Every five years, “Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” is revised by the US government. The report gives guidelines for a living a healthy lifestyle including a nutrient-rich diet. Eat more vegetables fits into this, so my recipe this week is for Chinese Carrot Relish.

What is the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Report?

The Dietary Guidelines Report is an extensive report which ties together current nutritional intake of Americans with the latest research on what we should be eating to achieve a healthy lifestyle and prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes. It is revised every five years.

From a practical point of view, it is used for making policy decisions regarding national nutrition programs such as school lunches, food stamps, etc. The preliminary scientific research report was released February 2015 in the Federal Register. After a period of time for comments and revisions, the final report will be released. I included the intro to the report at the end of this post.

What are the guidelines for food group servings?

To my surprise after skimming pages and pages of the the report, it does not give a recommended number of servings for fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, meats, etc. It recognizes that Americans have many different dietary patterns that can be nutritionally adequate. It references several healthy dietary patterns – the DASH diet, Mediterranean diet, vegetarian diet. In general, the guidelines include watching caloric intake to maintain a healthy weight, eating more nutrient-dense foods and less processed foods with salt and sugar.

Chinese Carrot Relish

Eating plenty of vegetables certainly fits into a nutrient-rich diet. Carrots is vegetable that probably we all like and eat–it seems to make it’s way into every boxed lunch and onto every vegetable party tray. And carrots is a nutrient-rich vegetable–high in Vitamin A and low in calories. This crunchy vegetable is a healthy snack food, too.

“Chinese Carrot Relish” is another way to include carrots in a meal. When I was growing up, my mom loved to entertain and she served Chinese-type meals. She always fixed this relish. We loved Chinese Carrot Relish then and I still do.

The relish is made of carrots and onions that are shredded, sauteed in a little peanut oil, then marinated with soy sauce and vinegar. Simple, quick and easy.

Shred the carrots and onion. A food processor makes this easy.

Here are the carrots and onions in the food processor along with the other ingredients.

Saute the carrots and onions on the stove in peanut oil.

Add the vinegar and lite soy sauce, and that’s it.

Recipe

Serve Chinese Carrot Relish as a side dish or add it to an Oriental Chicken Salad. Either way, I hope it becomes a favorite recipe for you, too, as we all try to eat more vegetables and a healthy diet.

Here’s the Introduction to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion  www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015.asp

“The 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Committee) submitted the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Advisory Report) to the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in February 2015. The purpose of the Advisory Report is to inform the Federal government of current scientific evidence on topics related to diet, nutrition, and health. It provides the Federal government with a foundation for developing national nutrition policy. However, the Advisory Report is not the Dietary Guidelines for Americans policy or a draft of the policy. The Federal government will determine how it will use the information in the Advisory Report as the government develops theDietary Guidelines for Americans. HHS and USDA will jointly release the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015 later this year.”