It’s what you do everyday that impacts your health, not what you do sometimes. When it comes to improving your nutrition, small changes can result in large impacts to your overall health, particularly overtime. Let’s explore a few easy tweaks you can make to improve your diet.
- Buy local produce
Locally grown food is not only better for you – it generally tastes better too. It’s more likely to be picked at or closer to its peak, for the best nutritional value and flavour. Also it’s less likely to have had a long journey, which results in nutritional degradation and a reduction in flavour. The shorter the journey between the farm and your table, the less likely it is that nutrients will be lost from fresh food. Food imported from overseas is older, has travelled and also sat in warehouses before it gets to your plate. Buying local produce is also a great way to support our local producers and reward their hard work.
- Grow your own herbs and greens
Adding more greens and herbs is not only a wonderful way to boost the nutritive value of your meals, it can be made that much easier by having them on your balcony, or in your backyard. You can grow spray-free greens such as silverbeet, spinach and kale and herbs so easily, it’s also a fantastic way to teach children about where food comes from.
- Use a food processor
You can easily increase your consumption of vegetables by using your food processor – they’re also a great way to speed up your vegetables preparation. You can make coleslaws, and quickly grate or chop any vegetables using this machine. Another great food waste tip is to save your broccoli stalks and process them in the food processor, add them to you salads, stews, or soups for additional nutrition.
- Limit your consumption of takeaways
This is certainly one of the easiest ways to automatically improve your nutrition. While there are a number of wonderful and nourishing additions to our takeaway options now, generally speaking takeaways tend to be higher in refined sugar, poor quality fats, salt and less likely to contain enough vegetables. If you need to buy takeaways because of time consider a 15-minute meal such as a frittata, soup, salad, or I’ve you’re really desperate avocado on good quality bread – it’s likely this will still be more nourishing than a take-away option.
- Join up with a group of friends or colleagues to do a lunch or dinner together
It’s fair to say that time is becoming increasingly more precious for us especially when it comes to after work tasks such as preparing dinner. If it appeals to you join with a group of friends or colleagues and commit to bringing in healthy lunches/or dinners. If you cook enough for let’s say five people, then it reduces your preparation time significantly – and you get to look forward to what the other person is preparing. It can help to commit to the recipes together, or have a favourite cookbook you cook from – to ensure that the recipes chosen are nutritious.
