Courtesy of Maria Sakellariou

By Maria Sakellariou

Although the American Heart Association has designated February "American Heart Month," we all know how important it is to practice heart-healthy eating and living habits throughout the year. Let’s use February as a reminder and a springboard to practice a fabulous, heart-healthy lifestyle.

Diets don’t work in the long run, probably because they can be so cumbersome and restrictive. However, changing our lifestyle and incorporating healthy habits in our everyday approach to life can have an everlasting impact with not much effort. The Mediterranean lifestyle is just that. It doesn’t require special, expensive ingredients or fancy food preparation techniques. It’s a simple approach to life that uses fresh, readily available ingredients prepared in the simplest of ways.

Maria Sakellariou, owner of the personal chef service Culinary Odyssey LLC, in St. Louis, Missouri, and a member of the United States Personal Chef Association (USPCA), specializes in Mediterranean-style cooking. She recommends these helpful tips for a heart-healthy diet:

1. Use olive oil exclusively. “Extra virgin, cold press” is preferred. Reasonably priced, quality olive oils are available just about everywhere, and they’re healthier for you than butter. Olive oil is a monounsaturated fat that is high in antioxidants, whereas butter is a saturated fat, too much of which can increase your risk of heart disease.

2. Use fresh citrus (such as orange or lemon) juice instead of sodium to heighten the flavor of your food. Citrus juice provides a fresh burst of flavor without the adverse effects of too much sodium, which include high blood pressure. Squeezing citrus on fresh vegetables, salads, or broiled seafood is a great way to enhance flavor.
3. Replace cream or sour cream with nonfat Greek yogurt, which has a similar consistency without the added fat. This is especially helpful when used with foods such as baked potatoes, creamy soups, and mayo substitutes. Greek yogurt has a little tangy flavor, but that’s a good thing: it awakens the taste buds, making us feel more satisfied with less quantity.
4. When making soups, blend part of the ingredients, using a blender, for a creamy consistency without adding fattening foods, such as real cream, to achieve the desired results.
5. Roasting heightens the layers of flavors in foods such as meats and vegetables, especially if this is done before the whole dish is prepared. Roasting a butternut squash before using it to make soup increases flavors without needing to add salt and butter.

According to Chef Maria, putting together a healthy meal can be both quick and simple. And, if you’d rather spend 30 minutes doing another activity rather than cooking, just have a USPCA personal chef cook the food for you!

For a fresh take on fish and vegetables, try the heart-healthy recipes shown on pages two and three of this article!