Can a good diet improve your health?
What is a Healthy Diet ?

Is there a one diet fits all? Or are we all in need of individualized diet plans? Should we just eat on a whim to fuel the day or do we need to watch what we eat at every meal? Should we take supplements to improve our nutritian or are we just pouring money down the toilet?

Can diet improve health? Diet is one of those 4 letter words that we have no alternative for when we really just want to say this is what we should be eating, rather than I need to lose weight. If you say you have a special diet – say for allergy – most people’s first assumption is that you are dieting to lose weight. This website is not about thinness or fatness, fitness or body sculpting – it’s just about food we eat.

• Can diet help us stay more consistently healthy?
• Can diet help us live a bit longer?
• Can diet changes remove pain?
• Can diet improve our skin and keep us looking younger?
• Can diet keep arthritis at bay?
• Can changing the way we eat cure diseases?

These are the types of questions I’m looking for answers on.

Sharing Food – Should we care what other people think?

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Food is a part of our culture. We go out for meals with friends, we share meals with our families. When we are very different to other people in our food choices – we stand out like a sore thumb. If we say we are on a restricted diet we attract pity and often make people nervous as they scramble to find something special we can eat.

In work situations people are always curious about different food choices. Items with strong smells and tastes may well be criticised. It’s not easy standing apart from the normal choices of the crowd.

But if the normal choice is Maccas or Kentucky, or white bread sandwiches with peanut butter or vegemite, or cuppa soup followed by choc chip cookies and chased down with a coke – maybe we have to turn into the cat who walks alone for our own good health!

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We should primarily be eating clean nutritious food to fuel our body and secondarily choose food that tickles our taste buds. On the other hand no one really wants to be ruled by or become a food nazi!

The main problem with a healthy diet is that we have become used to “convenience” food. Fruit and veg all year round, takeaway on the corner, freezer meals and pre packaged pies, sauces and mixes. These are hard to give up because they are so instant. When we come home from work we are tired and chopping vegetables and cooking is work.

Some people are lucky enough to enjoy cooking. Most of us however are somewhere in between the can’t boil an egg and the competent chef. I’ve found the best management option is to start collecting a few good simple recipes you can repeat – but even that is easier said than done. However the more you look and cook, the better you get at this.

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Being female helps as it’s almost expected of us that we provide the meals. But many men I have met are very capable and excellent cooks – often better than many women, because they cook because they enjoy it. My brother says it is “mindless” work and gives his head a rest from the analysis his job requires.

Cooking is 10% recipe, 80% chopping and blending and 10% timing. But if cooking isn’t your thing – try the paleo or raw food diet. Just chopping and juicing and a bit of barbequing.

The diet you eat should not be left to impulse and habit. Even if you are lucky enough to have someone put food on a plate in front of you every night and don’t want to rock the boat, your diet is your key to good health. If it needs changing – rock the boat and take the consequences as they come. When things stabilise you may be pleasantly surprised that your new diet tastes good too.

If you are the dietician for your family then the best you can hope for is that they will tolerate your experiments until you find a new healthy menu you can all enjoy. They will complain and miss some meals but they will also enjoy some new tastes. The failures will make you all laugh eventually – I still get ribbed for combining banana into a meatloaf because I had no apples – it was completely inedible!

My simplest advice is to place what nature makes at the base of the food pyramid – that’s fruit and vegetables. Drink only water, soda water, milk, tea, coffee. In the middle of the pyramid is your protein choices – fish, meat, eggs, seeds, nuts. Everything else should be moderated – limit the real treats to one day a week , and keep tabs on the borderline foods you really like. Stay in control. O.K. Right.

Now I have to follow my own advice… Read My Story to find out why I’m doing this.