Almost everyone you meet will be trying in one way or another to improve their diet and eat more healthy foods, but this is a goal that a lot of people will struggle to achieve. We’ve all seen the health gurus on Instagram posting pictures of their meat-free, dairy-free, gluten-free treats, and it can be easy to think ‘it must taste awful’ – but this just isn’t true.
The truth is, healthy foods can be just as tasty, satisfying and fun to cook as unhealthy alternatives – it just takes a little bit of training to make the switch to enjoy them. There’s no need to eat carrot sticks alone in the cafeteria anymore; there are lots of exciting healthy options just waiting to be explored.
In this article, we’ll explore some things that could help you to really get the most out of your healthy diet.
1. Don’t Just Count Calories
For most people, eating healthy foods is something only done to lose weight. This can be one of the main causes of the negative connotations we have towards healthy foods. When you’re dieting, it’s easy to get hung up on how many calories something contains and this can mean we opt for badly prepared, tasteless but low-calorie foods.
However, not all healthy foods are low-calorie, and some contain the right natural fats that we need to have a balanced diet. It’s often these ingredients that play a big part in preparing healthy and tasty meals. Making use of ingredients like avocados, nuts, and chia seeds could bring your healthy meals up a notch on the taste-scale and help you to enjoy eating healthy.
2. Try New Ingredients
A big part of eating healthy foods is finding healthy ingredients that you can use as an alternative to the ingredients you would use on a regular basis. A lack of knowledge of which healthy ingredients you can use to make healthy meals can be a contributing factor in healthy meals being boring or unenjoyable. By diversifying your palette and trying to cook with healthy ingredients that you haven’t used before, you may be able to improve your enjoyment of healthy meals.
3. Cook Using Recipes
Another thing that can cause your healthy food to taste horrible is not knowing any tasty, healthy recipes. If you aren’t much of a chef, then it can be hard to think of tasty meals that incorporate the healthy foods you want to add to your diet.
The good news is that healthy eating is super fashionable right now, which makes finding recipes for yummy healthy meals online very easy. Cooking using new recipes may help you to convert to healthy eating by choice rather than necessity.
4. Try Eating Healthy Prepared Meals
If you find cooking a chore or you simply don’t have time in your schedule to cook using elaborate recipes, then eating healthy can be hard. This can lead to eating two-day-old salads from the convenience store, which of course, nobody enjoys!
If only there was a way you could find tasty, fresh and healthy prepared meals that are affordable and can be delivered straight to your door. Oh, wait – that already exists!
There are ton companies out there that are offering this exact service online. Meal delivery services like Freshly and Fresh n’ Lean are becoming very popular with busy professionals who want to eat healthily, and they could hold the key to enjoying your healthy diet.
5. Cook Using Meal Kits
Meal kits are another great way of taking the stress and hassle out of healthy eating. One problem a lot of people face when they decide to make the switch to a healthy diet is that they don’t own any of the herbs, spices, and other condiments that make healthy meals really tasty.
Every time you try a new recipe, it can seem as though you have to spend a lot of cash on these little ingredients that you only use a pinch of. Meal kits can fix this problem. There are hundreds of companies operating that will deliver the exact ingredients you need to make healthy meals, along with detailed instructions on how to prepare it.
Meal kits can also be perfect for people who have dietary requirements as you can find companies that will tailor their recipes to you. You can choose from vegan, veggie, gluten-free and many more options. If you are finding healthy cooking difficult or tasteless, then meal kits could help you to get more enjoyment out of the preparation and the meals you are eating.
6. Take Pride in Your Cooking
A lot of the appeal of cooking comes from sharing your creations with others. Despite this, no one ever seems to be offering their vegan brownies out at the office. This lack of pride in our healthy cooking could be contributing to our lack of enjoyment when it comes to eating healthy foods.
The fact is, healthy doesn’t have to mean boring or tasteless. There are so many recipes for snacks, wholesome meals, and gorgeous drinks that are healthy and, above all, tasty. If you love to cook and share it with others, stop baking fudge cake and start baking healthy treats for your friends to enjoy with you. Love throwing dinner parties with your pals? Why not test out your new healthy recipes on them, or throw a vegan night for everyone to enjoy?
Many people think that eating healthy means that they have to hold back and take all the fun out of eating, but that doesn’t have to be the case. You’ll probably find that your friends have the same goal to eat healthy that you do and they’ll be impressed and excited by your healthy recipes.
In the world we live in, eating healthy is unfortunately not the norm, but the times are changing and more people are health conscious and want to switch to healthy foods. If this is your goal, embrace it, try new things and, above all, enjoy it!