Spring Clean Your Shopping List - CulinArt Group

Eat Well Blog

Spring Clean Your Shopping List

A new season is here and with it comes longer days, warmer weather, and a greater variety of available produce. Spring is the season of new life; now is the perfect time to establish new habits as they pertain to dietary and lifestyle choices.

Taking advantage of Spring’s bounty supplies you with a boost of essential vitamins and minerals as well as heart healthy fiber. Including seasonal favorites such as asparagus, strawberries, spinach, and beets in your meals throughout the day add great taste and nutrition. While harsh winter weather calls for hearty, warm meals, spring fever begs for lighter fare prepared simply and deliciously. Utilizing fresh herbs such as basil, parsley, dill or rosemary and lots of citrus juice from lemons and limes adds a ton of flavor without relying heavily on oils, sugar, or salt.

Have you been wanting to adopt more of a plant based dietary pattern? Swapping meat with protein packed legumes including beans, lentils, and chickpeas reduces the amount of heart unhealthy saturated fat while increasing the amount of fiber and disease fighting antioxidants. To start you may consider “stretching” your meat by swapping out half the amount for plant based ingredients. For example, blending ground turkey or chicken with brown rice or quinoa and mixing ground beef with chopped mushrooms makes for flavorful, hearty dishes; especially when you add additional veggies to the mix including kale, spinach, or carrots!

As the temperatures rise, we may find ourselves reaching for cold, thirst quenching beverages. Reduce the amount of added sugar in your beverages by making your own infused waters. Lemon and lime wedges are classic, but use your creativity and experiment with different combinations such as blackberries, orange, and ginger or honeydew, cucumber, and mint. Alternatively, juicing fruits yourself or watering down juice with water or seltzer allows you to control the amount of added sugar.

Take inventory of your pantry and refrigerator. When shopping, look at the ingredient list. Try to purchase items that have the least amount of ingredients as possible. Keeping staples on hand such as whole grains, beans, nuts and nut butter, low fat dairy or plant based milks, frozen fruits and vegetables and wholesome snacks such as hummus, guacamole, and hard-boiled eggs makes it easy to consistently choose nourishing options. When possible, try purchasing fruits, vegetables, and dairy products from your local Spring Farmer’s Market to help enhance the health of our environment as well. Buying local means reduced carbon emissions, fresher produce, and a strengthened local workforce.

Lastly, celebrate Spring by heading outside! Soak up the sun and enjoy the flowers in bloom around you while you walk, bike, jog, garden, or any other outdoor activity that you enjoy!

  • 0
  • March 25, 2020

SUBSCRIBE TO THE CULINART EAT WELL BLOG

Loading

What our clients are saying

“What a wonderful dinner we had tonight for our international families. The food was delicious and well presented as well.”

“Thank you for including me today in the food waste demonstration/[chef competition] and flattering me with the role of “judge.” I will proudly don the [Stop Food Waste Day] apron the next time I plan an “event” in our own kitchen. I think this is a very worthwhile cause and the statistics you read off are staggering. They, alone, can intimidate a home chef, let alone be the “driver’ for a professional one.”

“Thank you and your staff for all the care and thought you give CSW adults and students. You approach events with such care and elegance- I don’t know how you do it! Especially day after day. Please thank all your staff for their wonderful work and kind manner with all of us. Here is to a great year!”

“Many, and I do mean many, thanks for a great Parents Weekend.  I heard from so many happy parents and you all work very hard to make it happen.  In gratitude and kindness…”

“We are so thankful and so impressed by your immediate attention to our power outage. It was such a relief to see all the equipment and workers coming in within a few hours of the outage. Thank you for serving dinner to all [the] students in a very difficult circumstance. Please extend our thanks to your workers who braved cold weather to grill hamburgers and hotdogs.”

“With all the prep work from Winterim ramping up and classes continuing as usual, it's a busy time to be a Forman teacher. Imagine my delight, tired as I was, when I delved into the upscale-restaurant-quality chicken parmesan our dining hall served last night. Forman is all about support, and providing our students with a dinner of that quality is just as important a measure of support as anything that happens in a classroom.”

“I can’t thank your entire team enough for the outstanding service, food, displays, everything!  You are a master at detail, and because of that Adam and I were able to focus on the parents.  I know what a sacrifice pulling off a weekend like this means, we are so appreciative and grateful to you all for your talent and generosity.”

“I ALWAYS feel spoiled by the meal offerings at CSW (The Cambridge School of Weston) and am entirely grateful for it. As I eat today's delicious and lavish lunch (and think about yesterday's as well), I can't tell you how much I feel so well cared for here, both with the food and by the dining hall staff. CSW cares for us in so many ways, both big and small.”

“Thank You! Chef Budd [and team], you overcame a new online ordering system (and hundreds of labels daily!), provided creative and healthy menus, continued to connect with local farmers to incorporate locally sourced ingredients, and worked tirelessly to serve the school community on three campuses.  While it feels like you are all a little like the Wizard of Oz right now, working behind a curtain in a kitchen far away, we sense your smiles and your passion to deliver the best possible service during these trying times. We are all so grateful!”

“I will say that CulinArt has always been a very collaborative partner to T. Rowe Price, listening to our current needs and future goals and suggesting realistic and achievable strategies to meet those goals.  2020 was obviously no exception.  CulinArt also altered other areas of our OCS and pantry programs to create safer environments for all our associates. We can only thank you for your continued flexibility and innovative ideas through these difficult times.”

Connect With Us

Want to find out what CulinArt can offer you? Connect with us today
to understand how our solutions can accommodate your unique needs.

Connect
X

Connect With Us

    I am a*


    Submit