Top Ten Tips to Eating Healthy

All of us will benefit from choosing a healthier lifestyle. Eating healthy is one way to accomplish that. Even if weight is not an issue for you, eating healthy should be. From adding in whole grains to eliminating overly processed foods there are many things that you can do to ensure the food you eat will feed your body instead of polluting it. Here are ten tips to eating healthy.

Adding whole grains is the best healthy eating tip. Replace white bread with whole grain bread. It can be wheat, rye, or any combinations of grains. Make sure that there is at least three to four grams of fiber per serving. This will ensure that the bread actually contains whole grains. There are many other ways to get your family to eat whole grains. See my article Getting Your Family to Eat More Whole Grains for tips to help you accomplish this.

Trans fats or trans fatty acids are not naturally occurring fats. They are created in a lab by superheating vegetable and other oils so that the molecular structure changes and what would otherwise be a liquid at room temperature is now a solid. Trans fats are in many foods. Look on the ingredients label for any type of partially hydrogenated oil or hydrogenated oil. A clear warning that a food contains trans fat is in the label. If the label or advertising states zero trans fat per serving, you can bet it does not contain trans fat. This is due to labeling laws. However, always check the ingredients list as it's not always clear from the packaging.

Some sweeteners are better than others. Artificial sweeteners such as Splenda, NutraSweet or Equal, and Sweet and Low are very harmful to you. This article on Splenda will provide you with more information. A better choice is to reduce sugar intake and stay with natural sweeteners that your body knows what to do with. Organic can sugar and raw honey are fine in small doses. The human body knows how to process these items as we have been ingesting them for centuries. Our bodies do not know how to process artificial sweeteners. In addition, many artificial sweeteners make for effective insecticides. Stick with what is closest to nature for the safest sweetener.

Fruits and vegetables are important to our bodies. They contain many phytonutrients that cannot be recreated in a lab. Fresh season veggies are best. They contain massive amounts of healthy vitamins and minerals. Blueberries are truly a super food. Watermelon contains more soluble iron than spinach. Healthy bodies need the high quality food from fresh fruits and vegetables to properly nourish our bodies. In addition, fresh fruits and vegetables are much less expensive than meats.

Meats, this includes red meat, chicken and fish are expensive and not always healthy. Beef raised on large commercial farms is completely unhealthy. This is due to the diet the animals are fed, the amount or hormones and antibiotics they ingest and by their living conditions. Commercially raised chicken are no better. They are raised in extremely close quarters, usually 4 chickens per square foot of building. Antibiotics and hormones are given to keep them alive long enough to reach market.

A better choice is free range chickens and beef that is only fed grass. Do not be fooled by beef that is finished on grass. Look for the label that states pastured beef, 100% grass fed. These products are making their way into mainstream supermarkets. It is worth paying more. You get healthy meat without steroids, hormones and antibiotics. Buying this type of meat is environmentally sound. It is expensive, but we should reduce our meat consumption anyway.

Please continue on to page two of this article to discover the final 5 of our top 10 tips to healthy eating.