What a Cardiologist Eats In a Day - Summer Edition

By Elizabeth Klodas, MD

Last updated: 8/31/2024

If you’ve followed my blog over the past two years, you’ve probably caught my 'What I Eat in a Day' vlog series. I share these snippets of my life to drive home a key point: eating healthy, balanced meals doesn’t have to be hard or time-consuming. And in this post, I’ll show you how easy it is—even during the busy, fun summer months.

Breakfast

In the summer, I mostly eat plain Greek yogurt with berries and Anytime Sprinkle. I typically add a generous spoonful of orange marmalade because 1. I love orange marmalade and 2. I think it really brings out the flavor of fruit, especially berries.

My other default is a bar and a piece of fruit. As someone who works full time, I am often hurrying out the door in the mornings. This is just so easy – and so good for me. Note that the cups of coffee pictured in both breakfasts are not only essential in my life, but the coffee is black and unsweetened.

Dairy neutralizes the beneficial poly phenols and antioxidants found in coffee and chocolate. That’s why coffee is best drank black and chocolate is best consumed dark - the darker the better. Although it looks like milk has been added, that’s just the foam (“crema” if you’re a coffee afficionado) created by my coffee maker.

Dinner

I go for easy in the summer and try to incorporate as much in-season produce as possible. Salads are my go-to and I eat giant bowls of it. Usually using a bowl meant to hold enough salad to serve mulitple people. And what you see in the pictures I ate myself. This is the beauty of eating a plant-forward diet. You get to eat massive amounts of an endless variety of nutritionally dense foods that are relatively calorie poor.

This year I discovered the magic combination of tomatoes and peaches. Add fresh basil, a bunch of greens (arugula is my favorite) and some fresh mozzarella, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and you have a flavorful salad you can’t get enough of. I could eat this all year long, especially if the peaches and tomatoes were perpetually as amazing as they are right now.

My fridge always has avocados in it. Keeping them cool once they’ve reached ripeness extends their usable shelf life. I also love beets but cheat and buy them already roasted and peeled from the produce section of my grocery store. Add greens, chickpeas (rinsed right out of the can), some cut up cucumbers for crunch, and a couple of boiled eggs and you have a protein rich salad that could help lower blood pressure (beets are known for this)!

Combining hot and cold is something else I love to do in the summer. My Hummus Budha Bowl combines hot brown rice and quinoa (yes, from the instant packet you heat for 90 seconds in the microwave) with chickpeas (from the can again) that I cook in olive oil with smoked paprika, cumin, garlic and cayenne (optional). I serve those with all sorts of diced/grated vegetables, chopped parsley and mint, and a scoop of hummus on the side. Go easy on the olives and crumbled feta if you’re watching your sodium intake.

I have to admit I’m not a giant eggplant eater, but this recipe has lots of bold flavors that make up for the blandness of the main veggie. Tomatoes, garlic, onions and plenty of parsley are a fabulous combination – that honestly could go over zucchini or squash or even pasta and make that dish sing. Add burrata for creaminess and you’re good to go. Instead of the cheese you could also use plain yogurt and those chickpeas again and make the dish equally substantial.

For hot meals, I like to minimize difficulty level so prep work is no greater than what I spend on the salads. Ready made pesto with noodles is a breeze. I love to add shrimp that I sautee in olive oil with smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder and dried oregano. I don’t add any salt to the pasta water or the shrimp. The pesto supplies all the salt needed. Parmesan optional.

Finally, I like to use up staple veggies in various stews. This is a vegetable curry made with cauliflower, carrots, potatoes and cooked frozen peas served over that brown rice quinoa again (using up the other half of the grain packet) this time sprinkled with plenty of cilantro.

Eating well doesn’t have to be hard... or bland! And you don’t need to carve out hours for meal planning or prep. In fact, it’s likely easier than you think to create balanced and nutritious meals—even when life gets busy. Most of the meals pictured here took less than 15 minutes to throw together. And every single dish was delicious! And, overall, didn’t break the bank (shrimp was the spendiest ingredient). So, let’s embrace the ease of eating well, and make every season a time to nourish ourselves with foods that build health - and taste great!

Having said all that, and as proof that I’m not perfect, this Labor Day weekend I’ll be attending the Minnesota State Fair. I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be trying foods that look nothing like my normal week’s meals. And that’s OK. It’s just one day.

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