Proper diet is an important part of health. It can prevent the onset of ailments, and, if you ever should end up with a serious disease, a special diet is often one of the measures prescribed to help treat or manage it. Sadly, many people end up waiting until quite late to start paying serious attention to what they eat. Whatever age you happen to be right now, it is good that you are making the effort to find ways to improve your diet.
If you have young children, you therefore have even more incentive for obtaining/maintaining good eating habits. Parents can serve as good or bad examples for practically everything, and proper diet is no exception. However, healthy eating does not have to be a mere chore or obligation. Parents and children can turn it into a bonding activity. The family can search for interesting recipes and cook together, or, if possible, go on outings together to try out different shops or restaurants that offer healthy food.
Of course, one of the biggest obstacles to eating right is the cost. Many people don’t eat less-than-healthy food because they crave the taste of junk or because they don’t care about their well-being, but because many of the foods marketed as “good for you” are simply too expensive. A fistful of organic salad greens can cost more than a quick fast food meal, so it is no wonder that many people on a budget choose the latter.
Fortunately, there are ways to start eating in a healthier manner, even when on a budget. One of these involves teamwork. Find a group of people who also want to improve their eating habits, and suggest that you work together to buy ingredients and prepare food, assigning tasks according to whomever can do each part most effectively. You can prepare large batches and divide up the amounts accordingly. Thus, cooking becomes much more cost-effective and schedule-friendly. These group projects can even serve as valuable sites for networking: your group mates might turn out to be great partners for other projects, or evolve into close personal friends.
Another option is foraging, or actually looking for plants to eat in the “wild,” (i.e. nearby wooded areas, fields, etc). The notion might sound outlandish and even embarrassing to many of us, but in tough financial times, some people in the United States actually found it an effective way to get food for their families. Even if you are not poor and/or facing foreclosure, you might still want to at least find out more about foraging.
Foraging, when done safely by a person with adequate knowledge of plants, can be a cost-effective way of getting nutritious vegetables for home cooking. Try sticking to easily-recognizable plants without poisonous look-alikes at first, then branch out as your knowledge advances. Foraging with a more experienced companion can also be very helpful.
Speaking of knowledge and experience, it would benefit you to educate yourself more about food in general. Try to become a more literate, discerning consumer. For example, the next time you do your groceries, you might be swayed to buy a snack that advertises itself as having very low or no cholesterol. However, what you are not being told is that the product might actually have very high amounts of sodium, MSG, and/or processed sugar. A product that is advertised as having healthy ingredients might be packed with additives, then deep-fried for good measure. Your local health center might offer fitness advice, seminars and publications to help you make more informed diet choices in your daily life. You might even be inspired to cut down on processed food, and cook things yourself—or even increase your intake of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Maintaining a proper diet is indeed central to a healthy lifestyle. However, do remember that it should also be accompanied by other good habits, such as exercise and the avoidance of smoking—resolutions for succeeding years, perhaps.
I love eating seafood. Knowing that some types of fish can also have substantial health benefits is certainly good news for me. Salmon is packed with Omega 3 and I love munching on sashimi. I also love tuna and sardines. It’s a bonus that they also help sharpen the mind.
proper diet, proper diet, proper diet. i dnt understand why but even if i pound this though to my brain, noithing happens. i still go back to my unhealthy eating habits — junk, junk, and more junk! i really i’d be able to get through. don’t wanna die young or live miserably old. hhhhhhhhhhelp!
I agree. If you want to stay away from temptation, surround yourself with only the variety of foods that will make you healthy and not the other way around. It is better if you do your grocery. You also need to become more aware of what advertisers put up to make their products sell, regardless of how unhealthy they may be. Be an informed shopper. Be literate with food. Once you realize that food is something that you need and not something that you should want, you will know exactly what to do and how you can adapt a healthy eating habit.