Top 5 Sites for Healthy Recipes

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease. -George Dennison Prentice

“Am I allowed to eat this? That has how many calories!? Do I have to start all over again if I fail? I didn’t even know that ingredient was in there!” How beneficial can a diet truly be if it becomes an added source of stress and worry?

Nutrition is one of the foundational therapies of Naturopathic medicine. I find that many of my visits with patients are devoted solely to nutritional counseling. One of my goals while working with patients on their diet is to come up with a plan that is individualized to meet their needs and to ensure that it is realistic and doable. I tend to agree with Mr. Prentice. If the diet becomes a source of anxiety or stress then it works against our ultimate goal of achieving optimal health.

We all know that lifestyle changes can be difficult, especially ones involving our diet. They take time and hard work. To help prevent worry and make the process a little easier I try to provide patients with as many resources and options as possible that are applicable to the particular dietary approach that I have prescribed – recipes, example menu plans, product/brand information, ingredient alternatives, etc. With all the options and resources available there is really no reason for someone to feel restricted on a healthy diet.

Recipes are handy to have and can aid in meal planning. There are many websites devoted to recipes, but I’ve compiled five that I view to be some of the best offering healthy recipes using whole foods:

• The World’s Healthiest Foods offers a balanced combination of scientific and practical information. The site is packed full of great features, including a Recipe Assistant which allows you to choose from a list of “Foods to Include” or “Foods to Exclude” and then brings up recipes containing only those foods you have chosen. The In-Home Cooking Demo videos are helpful to learn how to prepare and cook a wide variety of foods, ranging from braising to roasting. I encourage everyone to watch the “Why I Don’t Cook with Extra Virgin Olive Oil” video on the site’s homepage. Each week the site features a “Food of the Week” and provides an eating plan for the week consisting of recipes that use that particular food. Thankfully the site is easy to navigate so you won’t feel bogged down by the wealth of information.

• 5 to 10 a Day is a campaign to reduce the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, supported by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association. One of the key principles of a healthy diet is eating a “rainbow” of foods – a colourful variety of fruits and vegetables. This site promotes that principle on its recipe section by having you “Select Your Colours.” Once you submit which colours of foods you would like it brings up recipes that specifically incorporate those colours. I encourage you to check out the “MY Fruits and Veggies!” link which explains exactly what a serving is, how many servings of fruits and veggies you should be eating based on your age and tips on how to make it easier to include all those servings in your diet.

• AllRecipes.com‘s Healthy Cooking section is worth checking out. One of the great features of this site is that the majority of the recipes have been reviewed by the site’s editors and/or fellow members. Reviews are a fairly good indicator of recipes that are worthwhile trying out and can warn you about recipes that may be a waste of your time. Healthy recipes are also categorized and searchable under specific diets, such as “dairy free,” “gluten free” or “sugar free” so it makes finding recipes for particular needs easy. Please note that recipes can be viewed without membership, however some additional features require you signing up for the site’s free membership.

• The Eating Alive Program, developed by Dr. Jonn Matsen, ND is, in his words, “that cozy spot found between ‘Eating Too Bad’ and ‘Eating Too Well’.” This recipe resource is relatively small in comparison to the others I’ve recommended so far, but I wanted to include this link because I am a fan of Dr. Matsen’s dietary work and agree that since “the liver is the filter for the digestive system” it makes sense to therapeutically use our diet as one of the ways to support this important organ.

• Healthy Gluten Free and Dairy Free Recipe Resource One of the most difficult diets to follow is the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free (GFCF) diet. These two proteins (gluten from wheat, casein from dairy) are so pervasive in the typical North American Diet that it takes a lot of work and planning to completely avoid them. The efficacy of a gluten-free diet has been shown for celiac disease, but many are experiencing the benefits of this diet for other illnesses, such as autism and multiple sclerosis, as well. A multitude of sites and blogs are devoted just to GFCF recipes and it can become a bit confusing sifting through all of them, which is why I decided to post this link to a Facebook group that has collected and posted some of the best resources. The fact that it’s a group makes it nice since you can post questions and join in on the discussion with others who are on the diet. If you’re not on Facebook then I recommend checking out TACA (Talk About Curing Autism) for more great GFCF recipes on a budget.

I hope that you find the above resources helpful. Please note that I don’t have any vested interest in recommending any of these sites. I’m simply a fan.

What are some of the healthy recipe sites that you have bookmarked? I encourage you to share them with us and I invite you to post any comments or questions you may have about healthy diets. I appreciate any feedback and look forward to reading your responses.

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