Eat to Reverse Fatty Liver Disease, from a Registered Dietician appeared first on The Beet.