Curb your Sweet Tooth with Fresh Fruit

by Rosanne Rust

Summer is in full swing and the local produce market is booming. The wide variety of fruits available is a nice change of pace from winter fruits, such as apples, citrus and bananas.

Now fresh peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries, berries, and melon abound. If you have a sweet tooth, now is the time to curb it by adding more fresh fruit to your diet. Eat it as is, or spend a little time cutting a variety of fruits for a fruit salad to munch on all week long. Add variety to your routine by picking up some blueberries to add to your morning cereal or picking out some ripe fresh apricots for a beta-carotene boost.

Try these ideas:

• Consider adding fruits to your main dish. While pineapple is a favorite with ham, try it with other meats, such as poultry too. Put sliced pineapple on the grill just before your meats are finished cooking. Let them sear for a few minutes on each side, and then serve with your meat or poultry.
• Fresh free-stone nectarines are great for grilling too. Be sure they are ripe, and then split them in half to grill. Sprinkling a little bit of sugar on each half beforehand and letting them rest for about an hour before grilling will insure a juicy side dish.
• You may also serve them for dessert. Add a scoop of light vanilla ice cream with a drizzle of honey.
• In addition to fruits on the grill, chopping fruits into salsas is a refreshing change to the taste of your favorite salsa also. Make your salsa as you normally would (chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro, etc); then add some chopped peaches or mango to it. The sweet flavor of the fruit with the tang of the onion and tomato is a nice contrast. Mango salsa flavors fish such as salmon or tuna, wonderfully. Serve these salsas at room temperature on the side, or top the cooked fish with them.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends eating at least 5, and up to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Cooking with fruit is another way to reach your "5-a-day" goal. Start by adding two extra servings of fruit to your daily diet. Incorporating more fruits into your daily diet and cooking will increase your intake of healthy antioxidants as well as boost your fiber intake. Both are part of a heart-healthy, cancer-fighting diet, and can help keep your GI system in check, not to mention your waistline. So the next time you hear a chocolate chip cookie calling your name, reach for a ripe nectarine or some sweet grapes first and enjoy the natural sweetness they have to offer.

About the Author  

Rosanne Rust, is a registered dietitian who has a private practice in northwestern Pennsylvania. She is a licensed provider for Real Living Nutrition Services®. To learn more about Rosanne see http://www.reallivingnutrition.com/RosanneRust.aspx

Did you know? Food cravings occur for many different reasons. They can be biological or psychological of a combination of both. A matter of fact sometimes past conditioning from childhood can make us hardwired to crave the wrong things. This can become difficult and frustrating to deal with if you don't know why they are happening and it is also a process to determine if your food cravings are physical or conditioned. Working regularly with a dietitian can help you with this process as well as provide useful strategies to help. Click here to learn more about our online coaching programs