The way we eat today has evolved over the past few hundred years or so. Not so much the content of our diet, but the way we choose and prepare our food.
You need to know about the fat burners to get a slim and healthy body. There are many fat burners available so you need to know about the expected results to pick the best one. The usmagazine site will provide the best results to the people. The preparation of the correct food chart is essential for the people.
If we had been alive in thousands of years ago, in pre-historic times when healthy eating was the only way available, we would probably have been eating meat and vegetables just as we do today.
However, the food didn’t have lots of unhealthy ingredients added before being cooked to death and it certainly wasn’t frozen for months and then ‘nuked’ in the microwave!
Our bodies weren’t designed to eat a lot of the things that we eat today and we definitely weren’t designed to consume preservatives, ‘E’ numbers and the other additives we find in processed food.
Our quest for convenience and simplicity has changed things drastically.
Today, when we go shopping, we look in the frozen section for things to put in our home freezer, then off to the pre-prepared vegetable section and dessert shelves so we can put together a meal for our family in record time.
Have you actually read what is contained in a simple a can of baked beans that are labelled ‘Healthy Living’? It contains – beans, tomatoes, water, sugar, modified cornflour, salt, seasoning, vinegar, artificial flavourings and sweetener (saccharin).
I don’t know about you, but if I see something that is labelled as ‘healthy living’ I would expect to see less of the additives. I’d like to bet that, in the days of cowboys out on the range, their baked beans didn’t contain all these added extras!
Healthy eating does require a little more forward planning and effort than convenience living. But, ask yourself; is your overall health and well being worth the extra effort?
Yes, of course it is!
Below are a few very simple rules to start you on your way to healthy eating
- Buy organic meat, vegetables, eggs, fruit etc, whenever you can. If the cost of organic produce is a problem, then the next best thing is to go for the ‘free range’ option for meat and eggs, and the freshest fruit and vegetables you can buy.
- Eat little and often – 5 small meals daily is much better for your system than 2 large meals.
- Learn to prepare and cook your food properly. Wash fruit and vegetables to remove any chemicals that may have been sprayed on them (unless they are organic) and trim excess fat from meat.
- Steam as much of your food as you can and avoid using fat in your cooking. You could also stir fry, grill and even boil. If you must boil vegetables however, don’t boil them for very long as this will boil away the all the good vitamins that they contain.
- Eat as much raw food as you can. When cooking food will lose of up to 97% of water-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.
- Avoid refined sugar as much as you can.
- Avoid as much refined food as you possibly can – eat fresh whenever possible.
- Use lots of fresh herbs and spices in your cooking, avoiding salt as much as possible.
Make sure your healthy eating regime contains essential fatty acids. Studies have shown that low levels of essential fatty acids may be a factor in many modern illnesses. Some good sources of EFA are oily fish, seeds and leafy vegetables.
Healthy eating is all about balance and moderation.
Your body needs protein – which is provided by foods like beans, low-fat milk and meat; carbohydrates – provided by such foods as whole grain breads and cereals, legumes, and starchy foods and a certain amount of fat.
As a general rule of thumb, the healthier fats are those which do not solidify at room temperature – olive oil, sunflower oil etc.
You also need an adequate supply of vitamins and minerals. So to ensure you get all these essential elements in your diet, you should eat healthy, balanced meals; cut out the fast food meals and highly processed foods and prepare your own food.
An added benefit of healthy eating is that you will probably loose those extra few pounds that have accumulated over the years – and without calorie counting!
How good is that?
Always eat a good breakfast containing complex carbohydrates to give you slow releasing energy which will help to avoid the drop in your blood sugar level mid morning.
Try and have five small meals a day, eating small amounts of nutritious food at each meal means your body is always ‘fuelled up’. Again, this will avoid your blood sugar dropping throughout the day.
Choose the healthy option when eating out – a good green salad with a juicy steak is always a favorite. Take your meals and snacks to work with you so you will always now what you are putting into your body.
Another great contribution to your new healthy eating regime would be to try juicing.
Although eating raw fruit and vegetables will provide substantial amounts of the vital nutrients they contain, much of the goodness is locked away in the fiber which is expelled from the body.
When you ‘juice’ fruit and vegetables, the goodness is released from the fiber so you can drink this highly concentrated liquid allowing the nutrients to be quickly absorbed into the bloodstream.
Our bodies will still need fiber which could be added to the juice in the form of flax seed or other dietary sources. Extra fiber could also be added to your meals in the form of vegetables etc.
So, to summarize, you don’t have to be a college professor to learn about and practise healthy eating. You just need to be aware of everything that goes into your mouth.
Healthy eating is simple; you just need to make a conscious, informed choice when deciding what you eat or drink.