Healthy Eating for One (or Two!)

After years of cooking for a household that may have big appetites or many children, it can be hard to adjust to cooking for just one or two people. This is made even more difficult by the fact that most cookbooks or food websites tailor their recipes for households of four or more people, which is often not the case for a retiree.

Here is a healthy pasta recipe to try – with ingredients for one serving or two servings. Make it even healthier by substituting whole wheat pasta for regular fettuccini.

Fettuccine with Spinach & Feta

You can prepare the uncooked sauce used for this dish in less time than it takes to cook the pasta, making this a fast and easy recipe to prepare. The feta cheese also contains enough salt to give the meal flavour, so you can omit to add extra salt into the water while the pasta cooks.

1. Pick over and stem the spinach, discarding any unusable leaves. Wash the spinach well – drain in a colander and set aside.
2. Thinly slice the green onion, including both the white and green parts and place in a medium mixing bowl. Add the feta, oil, lemon juice (optional), dill and pepper.
3. Cook the fettuccine according to the directions on the package but without salt. For the last 30 seconds of cooking, stir the spinach into the water with the fettuccine and push it under the water so that it wilts. Drain.
4. Add the fettuccine and spinach to the bowl and toss with the cheese mixture. Serve immediately.

Nutritional information per serving: 449 calories, 20.1g total fat, 9.6g saturated fat, 50mg cholesterol, 727mg sodium, 18.7g protein, 49.8g carbohydrates, 3.1g dietary fibre.

Healthy eating is more than just the foods you eat – it’s important to be mindful of your eating habits (try to take your time when eating, and notice when you are hungry and when you are full), It’s also important to cook more meals at home and eat out less so that you have more control over the ingredients in your meal to make sure you are eating as healthy as you think you are.