It's time to welcome some of the foods that were previously deemed unhealthy back into your diet. How many times have you been admonished not to eat something because of an old wives' tale or outdated research? It's time to stop avoiding those so-called bad choices and enjoy them again! Start with canned vegetables, which have long suffered a bad reputation for their salt content. {relatedarticles}There are low- and no-sodium varieties of almost every canned veggie on the market, and if you can't find your favorite, then go ahead and buy the regular version - you can give canned veggies a cold-water rinse in the colander before preparing to remove even more salt. Make the right red meat choice, and it doesn't have to be verboten anymore.
Extra-lean ground sirloin makes a great burger, and lean cuts that are prepared correctly make super choices. Two other much-maligned lean protein sources, eggs and shrimp, are back on the "good" list. Steamed shrimp is a lean meat that fits into most any diet, and one egg yolk a day does not raise cholesterol levels, according to researchers. Potatoes got dropped as a side dish during the low-carb fad but have always been a nutritional powerhouse, packing plenty of vitamins C, B-6, folate and fiber.{relatedarticles} Just watch portions - gigantic restaurant-style stuffed potatoes can pack a lot of fat and calories. And compared with darker green veggies, iceberg lettuce may not measure up nutritionally, but it is a water-rich, low-calorie food that allows you to load up your salad with lots of goodies, like beans, seeds, lean protein and salad dressing.