Make family supper a simple affair with mom's meal-plan newsletter

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - After years watching people struggle with their weight, bouncing from one fad diet to the next, Kaylan Vialpando, a certified personal trainer and nutrition and weight loss counselor, came up with a more organized way to share the tips and advice she has been dispensing for decades.

Vialpando is the author of Serving Supper _ a monthly newsletter full of healthy dinner recipes, menus, and grocery lists to help families save money, save time, eat better, and live lighter.

As a mother of five, Vialpando, 41, has been an advocate for healthy families, and she practices what she preaches.

"We're helping our children develop healthy eating patterns for life, so we can start a generation of people who don't diet. Instead we're eating smart," she said. "It's all about the balance we choose, in a sensible sort of way." The idea behind Serving Supper began when Vialpando found fewer families sitting down together to share healthy, home-cooked meals.

"You see 15-year-old kids who have never sat down to eat with their families before. And adult women who have never cooked before and don't know how to begin," she said. "At first it's really hard for them. But it just takes practice, like everything else." The monthly meal plan service is designed to make the family dinner less of a chore.

"Any service that encourages families to prepare meals at home is a wonderful thing," said Stacy Beeson, outpatient dietitian and Health Solutions dietitian St. Luke's Boise hospital.

But for some, a trip to the grocery store can be an intimidating experience.

"A lot of the people who struggle with the whole cooking thing don't really go to the grocery store either," Vialpando said. "They don't want to go if it's going to take them two hours. But if it's organized, they don't mind going." That's where the Serving Supper newsletter comes in. Once a month, subscribers receive a multipage e-mail newsletter with daily dinner recipes, menus, and grocery lists organized by where items may be found in the store as well as which recipe requires which ingredient.

"It saves you from impulse buying and keeps you focused," Vialpando said. "And it encourages weekly shopping, so you're not going on the way home from work when you're tired and hungry." Serving Supper is not a diet. It's about eating right and recognizing proper portion sizes.

"You don't have to have your food separately because you're on some special diet and you have to make separate meals from the rest of your family. I've never felt that was realistic," Vialpando said. "Instead, this is just learning how to eat in a realistic manner. Nobody wants to just eat chicken breasts or tofu or salads forever." Cooking at home doesn't mean you have to spend hours in the kitchen or make everything from scratch.

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"The aspects I like about Serving Supper are that it focuses on simple, easy meals that use normal products you'd likely have on-hand," Beeson said. "It utilizes the half-scratch method of cooking, which incorporates canned and frozen items paired with fresh ingredients and provides one-pot wonder dishes to lessen cleanup time." The daily meal plans are designed to be low in calories and fat, Vialpando said.

"Nutritionally, the suppers average 25 percent fat, which is in the healthy range, and every meal has vegetables within it or promotes a vegetable side dish," Beeson said. "I am happy to see fish included almost every week, whole wheat versions of grains are suggested, and fruit is creatively used for some of the sauces. The only thing I would add are more vegetarian meals." Vialpando stresses learning to cook healthy foods and eat in a realistic manner to achieve long-term weight control success.

"It's so much simpler if we all just stop dieting and start using common sense when it comes to eating, and start cooking at home," she said.

"It's one of the things that I do because I love the people in my house. I'm showing them, 'I care enough about you to feed you to the best of my capabilities.' It's all done because I love my family, I want them to be healthy people, and I want them to grow up without the food struggle that so many people go through."

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© 2009, The Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho).