I like the Primal Kitchen Greek dressing too. It’s very robust. I usually make my own vinaigrettes, but I like to have some bottled options on hand for when I’m in a rush. I can also enthusiastically recommend Sir Kensington’s Pepperoncini Italian dressing. Very flavorful and clean ingredient list.
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Based on encouragement in CC threads and other online friends, I rarely do bottled salad dressing at home. Sometimes I grab what my husband is using, but usually I do oil and vinegar or just skip it.
To use just oil and vinegar I would have to have a REALLY Good quality flavored vinegar and a great olive oil. Otherwise overall that doesn’t sound worthwhile to me!
Lemon juice , fresh herbs, good salt, garlic - all can make a great salad dressing that is also flavorful and healthy.
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I always have balsamic vinegar and good olive oil and make my own salad dressing. (More accurately DH makes it.) I occasionally buy a less healthy one like ranch. I’ve got lots of fresh herbs in pots. It’s just never seemed like that much trouble.
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I also make my own dressing - evoo, aged balsamic, dijon mustard, pepper.
I find in the summer when produce is super fresh, that we just tend to do balsamic vinegar on it’s own.
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LOL - I’d be much more open to more involved homemade salad dressing if DH made it… or was more open minded to having it instead of bottled dressing. It’s just easier for me to spritz on a bit of oil and vinegar (or skip). For us the nice thing these days is more interesting salad contents. Before retirement we were really busy and usually just used bags of mostly-lettuce
When have salad out, I do enjoy a nice blue cheese dressing. It does seem that fewer restaurants include salad with dinner. That’s OK- at most places I still need to take home leftovers.
H is pre-diabetic. His father was diabetic and his sister had pregnancy related diabetes, she recently found out that she is prediabetic as well. H, his sister and both his brothers have high blood pressure and cholesterol and his younger brother recently had a mild heart attack. So as you can see all this stuff runs in H’s side of the family. Interestingly, no one on H’s side has ever been super overweight…
Because of this we do watch the amount of carbs and sugar we have. We don’t really do zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash because we don’t eat pasta very often. I’d rather buy regular pasta every once in a while and have a reasonable portion with some protein and a side salad.
We do eat a lot of fish. H and I love to grill salmon burgers, Trader Joe’s has some that come frozen and they’re pretty good. Shrimp is versatile and quite good. We do shrimp tacos, fajitas (you can have fajitas w/o the tortillas and that’s a healthy low-carb meal), enchiladas, curry, etc…
We don’t eat much red meat or meat in general, but I do cook a lot of lean meats like chicken and turkey. Or every so often we have steak with roasted veggies.
Many nights at home when it’s just H and I, we’ll do a salad. It’ easy and not too filling. H eats a lot of small meals during the day and gets up early, so he often doesn’t want anything too big…
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Good job on the healthy choices!
“we do watch the amount of carbs and sugar we have” - I have a friend who attends a local group for pre-diabetics. They focus a lot on reduced carbs. It sounds like you’ve sound some healthy, tasty ways to do that!
I have a few of go to dressings that I like to make for salads. The only one I sweeten is a lemon one that I add a bit of honey too. I always have good olive oil and a variety of balsamic vinegars on hand.
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Do you set daily water intake goals?
While running today I listened to an interesting podcast - The Invention of Hydration (Decoder Ring / Slate …. 36 minutes). It made some good points about the “need” for large fluid intake being fairly new, with some encouragement from Gatorade and bottled water advertising.
Per advise of a nutrition consultation a few years ago, I had been aiming for 60 ounces of water per day (5 oz per each 10 lb). That is in addition to coffee and other liquids. Eventually I’ve decided that is too much, unless it is a day with a lot of heat and/or exercise. I still track (along with food and exercise in MyNetDiary app), but most days it’s about 40 oz.
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I definitely don’t track water and I definitely probably don’t drink enough. Of any fluid. I’m not a big drinker in general. One of the first things I do in the morning is gulp down a good sized glass of water with my calcium and Vit D. Then it’s just sporadic water during the day. A glass of water with dinner.
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I don’t track my water and I don’t drink enough either. When I was working I paid more attention, and drank quite a bit.
Now that I’m retired, my days aren’t as structured and I don’t eat or drink as much as I used to. ETA I do still drink 2 lattes every morning…
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I do track water, but don’t always drink enough. I aim for 64 oz a day. I make a point of always hitting the 48 oz mark, as my body sends me pretty strong signals if I haven’t (headache and digestion issues). I drink a 16 oz glass as soon as I get out of bed. During the workday I keep a 12 oz cup at my desk and track how many times I have to refill it. Weekends are harder - since I have no set schedule, aside from the first glass in the morning, I just try to remember to drink a few times a day. Ideally, I try to get most of my intake in by late afternoon, because if I’m drinking too much in the evening, I’m guaranteed to have a full bladder waking me up in the night.
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Do you refrigerate your Almond Butter? I do, since it takes me a long time to use it. (Instructions on jar only say “cool, dry place”). We never refrigerate peanut butter, which hubby eats so it gets finished much more quickly. I have the space for the almond butter on fridge door, but it would probably be more spreadable if kept in the panty.
I started drinking 60 oz of water daily in April. I start with a 24 oz bottle when I wake up. It’s harder now that it’s winter. My body has definitely adjusted to having water and I can tell if I’m behind.
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I’m sure I answered the water intake question above in an older post, but I try to drink about a gallon of water +/- a day. And I definitely refrigerate my almond butter.
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Wow, a gallon is a lot! Good job keeping up with a habit that works well with your fitness/health goals.
I used to aspire to 60 oz… but I’m small, with only moderate exercise… so at least for now this winter I’m only aiming for about 40oz (sometimes less). Even when I try to skew water early in the day it seems like it causes too many night-time trips to the bathroom.
Per almond butter, I do feel like it should be refrigerated. But it is not very spreadable (usually I have with half a banana). Any tips on brands or soften methods? I might just give up and share hubby’s jar of peanut butter in the pantry.
My workout program is generally long and have some intense sections in them. So, I may drink anywhere from 25-50-75 oz’s just in that period of time. I have a refillable canister for the gym. And then add 2-3 12-ouncers in the AM and the PM and voila!
I’ll have to look at the brand, but I don’t have much trouble spreading it out on bread when I do use it, which isn’t all that often.
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Some of the young men in the gym will bring something along these dudes to the gym when they workout.
I OTOH use the filtered drinking water from the gym’s water dispensing machine.
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I don’t bother refrigerating any of my nut butters. I keep them in my pantry, which is dark and given that the internal temp of my home never varies from the 60-75 range, I’ll consider it cool enough. We also go through a jar about every two weeks (it’s our favorite oatmeal add-in), so nothing is sticking around long enough to go rancid.
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