It’s June, and our most bountiful agricultural season is just around the corner. There are so many delicious and nourishing foods to choose from.
Let’s talk about building a brightly colored plate so you can take advantage of New York’s most nutritious foods!
We are seeing lots of greens, including spinach, lettuce, kale and chard. Leafy greens provide us with fiber, vitamin K, calcium, potassium, and folate. Fiber is so important for good health – it helps to “scrub” out our intestines, so we eliminate waste regularly. This is good for our gut! Fiber can absorb things that are less good for us, such as cholesterol or unhealthy fats, and carry them out of the body. It also helps us to feel fuller for longer, so we’re less likely to binge on unhealthy things. And fiber feeds the good bacteria that live in our gut, which helps keep us healthy, too.
Greens provide many other nutrients as well. Vitamin K helps ensure our blood clots properly. Calcium is vital to strong bones and teeth, and potassium is good for heart health and muscle function. Folate is a B vitamin, necessary for energy, brain development, and growth. Greens, like most vegetables, are also very low-calorie, so you can fill up on them guilt-free.
Soon we will start seeing crops such as peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, and tomatoes. We can gain a wide range of nutrients from these foods. The best way to take advantage of this is to mix up the colors! Each color offers a different range of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients such as antioxidants. These help reduce our risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or heart disease. We encourage everyone to “eat the rainbow” – to mix up different colors in order to maximize the benefits. When we’re putting together a healthy plate, we should try to make about half of it colorful fruits and veggies.
Salads are a great way to do this – you might use green lettuce, red tomatoes, yellow peppers, and blueberries, for example. You’ll be filling up on fiber and getting lots of nutrients, too! To make a heartier meal, you can add protein such as chicken, beans, or nuts. You can also top with a little low-fat cheese or some avocado, and your dressing of choice.
Today, I would like to share a recipe for a simple but satisfying summer salad. This recipe for Strawberry Cucumber Salad comes from Foodhero.org. Strawberries and cucumbers are both mostly water, so they help to keep us hydrated in the warm summer months. They also provide fiber, vitamins C and K, and antioxidants. Poppyseeds are good sources of healthy plant-based fat, protein, fiber, and minerals like manganese and copper. Among other things, these minerals help our body create healthy red blood cells.
This dish is both sweet and crunchy! Yogurt makes a creamy dressing, which also provides some calcium and protein. This can easily be swapped for a non-dairy alternative if you prefer to avoid dairy.
This recipe is best eaten after an hour or two of refrigeration, and will keep for about three days. Just note that over time, the red color of the strawberries will leak, giving the entire salad a pink tint!
We recommend making the recipe fresh if you want to present it to a crowd.
Strawberry-Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
2 Tablespoons nonfat or low-fat plain yogurt
4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon honey or brown sugar (do not give honey to infants under one year of age)
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon prepared mustard
¼ teaspoon salt (may omit if restricting sodium)
¾ teaspoon poppy seeds
2 cups strawberries, sliced
2 ½ cups cucumber, sliced
Directions
In a small bowl, combine yogurt, vinegar, honey, onion powder, mustard, salt, lemon juice, oil and poppy seeds. Mix well.
Gently mix the dressing with the strawberries and cucumbers until evenly coated.
Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours.
Note: Honey is not safe for children under one year of age. Sweeten with sugar or maple syrup instead.4
Nutrition information: One ⅔cup serving of this recipe provides 50 calories, 1.5g fat, 50mg of sodium, 10g carbohydrates, and 1g of protein.
Try it out at home; you won’t be disappointed!
For more delicious and nutritious recipes from SNAP-Ed NY, tips and tricks, and information on virtual or in-person classes, visit the web at snapedny.org.
Sarah Martin is a lead nutritionist in the SNAP-Ed NY Northwestern Region, which included Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties. SNAP-Ed NY is funded by SNAP and delivered by Cornell Cooperative Extension.
If you’re interested in learning more about healthy cooking that saves you money, check us out on Facebook @snapedny or email skm99@cornell.edu.
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USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides nutrition assistance to people with low income. It can help people buy nutritious foods for a better diet. To find out more, call 1 (800) 352-8401.
