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• Marinated Tomato Salad
• Vegetable Curry

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Your Plate Should Look Like This:

Desirable Fats
Best	Canola Oil  Olive Oil  Walnut Oil  Benecol  Smart Balance
Good	Safflower  Corn  Peanut  Soybean
Fair	Peanut Butter  Soft Tub Margarine  Liquid Margarine
Limit	Milk fat  Sour Cream  Cheese  Butter  Stick Margarine
Avoid!	Solid Shortening  Animal Fat  Bacon Grease  Coconut Oil  Partially Hydrogenated Oils  Trans Fats (snacks)

Special Instruction
1	Eat at least 3 half-cup servings of non-starchy vegetables and 2-3 servings of fruit per day.
2	Smaller, frequent, balanced meals are better than 2-3 large meals.
3	Eat before you get really hungry. Stop eating BEFORE you are completely full.

All foods contain some sort of a nutrient. It may be a carbohydrate, fat or protein. They also contain some calories, vitamins and minerals. The role of the vitamins and minerals is to accelerate the production of enzymes in the body and thus, help in the breakdown of the food that we eat. In order to ensure good health, it is essential that we focus on the number of calories that we consume.

At any given time, the number of calories that we burn should be greater than the number of calories that we consume. If this does not happen, then the extra calories just add on as fat. It is here that negative calorie foods come into the picture. They are very low calorie foods, which contain the essential vitamins and minerals needed for enzymatic reactions but the best part about them is that they require more calories to digest than they actually contain. But simply it means, more work needs to be done by the body in order to get those calories.

Since the foods are low calorie foods, the calories will come from the fat in the body. Hence, by eating more of these foods, you actually lose weight rather than gain. If you eat a piece of cake, which contains say 300 calories, it requires approximately only 150 calories for it to be digested. The remaining calories add on as fat. If on the other hand you bite into a cucumber, which is a negative calorie food (approximately 20-25 cal), it will require more than 50 calories for it to be digested. This means the excess 25 calories will come from the body's fat deposits.

Fortunately enough for us, nature has an abundance of low calorie foods: some of them are beet, cabbage, carrot, celery, cucumber, green beans, onion, radish, spinach, lettuce (vegetables) and apple, lime, papaya, orange, watermelon, tomato, peach, and pineapple (fruits). Along with fiber rich foods, breakfast, lunch and dinner cannot only be healthy but also enjoyable.

In this section you will find interesting recipes, easy to cook and healthy too! Enjoy cooking and healthy eating.