It is a common saying that food is essential for human survival in the world. Apart from just living, if we want to live healthy, we definitely need "healthy food".

What is a healthy Food?

The foods we eat every day contain some or many nutrients. A healthy diet is when a person eats adequate amounts of food that can provide him with the nutrients he needs according to his health.

You don't need to follow the latest fad diets to be eating healthy. Healthy eating has been around for far longer and luckily is much easier to achieve than constantly worrying about what to eat, what not to eat, and of course, when to eat.

Here are 5 simple tips on how to eat healthy
that are practical and guaranteed to improve your health over the long term. Regardless of what or when you choose to eat.


1. Avoid Overeating

Although being the most straightforward tip of the bunch. This one, in my opinion, is the hardest to follow. However, there is indeed too much of a good thing, including delicious and healthy food.

Here's why?

Though the experience of eating is often pleasurable and relaxing for the mind within the body, the process of digestion that takes place
afterwards is highly energy intensive and rather stressful. In fact, digestion is actually one of the
biggest stressors that your body faces every single day. This is why once your digestive system acquires more food than it actually needs, you will soon enter a sweaty and uncomfortable food coma.

You will lack mental sharpness as a result of increased blood flow away from the brain and to your digestive organs. And you will slow down the time it takes for anything else that you eat or have eaten to exit the body, resulting in a build up of toxins. And that lovely, bloated feeling in your belly.


2. Slow Down

No, this isn't just for good manners, but taking a moment to admire food before putting it into your mouth will optimise your digestive system and metabolism for obtaining the most nutrients from your food. This is called the cephalic phase of digestion, which is basically the same as preheating the oven before putting the food in.

Now, when it comes to chewing, the better you chew, the more enzymes in your saliva can pre digest the nutrients within the food you eat. In addition, the more your teeth can grind up the food, the easier it is for the digestive organs to attain the nutrients needed from within. And finally, when you eat, not only is your body
hungry for nutrients, but also pleasure. And this is why?, when rushing through your meal distracted, you'll still feel like eating, even though you've finished a big meal. 

Even though you're physically full, mentally, your brain is still seeking for joy, flavour, and the pleasure that that food would have provided you if you just stopped and paid attention to it.


3. Balance Blood Sugar

High blood sugar levels are the cause of many short term and long term health problems on the rise today. So to best avoid facing these problems yourself, here are 4 simple tips that can make all the difference.

  • Avoid Eating Processed Foods as much as possible as when food is processed. Most of the natural nutrients within the processed ingredients are now removed, and these nutrients are critical in controlling the rate of sugar absorption. In addition to this, most processed foods also are highly, unnecessarily boosted with lots of added sugars making the problem that much worse.

  • Balance Your Meal by containing plenty of slow digesting nutrients such as fibre proteins and healthy fats along with your carbs and sugars. This will actually slow the rate of absorption of those sugars and help you maintain a nice and balanced, stable blood sugar and energy level throughout the rest of the day.

  • Drink, Water, Tea And Coffee. Instead of sugary juice, soda or other sweetened beverages. As when sugars come in liquid form, they're digested far faster and will quickly work their way down to hang out and ferment in that colon of yours. Just sayin.

  • Eat A Good Breakfast. When and why did breakfast become such a dessert fest? I mean, seriously, the amount of added sugars to many common breakfasts, and even coffee is rather crazy.And when you dump all of this sugar into your body at the first meal of the day, you have now set yourself up for constant hunger, food cravings, mood swings, and energy failure for the rest of the day. So whenever you choose to eat breakfast, ensure that you're eating plenty of fibre, protein and fat and skip the sugar bombs.


4. Diversify Your Diet

Your body requires a lot of different nutrients and bacteria to thrive that can't all come from the same meals and ingredients day in and day out. Now, if the thought of adding more ingredients to your daily prep and weekly shop sounds a little bit overwhelming and you like to keep things a bit more simple. Well, here's a tip.

I suggest creating a list of all the foods within each category you love, such as vegetables, spices, fruits, proteins, and healthy fats.
And every week, alternate and mix things up a bit. Also, keep in mind that as the seasons change, so do the nutritional needs of your body.

Eating with the seasons is not only natural, but also helps your body adjust to the ever changing environment around you.


5. Whole Foods First

In case you're wondering, the term Whole Food simply refers to food in its original, unprocessed form, such as an egg, spinach, apples or an avocado.

You get the point here. Alternatively, processed food is a food that in the majority of cases comes with an ingredient list full of items that are not natural or beneficial to your health. So let's now have some fun and put Whole Foods up against processed foods in an epic battle for your health and satisfaction.

Whole Foods have not been refined or altered in any way. They still retain all the energy and nutrients for your body to fully digest, absorb
and send the proper signals to your brain that allow you to feel full and satisfied. Processed foods, on the other hand, often lack many of the nutrients and bacteria that your body needs to digest them, making them confusing and challenging for your body to deal with, costing you energy and even stored minerals and vitamins within your body to help digest these foods.

What do you get in return?

A whole lot of empty calories, blood sugar spikes and other unknown, harmful added ingredients. So I suggest sticking with Whole Foods as much as possible. But keep in mind that processed doesn't always mean bad.

For example, a bag of chopped vegetables is in a way processed. Yet still contains all the natural ingredients. Fermentation is another example. Also processed, but in many ways is actually healthier.