Learning to Eat Healthy

by: Mary Watson

Many people have weight problems not because they don’t understand how to eat or prepare healthy food. There is some tendency to think that because a food is healthy, it must not be tasty. Avoiding these misconceptions is one of the first steps toward learning to eat and prepare healthy foods.

Choose Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Instead of buying canned fruits and vegetables, choose fresh ones when they are in season. Fruits fresh from the produce department of your market are better for you than canned fruits that have added sugar or are packaged in high calorie syrup. If you must buy canned fruit, choose those with no added sugar that are packed in natural fruit juices. Vegetables from the can tend to have extra salt and other ingredients that are not essential for the flavour.

Instead of cooking vegetables in butter or margarine, steam them and add spices or lemon juice for flavour. With so many different spices available for purchase at the market, there is no need to use excess butter or salt. You can even blend some of your spices to create a unique flavour of your own.

Choose Lean Meats and Restrict Red Meat

Instead of going for the high fat and high cholesterol red meats, try to stay with poultry and fish instead. In addition, do not fry your meats but bake, roast, or broil them. Avoid cooking in vegetable oil and choose olive oil instead for a healthier choice. For foods such as steak or hamburger, grill rather than fry them. The market is prime today for people trying to cut their fat content, and products such as the ever-popular George Foreman grill are invading more homes than in the past.

One way to enjoy ground beef without the fat and calories is to substitute ground chicken or ground turkey. With the proper seasoning the flavour is pleasing, and when used for cooking things such as meatballs or chilli, the additional ingredients make the flavour undetectable. When trying to lose weight or stay healthy, many of us are guilty of deciding we don’t like something before we try it. In that way we restrict foods that we may potentially like and complain that dieting has too many restrictions.

Choose Carbohydrates with a Low Glycemic Index

One of the biggest contributors to weight gain and failure to lose weight is too many simple carbohydrates. The old adage that only candy and other sweets make up the simple carbohydrates is false. Any starchy food has the potential to turn to sugar, so it’s essential to learn to eat healthier carbohydrates, namely those made of whole grains such as wheat bread, wheat flour, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, and even whole grain cereals such as those made with oats, wheat, and barley. These whole grains do not turn to sugar when they are consumed and yet provide us the energy we need to attend to our daily activities.

Avoid Diets that Eliminate Food Groups

Most of us learned in school the importance of consuming food for each of the basic food groups daily. However, in today’s market many diets are geared toward eliminating or greatly reducing the amount of food we consume from some of the food groups. This may not be on a regular basis, but nonetheless these diets are not the healthiest nor will they help you achieve permanent weight loss. The key to permanent weight loss is changing your lifestyle such as the way you eat, adding exercise to your daily routine, and drinking eight to ten ounces of water every day. Eliminating entire food groups is not only unhealthy, but it also increases your feelings of deprivation.