How to Spring Clean Your Diet

Every spring, millions of Americans haul old furniture to the curb, scrub forgotten corners, and throw open the windows. Dr. Melissa Weintraub thinks our refrigerators deserve the same treatment.

“Spring for all of us, especially as the snow has finally melted and we feel like we’re emerging again,” says Weintraub, a physician with Optum Medical Care. “It’s a nice time to just look at the nutritional choices we make for each of our meals and see what small changes we can make to improve our overall health.”

Building Block by Building Block

Weintraub’s advice is simple enough to remember without an app: for every meal, ask yourself two questions. Do I have a protein? And do I have a fiber?

By fiber, she means vegetables, fruit, and complex carbohydrates — the sweet potatoes and whole grains that digest slowly, as opposed to the simple carbohydrates, like white bread or croissants, that spike blood sugar and leave you hungry an hour later.

For those who like a visual, she recommends what she calls the “healthy plate” image: your protein portion should be roughly the size of your palm. Your vegetables? Twice that. A healthy carbohydrate, about half to two-thirds of a palm.

“If you get that image of your plate,” she says, “you’re on track to a healthy meal.”

Start With Breakfast — And Don’t Fear the Egg

For people who feel paralyzed at the starting line, Weintraub suggests a single entry point: breakfast. Most Americans, she notes, default to carbohydrate-heavy mornings — the bagel, the roll, the croissant. All fall into the simple carbohydrate category she’d like to see people minimize.

Eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, and hummus are all protein options she points to. Pair one of those with a slice of multigrain toast and a piece of fruit, and you’ve already made a meaningful change.

“Simple little changes,” she says, “which make a big difference.”

On Fats, Sugar, and Sodium: The Nuances Matter

Weintraub addresses a few of the most common misconceptions about nutrition advice.

On sugar: “People have sometimes said to me, ‘Oh, I was told I wasn’t supposed to eat fruit because there’s a lot of sugar.'” But fruit sugar arrives packaged with natural fiber, she explains, which changes how the body processes it. You don’t have to limit it.

On sodium: the concern is most acute for people already managing high blood pressure, where a doctor will likely recommend limits. For the general population, it’s less of an urgent priority.

On fats — perhaps the most misunderstood category — Weintraub draws a clean line between saturated fats, found in red meat, fried foods, and most processed sweets, and unsaturated fats, which include the monounsaturated fats in avocados, nuts, and olive oil. The latter are not just permissible, she says. They are actively important to include.

Eating Out Without Eating Badly

The same protein-plus-fiber logic applies when ordering from a menu. At an Italian restaurant, Weintraub says, that means choosing a chicken or fish dish instead of a pasta-heavy entrée — and asking the kitchen to substitute an extra order of vegetables for the pasta or potato that comes on the side.

She concedes that many fast food chains are difficult to navigate healthfully. But at Mexican fast-casual spots, she sees a path: beans — “incredibly good for you,” she says.

Stock the Pantry, Plan Ahead

Healthy eating, Weintraub argues, is as much a logistics problem as a willpower problem. She recommeds practical items to stock in your pantry: canned beans, lentils, farro, and quinoa. She encourages patients to cook a large batch of a grain like farro or quinoa on a weekend and keep it in the refrigerator all week — ready to pull out when time is short and the temptation to order something processed is at its highest.

For produce, she says bags of frozen fruit and vegetables are perfectly good substitutes for fresh ones.

The Misconception She Hears Most

Weintraub says the biggest myth in nutrition she hears most often is that healthy food can’t taste good.

“It’s amazing how many absolutely delicious healthy meals you can prepare with not a lot of effort and still really enjoy,” she says. “Don’t disparage a healthy meal. Don’t think, oh, that’s just never going to taste good — because you can create some masterpieces that you will really enjoy and feel very satisfied after eating.”

Image: Vegetables are displayed in a produce section at a supermarket in New York, Monday, May 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)