Atlanta Personal Chef Service warns about six common food misconceptions

   At Atlanta Personal Chef Service, cooking healthy is very important to us.  We know that it is possible to make great tasting food that is healthy too.  It's amazing the difference that fresh food with high quality ingredients can make on the taste of a dish.  Read below for some common misconceptions.  Our insider tips will help you keep it healthy when you do your own grocery shopping.

Lean meat: Meat labeled lean can be misleading. It doesn't matter if the label says lean, its the fat percentage that matters. When they advertise 80% lean meat, the fact is that its 20% fat, which is very high. 80% lean just sounds better, so that's how meat is labeled. Stick with meat that is lower in fat or ask the butcher from your local meat store to remove the fat (if possible) of whatever cut you buy.  Unless you're gunning for a nice, juicy burger, it generally stick to meat that's 90% lean or more.

If it’s organic than it must be healthy! That’s false! Organic food (or its ingredients) are grown without antibiotics, hormones, or pesticides. A cookie or ice cream brand may claim that they are organic (made with real sugar, farmed milked, and real flour), but they are still just as unhealthy as their non-organic friends. Just because its organic, it does not mean its healthier.

Its fat free and it has zero calories: Unless you are buying water, everything else has calories. Companies these days try everything to fool the customers to buy their product. A big example of this is Nestlé’s Fat Free Coffee Mate. Why are they are allowed to do that?  Because they decrease their serving size to ridiculously small amounts, such as one level tea spoon for Nestlé’s Fat Free Coffee Mate. That amount rounds down to zero, which why the FDA lets companies get away with such misleading statements.

It’s sugar free! If its sugar free and still tastes sweet, then there is probably high-fructose corn syrup present. Many food experts believe that high-fructose corn syrup or fructose in general has a strong link with America’s growing obesity. Try to minimize your sugar intake. If you can’t, than go for the real natural sugar and not processed ones.

Fruits or Vegetables in a bottle: Fruit juices that people buy in the stores are usually concentrated and filled with fructose or sugar. What about the ones that has different types fruits mixed together? Well, they are more likely using a variety of concentrated fruit juices, which are filled with fructose or sugar. What about vegetables juices? Well, they are mostly tomato, so you are not getting a variety of vegetables. Looking for fruits juices or vegetable juices? Buy them whole and blend them yourself at home.

Water with vitamins: If a company is advertising water with vitamins in it, it’s a probably telling the truth, but it comes with a calorie price (usually around 80 to 150). Also, the vitamins that are in it are C and B, which most of us get enough of in our regular diets if we're eating healthy.

      At Atlanta Personal Chef Service, we're helping families eat healthy week after week.  If you'd really like to maintain a healthy diet, you'll have to stay committed to it.  Once way that we help, is by creating customized menus for families around Atlanta, including in Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Vinings, Midtown, Decatur, and more.  Let a Personal Chef help keep you eating healthy, and still looking forward to dinners cooking right in your own home kitchen.  Contact us today for more information on our Personal Chef Services.

Let Atlanta Personal Chef Service Help You With Your New Year’s Resolution

According to http://www.usa.gov, the top New Year’s Resolutions are to “ lose weight, volunteer to help others, quit smoking, get a better education, get a better job, save money, get fit, eat healthy food, manage stress, manage debt, take a trip, reduce, reuse, and recycle, drink less alcohol.” The majority of these resolutions are about being healthy and maintaining a healthy diet. Whether your resolution is to lose weight or to eat healthier meals Atlanta Personal Chef Service is here to help you. Everyday our chefs are cooking healthy delicious meals to families living around Atlanta, Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Vinnings, and other neighborhoods in and around Atlanta. 

All of our chefs graduated from great culinary schools and have a lot of experience. They cook meals that are delicious, healthy, and with low salt content. Let Atlanta Personal Chef Service help with accomplishing those resolutions. Give us a try and we guarantee you that you are not going to regret.

Personal Chefs Speak: Tricks to Help you Eat Less

In a country where food is cheap, plentiful, and the choices are many, it’s very hard for Americans to control their eating habits. It’s like running on the treadmill while you watch the seconds passing by. The time seems to pass so slowly and thirty minutes never seems to end. So, what do you do? Put a towel over the timer and listen to music, which makes the brain focus on the music thus helping the time go by much “faster.”

The brain behaves the same with eating less. We just need to trick it or “put a towel over it” to make it seem that we don’t need as much food as the brain thinks we do. Atlanta Personal Chef Service is here to give three simple pieces of advice to help you eat less or lose weight without you even noticing you are doing so.

First, decrease the size of your plates. Research shows that people are prone to eat more (28% more) when using a larger plate. Why? Because they simply put more food on their plate and don’t want to throw it out due to the starving children in Africa. Also, if you use smaller cooking dishes, you will also cook less, thus not having to feel bad for the starving children and actually do something about it. You can save money by spending less on food then donate what you saved to charitable organizations that help starving children in Africa.

Second, change the name of a “normal” portion to a “large.” It will help you to take less on your plate and eat less, because your brain will think that eating a large portion is too much. Most people defer to the normal portion while picking a meal or drink because they think that small is too small and big is too big. Our society’s “normal” has been increasing and it differs for each restaurant, so who is to say what is regular and what is large? Drink and eat less by always sticking with small.

Third, rearrange the way you stock fruits and vegetables in your fridge. Research shows that people are more prone to eat their fruits and vegetables when they put them in places that are visible, such as the center shelf. This will help you to acknowledge that the food you bought is still there and you don’t want to throw money away. Filling up on healthy food will help you decrease the amount of unhealthy food you eat.

Atlanta Personal Chef Service is here to help you live a healthy life without giving up the taste of great food. We have personal chefs in Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Vinings, Roswell, Alpharetta and other cities in Georgia. Keep following our blog and continue getting great tips about food and heath. For more information, check out our website at: www.AtlantaPersonalChefService.com.

Picking Ingredients at Season's Peak

Atlanta Personal Chef Service - Fresh Avocado Salad over Seasonal Greens

Atlanta Personal Chef Service always uses the freshest ingredients available for the highest quality and best tasting dinners. Everyday our chefs go to grocery stores around Atlanta and the surrounding areas, such as Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Roswell and Alpharetta, to stores including Publix, WholeFoods, Harry's, and the Buford and Dekalb Farmers Markets. We always integrate seasonal ingredients into our menus, so we provide Atlanta Personal Chef Service’s clients dishes that taste great and are as fresh as can be. Summer in the state of Georgia offers seasonal ingredients such as blueberries, corn, cucumbers, field peas, melon, peaches, peppers, tomatoes, Vidalia onions, and summer squashes. Close to Atlanta is Florida, with their seasonal ingredients of avocados, cantaloupe, mangoes, peppers, and watermelon. Apricots, celery, cherries, gooseberries, nectarines, peas, rhubarb, strawberries, and tomatoes come in from Tennessee. Our chefs are always striving to cook the best and freshest food of the season. To see more pictures of our freshly prepared foods, visit our website (www.AtlantaPersonalChefService.com) or Facebook page.