10 Food Resolutions For The New Year

Every January, you swear that you're going to start exercising, whether for the whole year or just to lose that holiday weight, but for how long do you actually stick to your resolution? After January passes, eating healthier becomes more challenging and you forget why you made your resolution in the first place. You wind up back where you started, eating whatever you want and avoiding the gym. #YOLO, right? 

Trying out new vegetables can get pricey, but there are so many great ones that you've probably never tasted. To incorporate more vegetables into your diet, try buying a new one each week and serving it as a side dish. You might be surprised to find that your new favorite vegetable is cauliflower, escarole, or bok choy. 

Excessive amounts of salt are believed to cause hypertension, which can lead to strokes, heart attacks, and heart failure. Experiment with new spices this year in an effort to decrease your salt intake, and have a healthier new year.  

Going to the grocery store unprepared usually results in either forgetting many items you need or overspending. Making a list of all the food you need for the week in advance will make it easier to budget your money, and save you from buying unnecessary items that will just go bad in your fridge. 

There are so many confusing ingredients on labels today, how are we supposed to know what "all natural" even means? Try making some of your favorite products, like nut butters, almond milk, sauces, and dips from scratch to eliminate unhealthy preservatives and mysterious ingredients! 

You don't have to be a vegetarian 100 percent of the time to make an impact, but try cooking a full vegetarian meal for your family one night a week. You could do anything from vegetarian chili to zoodles with an avocado pesto sauce to make a filling, yet satisfying vegetarian meal.

This may be challenging if you're not used to planning your meals ahead of time, but it can ultimately save you from stressing out over what to have for dinner each night. Find ingredients that you can use in more than one dish, like chicken breasts for a feta-chicken bake dinner and for curried chicken salad sandwiches for lunch.   

Losing that holiday weight isn't an easy task, but you don't want to enter into an unhealthy diet to try to lose those extra pounds. Exercise willpower by saying no to those extra beers that can be 200 calories a piece or by avoiding the fattening calories found in the bread basket at dinner. 

A great resolution is swapping out the unhealthy ingredients in your favorite recipes to lighten the fat intake in your dishes. Try serving a Greek yogurt-based dip at your tailgate party instead of a fatty sour cream dip, or try swapping in vegetable pasta out for your plain pasta at your spaghetti dinner. These changes are subtle, but you're cutting calories out and eating healthier. For example, Barilla Veggie Pasta provides one full serving of vegetables per 3.5 ounce portion, making this swap an easy way to incorporate vegetables into your family's diet. 

You have that one night when your family all goes out to dinner and sticks to the same favorite restaurant that you've been eating at for years. This year, try going out to a new, exciting restaurant once a month to help expand you and your family's culinary horizon. Instead of always choosing Italian, try Thai, Indian, Turkish, Ethiopian, or French to improve your food education! You may be surprised by how much you love these cuisines. 

Testing out a new recipe can be expensive, because you might have to buy all of the ingredients to make your dish! It's worth it, though, to step out of the spaghetti-and-meatball comfort zone to try making something totally new! Save up so you can splurge every other week to create something fantastic, like slow-cooker pulled pork tacos or mac and cheese with braised leeks and asiago.