Healthy Eating, My Way

So now we are reading labels and learning about our food. What do we do with all that information? We use it to make better choices, of course! But almost everything in the grocery store is full of unwanted additives and fillers you say! What are we to do?!

This is when you decide for yourself how much time and effort you are willing to devote to eating a healthy, well-balanced, real-food diet. I shoot for the 80/20 mark. That's 80% real, whole and healthy foods and 20% whatever. I attempt to keep that 20% as minimally processed as possible, but hey, who doesn't make a quick fast-food run every now and then? And by allowing yourself to not be 100% committed will make it way easier to stick to it. There is no guilt because there is no wagon to fall off of!

You can adjust the percentage to better suit yours and your family's tastes. You may also choose to start smaller and work you way to a more healthy diet.  Here are a few ideas to get you started on working more real, whole, healthy foods into your diet.

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• Cut soda out of your diet. Even "diet" soda. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, of nutritional value in it. If cutting it out seems like to much, start with cutting back.
• Remove artificial sweeteners from your diet. The scientific community is still debating whether or not these are harmful to you. Either way, it is more likely to be highly processed if it includes an artificial sweetener.

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• Include 2 (or more) different fruits and/or vegetables in every meal. A very simple way to do this is to add some shredded veggies into your main dish. Purees also blend into sauces very well and with the right combination, your sauce will still taste almost exactly the same!