Healthy eating can be interpreted as many different things.  We first can look at all the different diet or eating styles that are commonplace today:

• Omnivore
• Vegetarian
• Vegan
• Pescatarian
• Paleo
• Ketogenic
• Raw Foodist
• Gluten Free
• and many others

In each of these eating styles there are so many healthy food options to satisfy both your hunger and your body’s nourishment needs.

The challenge with any eating style is that, in todays world, there are so many unhealthy options regardless of the diet or eating style you choose to follow.

For example a Vegan could eat a bowl of Frosted Mini-wheat’s with store bought nut or soy milk for breakfast, have 4 Oreos and a coffee for morning snack, fast food French Fries and salad with packaged dressing for lunch, a packaged protein bar for afternoon snack and a frozen vegetable pizza with topped with vegan cheese for dinner and be very pleased about their food choices for the day.

The challenge with this is that, apart from the salad, the rest of the food choices are not whole foods, are processed in some way and are not very good food choices, in my opinion.

These same type of choices can be made across all diet choices regardless of your eating style. 

Please don’t think the stepping out of what I call “healthy eating choices” every once and a while is not acceptable or common, we are all human, have food weaknesses, enjoy quick and easy food choices and sometimes we want to take the time off from food prep and cooking, I get it.

I was recently listening to a podcast about healthy eating where the speaker said that she knows that even the healthiest of health advocates stick to their whole food diet plan 85% to 90% of the time and waiver with the remainder of their eating choices due to life situations, periods of stress and being overworked, it happens to all of us.

To achieve a healthy lifestyle, feel the best you can and to be able to go on with your life for many healthy and happy years there are healthy and delicious options available.

Here are some healthy guidelines regardless of the diet/eating style you choose to follow:

• eat whole foods
• prepare your foods when you are going to eat them
• eat organic food
• read labels on any packaged food you are thinking of buying, if you can’t understand some of the ingredients or if sugar appears in the first few ingredients think twice about buying this particular food, download the Yuka app and scan all barcodes in the grocery store and for personal care items
• stay away from processed foods as much as possible
• don’t eat white foods; bread, rice, sugar
• eat true sourdough bread (no yeast), sweet potatoes, brown rice, raw sugar (in moderation)

With respect to sugar here is a great article about how sugar can be represented on a food label, Sugar Names, there are more than 56 different names.  In a future blog post I will address sugar and how it affects our brain and leaves us craving more and more.

If you have questions about healthy eating choices reach out to me, I am here to answer your questions, and can help you make the best choices for you and your body.

Enjoy your day and enjoy your food.