et's face it: we're all in a rush, especially when it comes to cooking and eating. Many of us turn to restaurants, takeout, service delis and fast food to eliminate altogether the extra step of cooking. If we do cook, we want convenient foods that cook quickly (or not at all) and can be ready to eat in no time. The problem is that we often trade in health for convenience because it seems that we can't have both.

To a certain degree, it is true that healthful food can't also be convenient because healthy meals include loads of produce, which takes time to wash and prepare before cooking. Also, eating healthfully in general means preparing your own food since you control what goes into your food-both in quantity and in quality-and that takes time. However, there are tricks and strategies that you can employ so that you can make nutritious meals in a hurry without relying on a restaurant or factory to make them for you. I've developed six steps that you can take to get a home-cooked healthful meal on the table in a hurry any night of the week:

1. Plan, plan, plan. I can't emphasize enough how much time this could save you. When you have some down time, plan your meals for the next several days. If you start thinking about what to make for dinner at 5pm, then shop, and then cook, you won't be eating until 8pm. Being impulsive is fun, but washing dishes at 9pm is not. You will save more time if you plan your menus and shop for all of them at once.

2. As soon as you have your menus planned, take a quick inventory of what you have on hand in your fridge and pantry to see if anything has expired or needs to be replaced. Nothing wastes more time than running back to the market after coming home, only to learn that you're out of a spice or that the salad dressing you were going to use is expired.

3. Choose recipes that build on each other. By planning a week's worth of meals at once and taking inventory, you can choose recipes that build on ingredients that you already have on hand. For instance, if you use half of an onion on Monday, then try to include another recipe later in the week that will use the other half of the onion. You can take it one step further by slicing or chopping the whole onion on Monday so it won't have to be prepared later on in the week. You may also plan to have left-overs, but keep in mind that cooking large quantities of food takes longer than cooking small batches, so you must decide which has more benefits for you.

4. Organize your shopping list. Once you know what you plan to cook, make a shopping list and try to group the items you need according to aisle or department. List all of your produce items together and all of your canned goods together, for instance, so that you will not waste time criss-crossing the store for items that you might have missed because your list was jumbled up.

5. Become a strategic shopper. Choosing the right ingredients at the supermarket is a huge part of combining health and convenience. Here are some strategies:

• In the produce department, consider buying pre-cut vegetables and fruit and bulk or bagged lettuce. Everything should still be washed at home, but at least it won't need to be cut, too. Also, choose ripe vegetables and fruit to help save time, since they will cook faster and have more flavor than less ripe produce.
• In the meat and seafood departments, select cuts that cook quickly. The smaller or thinner the pieces of protein, the faster they will cook. Boneless poultry will cook faster than pieces with bones. Also consider having a meat cutter at your Gelson's completely butterfly chicken breasts to make them thinner (this is faster than pounding them). Shrimp and scallops cook in minutes since they are small.
• Consider trying meatless proteins that don't need to be cooked, such as tofu and canned beans. Heating food takes a lot less time than cooking it, so these can be a good option for "mix and heat" type meals.
• Put on a sweater, open up the freezer case and say "hello" to your new best friends: pre-cut frozen unseasoned vegetables and fruit. Don't think they are necessarily inferior to fresh produce, because they usually are not. They are often frozen near the farms where they were grown, so they are picked when they are ripest and frozen within a day or two, before they start to lose nutrients. Mixed frozen vegetables are a great way to add variety to your meals, especially in the winter when few plant foods are in season. Be sure to read the ingredients to make sure that all you are getting is produce, though, without any salt, sugar or preservatives.
• Some canned foods make fantastically nutritious convenience foods. Buy low sodium beans, tomatoes and broths, and canned tuna, salmon and sardines to keep in your pantry at all times.

6. Recruit home-grown help in the kitchen. If you live with other people, including children, ask them to help out in the kitchen. It could be something as easy as setting the table, filling water glasses, or stirring the soup, but it will allow you to concentrate on the more complicated parts of cooking.

I don't expect you to whip up meals from scratch using all fresh ingredients on a nightly basis, but I do think that these are a few tricks that you could try that would make your meals healthier and easier when you are in a hurry. Each part of your meal doesn't need to be homemade, but some part of it should. I often heat canned Wolfgang Puck organic Minestrone soup and serve it with fish and vegetables that I cook myself and I still feel good about what I am serving my family. Your time is precious, but there are few things more worthwhile than preparing a healthful meal for the ones you love.

Staples for Meals in Minutes: Extra virgin first cold press organic olive oil Assorted varieties of vinegars Salt, black pepper, assorted dried spices and herbs Reduced-sodium soy sauce Canned low-sodium beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce Canned tuna, salmon, sardines Dried fruits, tomatoes Raw unsalted nuts Low-sodium chicken and vegetable broths Onions, garlic, shallots Eggs Brown rice, wild rice, barley, quinoa, whole-wheat pasta, polenta rolls Frozen pre-cut unseasoned vegetables and unsweetened fruit Olive oil- and canola oil-based salad dressings