1. Bacon or sausage?
ANSWER: BACON. A slice of bacon, cooked thoroughly, has fewer calories than a typical sausage. Your best bet is a slice of lean back bacon with the rind and fat cut off, rather than fatty streaky bacon.
2. A packed lunch or a purchased lunch?
ANSWER: A PACKED LUNCH. It'll be healthier, it'll probably have fewer calories, it'll be cheaper and it'll save you lots of time that you can use for walking, reading or socializing instead.
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3. Lunch or graze?
ANSWER: GRAZE. Nibble food throughout the day, rather than having a large, formal lunch. Spreading out your calories stabilizes blood sugar and insulin levels, provides more frequent relief from stress, tension and boredom, and avoids the post-meal fatigue, because you don't have a big meal. Plus, you never get really hungry, and so are less likely to make the regrettable food choices that you might when you're starving. Best reason: all-day grazing frees up lunchtime for other things, such as a walk or catching up on work so you can get home a bit earlier and go for a walk then.
4. Coffee or tea?
ANSWER: TEA. Choose black or green tea. These are jammed with heart-healthy antioxidants that provide more than just an energy-boosting punch; as well as contributing to healthier arteries; they may also help to prevent cancer.
5. Fresh or powdered garlic?
ANSWER: FRESH. Technically, the jury is still out. A large American study on fresh garlic by Christopher Gardner, PhD, of Stanford University Medical Center, found that fresh garlic failed to reduce cholesterol levels, although further research is needed on its other possible medicinal benefits. But, Gardner notes, the active ingredient in garlic is allicin, which can easily be destroyed if you mess with it too much, which suggests that fresh is best. Other tests indicate that you'd usually need more powdered garlic than fresh to get the same benefits.
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6. Strawberries or blueberries?
ANSWER: BLUEBERRIES. Of course, both are great for you, so try to eat lots of these two fruits. But when you compare the nutrients in an equal amount of each, blueberries have a slight edge. Blueberries are particularly rich in fiber - four times that of strawberries - as well as containing more natural sugars, much more vitamin E and some unique micronutrients that are good for memory.
7. Fresh fruit or dried?
ANSWER: FRESH. The higher water content (most fresh fruits are more than 80 percent water) means a larger volume, making the fruit more filling and satisfying with fewer calories. But for convenience and shelf life, use dried fruit as your back-up plan.
8. Fruit juice or fruit?
ANSWER: FRUIT. Get the real thing. Not only are most fruit juices loaded with sugar, they've been stripped of an important element found in fruit - fiber.
PLUS: 9 Fruits You Can Grow Indoors
9. Broccoli or cauliflower?
ANSWER: BROCCOLI. At 2.6 grams of fiber per 100 grams, broccoli has twice the fiber oomph of cauliflower.
10. Natural sugar or white sugar?
ANSWER: NEITHER. They're both sugar. Neither has any nutritional benefit or is any better than the other. Here's a case where the brown color does not imply a healthier version.
Plus, 10 more question to get your diet on track.
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