Eat a delicious and healthier lunch even when on the move
Hot topic - be good to yourself at lunchtime
Our be good to yourself products makes it even easier for you to make healthier choices with new and improved products in the range.
If you think enjoying a healthier delicious lunch means losing out on flavour, then think again…
When it comes to taking a well-earned break from the frenetic pace of daily life, a delicious lunch can temporarily whisk you away from household chores, a busy job or a crazy day with the kids. But too often, in a bid to look after our wellbeing, we sacrifice the mouthwatering flavours of good food, suffering the monotony of dull ‘diet’ food.
Luckily, the newly relaunched Sainsbury’s Be good to yourself range challenges all our preconceptions about healthier food: every meal is as kind to your taste buds as it is to your body. Each adheres to strict nutritional standards and is reduced fat (at least 30 per cent less than standard equivalent product) or less than three per cent fat.
That means you can be guilt free and enjoy delicious Be good to yourself cottage cheese, for example, a versatile healthier lunchtime snack, perfect with oatcakes and cherry tomatoes; or how about our tasty prawn primavera for dinner? This deceptively light pasta meal is packed with succulent king prawns, sweet peas, asparagus and broccoli on a bed of egg tagliatelle, topped with a light, creamy sauce made with a dash of wine, fish stock and herbs.
They’re both so delicious, you’ll find it hard to believe you’re being good to yourself.
Charlotte Parker, company nutritionist at Sainsbury’s, offers her advice on creating a healthier lunch:
- A nutritionally balanced lunch incorporates starchy foods (such as bread, rice, potatoes or pasta), meat, fish, eggs or beans, fruit and vegetables plus some dairy produce (milk, cheese or yoghurt).
- Swap white bread for wholemeal bread or pitta.
- Try and incorporate one or two of your ‘five a day’ in your lunch – perhaps one vegetable plus some fruit for dessert.
- Fill sandwiches and salads with lean meats, oily fish, egg, beans, pulses or lentils.
- Instead of sandwiches, try salads, using pasta, rice, couscous or new potatoes.
- Increase your calcium intake with a pot of low-fat yoghurt, cottage cheese or matchbox-size portion of hard/soft cheese.
Healthier lunch on the move
When you’re leading a busy life, sometimes the only option is to grab food on the move – but you can still enjoy a healthier lunch without compromising on flavour.
Sometimes, life simply demands that you eat your food on the move: whether you’re grabbing a pre-prepared salad to eat at your desk, or you take your own packed lunch for a day out with the kids, it’s simply part of our lifestyle. But sometimes, the flexibility required by portable food means we have to compromise on the taste and quality or the nutritional value of our meal.
Thankfully, this doesn’t always have to be the case with our newly relaunched be good to yourself range. There’s a host of options for those of us who need tasty fare when we’re on the move, including such delights as new black Nanjing rice with king prawns salad or the new humous and crunchy vegetable wrap, both offering a healthier lunchtime treat.
Why not make your own tortilla wraps by filling them with any number of be good to yourself products, such as flavoured cottage cheese or humous, and finish your lunch with a sweet treat like the new raspberry panna cotta?
Charlotte Parker, company nutritionist at Sainsbury’s, offers her advice on creating a healthier lunch on the move:
- A healthy lunch contains plenty of fruit and veg, milk or dairy, protein such as lean meat, fish, eggs or beans and starchy carbohydrates such as bread, pasta or couscous.
- Try choosing products with green and amber traffic lights on the nutrition label.
- Bulk out soups, salads and sandwiches with vegetables, dried fruit and pulses.
- Go for low-fat versions of cheese, yoghurt, spreads and mayonnaise.
- If you fancy crisps, go for the low or reduced fat versions.
- Make pasties, pies, biscuits and cakes occasional treats.
