Daily Shortcuts to Healthier Food

So you want to eat healthy? But eating healthy is expensive, time-consuming, and making those intricate and complex meals are difficult. Or is it? I would challenge you that it’s not.

Sure, making the kids mac and cheese is super quick and easy. Plus, it’s cheap! But do you really want to just be “filling your kids up”? Or do you want to actually nourish them? Same goes for you. Don’t you want to nourish your body so you’ve got more energy and feel better?

"Eating healthy should be a pleasurable experience … if you’re not experiencing it as so, you’re not likely to continue with it."

Eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive, time-consuming and difficult. Sure, it can be if you let it. But we eat super healthy as a family and I’m hopeless at cooking. My wife, Holly, is good at it. She enjoys whipping up delicious meals full of goodness and using all sorts of leftovers. Me however, not so much. I just want to grab and go.

I’m going to attack this article from the point of view of a typical day.

Daily Shortcuts to Healthier Food

• Breakfast
  Don’t have time to whip up an omelette? Think pouring cereal into a bowl with milk is all you’ve got time for? Blend up a smoothie instead. Stick with this structure to keep it fast and simple.

1. Decide whether you want a vegetable or fruit smoothie
2. Choose your base (cow milk, coconut milk, almond milk, or even water)
3. Choose just 2 fruits or vegetables depending on step one
4. Add a teaspoon of seeds

Simple ideas for a fruit smoothie include banana, mango, blueberries, raspberries or strawberries.

Buy them packaged and frozen to save time or buy them fresh, then cut them yourself and freeze them to save money.

Simple ideas for a vegetable smoothie include spinach, kale and celery.

Good seeds to add substance to your smoothie include chia and flaxseeds.

• Morning tea 
  If you eat a wholesome diet day in, day out, you may not even need morning tea. Heck, you may not even need breakfast. I don’t eat breakfast. When the food you eat is wholesome and nutritious, you actually don’t need to eat as much.

But if you want a shortcut for a healthy morning tea, you could always grab a piece of fruit or vegetable such as a carrot or cucumber. You could even have a tub of plain natural yoghurt. Bit bland if you ask me. So here’s what I suggest.

Put four tablespoons of plain, natural yoghurt into a small bowl, sprinkle a small handful of your favourite frozen berries over the top and drizzle with honey. Super yum, delicious … and quick! Not as quick as grabbing an apple, but still relatively quick.

• Lunch
  Leftovers from the night before. Plain and simple. That’s it. Just make sure you make extra at night, every night, for lunch the next day. This way you take the decision out of what to get and eliminate any possible discipline-fatiguing arguments with yourself about whether you deserve that deep fried dim sim or to just get the salad.

• Afternoon tea 
  I’m actually shocked you’re still hungry after all this healthy, nutritious food. But okay. I’ll bite. Here’s what I reckon for afternoon tea. Cheese and crackers. It’s healthy, quick, easy, and possibly most importantly, filling. You’re still eating so we definitely want something filling. Otherwise we’re going to have to look at the psychology of eating.

Now, this is rice crackers by the way. Not Jatz crackers, and the reason is no gluten. This isn’t a blog about gluten so if you want to know more, read this article that I previously wrote.

• And finally, dinner!

You want something inexpensive, quick and easy. Here is my go to…

Chicken and veggies

Now, it might not sound that fancy. And that’s because it’s not. It’s supposed to be something good that still tastes good, your kids will eat, and is nutritious.

To save money, buy plain chicken legs, wings or breasts and add the flavour to it yourself. Some of my favourite herbs and spices to sprinkle and rub onto the chicken include:

One of:

• Paprika
• Cayenne pepper, or
• Turmeric

With:

• Ground coriander, and
• Ground cumin

And either:

• Oregano, or
• Rosemary

This’ll take like 5 minutes and then you can whack it in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour on 180-200C while you go and do something else.

When the chicken is finished, and you’re done doing whatever you wanted to do — bath the kids, do homework, exercise, or maybe even relax with a good book if you should be so lucky, you can steam the veggies. Get out 3 different types of veggies and steam them. This will take less than six minutes and is a good opportunity for your chicken to cool and rest.

My favourite go to frozen veggies include:

• Peas
• Beans
• Carrot
• Brussels sprouts (I understand many people don’t like them but just have one. Think of what good it’s doing for your insides.)

Eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive, time-consuming or difficult. Eating healthy should be a pleasurable experience. Of course, if you’re not experiencing it as so, you’re not likely to continue with it. There are many quick and easy solutions to eating healthy without having to order in pre-made meals from Light ’n’ Easy.

What are your go-to healthy foods and meals for certain times of the day?

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[Image source: Easy Health Options]