As a follow-up to my last post, I’m going to create a series in which I share some of my own personal ways of living healthfully in a world that doesn’t necessarily always support that. The concept in Chinese Medicine is called “Nourishing Life” and includes things like exercise, meditation, spending time in nature, and eating well.

So, below are some tricks I’ve found make eating healthfully a little easier and enhance the overall eating experience.

1. Try to avoid processed foods – this one is become more popular and widely known. Processed foods are so much easier, because you don’t have to spend time or energy preparing them, but, often in the processing nutrients are lost, the qi (vital life energy) of the food disappears. I might argue that eating refined and processed foods is akin to wearing sunglasses with no UV protection…
2. Buy a crockpot – and use it. Crockpots make preparing whole unprocessed unrefined foods easy. Throw a bunch of stuff in there at night, let cook overnight, and you’ve got breakfast, or lunch. Turn in on in the morning and you’ll have a nice hot dinner waiting for you when you get home…
3. Eat with people you love – also, eat while you eat. Don’t watch TV, or read, or fiddle with the computer. Now, I’m the first to admit that I do these things occasionally while eating, it’s not an all or nothing game. But try, for one meal a week, or one meal per-day, to eat in company, in a calm environment at a leisurely place and enjoy your food.
4. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables – everyone knows this one. We hear it over and over, yet I sometimes find myself not really eating too many vegetables or fruits. For me it’s usually, because the “easier” and “faster” foods aren’t fruits or vegetables, but that’s really another way of saying I’m more used to going for the bread.
5. Make your lunch for work/school the night before – your sandwhitch might not be quite as fresh, but it’ll be a lot cheaper than buying one, and you’ll know exactly what’s in it (hopefully lots of veggies).
6. Trade-off with friends – I’ll occasionally cook for my friends. I’ll bring them lunch one week, they’ll bring me lunch the next. It switches things up and lightens the burden of preparing food.

I’m sure I’ve got more and I’m sure I’ll be sharing them down the road. For now, that should do. Planning ahead is often helpful, and making things into  habits makes it all a lot easier.

As always, I’m curious about your thoughts and ideas…