Maya Vadiveloo spends most weekdays studying food. As a dietitian and associate professor of nutrition at the University of Rhode Island, she pores over large data sets to help people make healthier decisions at the grocery store.
But at night, when she gets home from work, perfect nutrition is not top of mind.
“I obviously spend quite a bit of time thinking about food,” she said, but as a single parent of an 8-year-old daughter, she tries to model balance and pleasure rather than perfection and rigidity.
Here are seven tips she shared for maintaining that balance and eating well when you don’t have a lot of time.
Make veggies your ‘lazy’ snack
Vadiveloo always keeps carrots, cucumber slices or celery sticks on hand for a quick snack. That helps her meet her goal of eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and it means the easiest choice is a healthy one.
“It’s amazing how satisfied I can be by just having a bag of baby carrots at my desk,” she said.
Focus on the perimeter of the grocery store
Most supermarkets place fresh, whole foods such as fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat and fish on the outside edges, with processed and packaged foods in the center aisles.
Vadiveloo spends the most time in the produce section, comparing prices and selecting in-season fruits and vegetables to have on hand for smoothies, lunches, snacks and dinner sides. She rounds that out with a stop at the freezer case, where she picks up a few versatile and budget-friendly favorites such as frozen broccoli, green beans, edamame, corn and berries.
Read the nutrition labels on packaged foods
Vadiveloo tends to buy the same kinds of yogurt, tofu and whole-wheat bread each week. But when she’s picking up an unfamiliar brand, she scans the nutrition labels.
With breads and breakfast cereals, for example, she looks for those that list a whole grain as the first ingredient and have at least 3 grams of fiber and less than 5 grams of sugar per serving. She tries to stay below the same sugar level when buying flavored yogurt for her daughter — and she often chooses unsweetened yogurt and adds her own honey and vanilla at home.
For canned soups and jarred sauces, which can be quite high in salt, she chooses those that are lower in sodium.
Get creative with smoothies
Smoothies aren’t just for breakfast, and they’re not just about fruit. They can be a satisfying meal with protein, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals. And unlike juices, they include all the fiber found in the fruits and vegetables that you toss into the blender.
One of Vadiveloo’s favorite lunches is a smoothie made with frozen banana and mango, fresh spinach or kale, kefir, almond or peanut butter, chia seeds, rolled oats, and milk or almond milk. It’s quick, delicious and incorporates all of the food groups.
Explore your food cravings
When she finds herself wanting a treat, Vadiveloo takes a moment to ask herself what exactly she’s hankering for in that moment. Is she genuinely hungry? If the answer is yes, she starts with a nourishing snack such as trail mix, yogurt, a piece of fruit or baby carrots.
If she’s still craving something more, she asks herself: Do I want something sweet, salty or cold? She has found that identifying the specific craving and fulfilling it is more effective than trying to stave it off or substituting something else that isn’t quite what she wanted.
Meal prep on the weekend
The weekend is when she has time to slowly simmer large batches of her favorite comfort foods: chicken stock from leftover bones, tomato sauce, chili, vegetable soup.
Cooking stock from scratch means it’ll have less sodium and more flavor than packaged broth or bouillon cubes. And Vadiveloo freezes her stock, sauces and soups into smaller portions that can be used in the weeks or months ahead.
A big pot of beans, seasoned just the way she likes them, can also be a quick and nutritious foundation for meals in the coming week: tacos one day, a burrito bowl the next.
Don’t deprive yourself of foods you love
Vadiveloo is a self-described “connoisseur” of soft pretzels — studded with salt and dipped in gooey melted cheese — which she’ll sometimes order as a main dish when she’s out. “It’s not a balanced meal,” she said, but it’s something she enjoys occasionally without a smidgen of guilt.
Depriving yourself of favorite foods can backfire, research suggests, because it can make you crave them more, leading to overeating.
“Sometimes by merely allowing something, it makes it easier to adhere to a healthier pattern,” she said.