How to enjoy food and be healthy

I am a huge believer that life is to be enjoyed and food is one of my favourite ways to enjoy life, thus the creation of this blog... however, food can be so enjoyable but so detrimental to one's health if poor choices are made... this is particularly the motivation behind the creation of this blog as I would like to help influence the decisions that are made by people day to day when they feed themselves

As I have pointed out in the last post, people are not obsessed enough about food as they don't put much thought into what they it... it is almost like you are hungry and what is there will go into your mouth! If you had to buy a new phone or TV, would you just buy the first one you see or the cheapest one you can find? No... you would spend time researching to find out which ones last longer are of better quality and so on... but why is it that when it comes to food, we become so careless? We only have one body and whatever we feed it today will result in how it is tomorrow... and we all know how expensive healthcare is, especially if you have a disease that requires ongoing treatment such as diabetes and heart diseases...

Recently, Daz has caught on to the Paleo diet... this diet basically promotes eating meat, seafood, vegetables, fruits and nuts as how humans from the ancient Paleolithic times did... no grain, no pasta, no candies, no popcorn, no sausages... minimal processed food and sugar in essence

I read about the Mediterranean diet, which is very similar in terms of eating more fresh food and less processed food and sugar... it allows pasta and wholegrain carbohydrates to be consumed... so is the Okinawa diet... now the Mediterranean and Japanese people have been know to be healthy and having low incidences of heart diseases...

Regardless of whether you choose to go Paleo, Mediterranean or Okinawa diet doesn't matter... as long as you try to consume fresh foods and avoid processed food and sugar I think is the key to it all...

So here I share with you some of the ways of cooking that I consider is healthy...

Steak with sweet potato mash and vegies

Roast chicken breast and sweet potato and rocket salad

Garlic prawns with herbs

Mushrooms and spinach stir fried in olive oil

Some rules that I have picked up for being healthy from the latest health research include:

• Eat plenty of fish especially those high in omega-3 such as salmon
• Eat more vegetables (e.g. tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, carrots, avocado) and fruits (e.g. blueberries, apples, oranges, bananas, grapefruits)
• Use olive oil as primary source of fat. Other fats recommended are coconut oil, ghee and butter. DO NOT use highly processed oils such as canola oil and vegetable oils sold in the supermarkets
• Eat nuts (except peanuts) as snacks (e.g. almonds, walnuts, macadamias)
• Eat dark chocolate as dessert regularly (85% or 90% are best but anything else is ok)
• Red meat is a good source of iron and other vitamins, therefore have in moderation (3 times a week)
• Eat plenty of eggs as it is a good source of protein and vitamins
• Yoghurt and frozen yoghurt is a reasonable treat once in a while but be careful of the amount of sugar in it. Choose greek yoghurt which is not injected with loads of sugar
• Acceptable carbohydrates to be eaten in moderation include sweet potatoes, rice, pumpkins
• Minimise sugar intake
• Minimise processed foods (e.g. cereals, bread (only wholegrain should be eaten), noodles, pasta, biscuits, flour, grains)
• Drink lots of water, it is the best drink. Drink coconut water as it is high in potassium, hydrolites and tastes great and refreshing!

In case you haven't realised, all these recommendations mean that it is quite expensive to eat healthily. However, investing in your health is the best thing you can do because treating yourself of diseases in the future is a lot more costly.