Planning healthy meals is the best way to stick to a healthy diet. Meal preparation means that you can cook both side and main courses for the week to take the guesswork out of your daily meals. While most meal planning will center around lean meats, proteins, and vegetables that keep well in the refrigerator. If you are meal planning and you have a major sweet tooth, none of the typical meal plans that concentrate on fiber, and protein may seem to satisfy your tastes. Here are some ways to plan meals for the week and keep your sweet tooth content.

Keep cut fruit in the crisper

During your weekly shopping trips, stock up on fruits that satisfy your sweet addiction. Fruits such as strawberries, pineapples, and grapes can taste as sweet as market candy and are much healthier on the food pyramid and on the glycemic index. Purchase enough of these fruits to last for an entire week. Once you are home, properly wash these fruits, slice them as necessary, and place them inside of containers or plastic bags inside of the refrigerator crisper. Keeping these fruits firm and prepared will give you something sweet to snack on regularly.

Make DIY mango salsa

In order to satisfy your body's need for health food and satisfy your need for sweets, create your own mango salsa. This salsa can be put on top of dishes such as chicken, fish, and a dish or beans and rice. The best way to make sure that the salsa is healthy is to create the salsa yourself. Gather onion, tomato, mango, and red and green peppers. Put these into a food processor and chop into thin chunks. This can be kept inside of a jar and used to top dishes or used with natural corn tortilla chips as a quick snack.

Create 16-ounce breakfast smoothies

If you want to get your morning started with something a little sweet, consider having a frozen fruit smoothie in the mornings. Meal planning for smoothies means having your favorite type of milk and frozen fruits on hand, which are easy and inexpensive. Pour milk and add frozen fruits inside of a blender. Blend until the drink is at a smooth consistency. A 16-ounce fruit smoothie can provide you with several of your daily fruit servings plus taste better than the candy that you would have selected before. Taking a few minutes to blend a smoothie in the morning is healthy and makes meal planning simple for breakfast.

For more information, contact Colorado Nutrition for Health Fitness & Performance or a similar organization.