Setting Foundations for Healthy Eating

4 Tips for Consistent Healthy Cooking & Eating Habits 

Cooking and eating healthy doesn’t have to be time consuming, intimidating or expensive. 

By prioritising the basics and mindfully evaluating (and attempting to deter) any obstacles that stand in your way, you’ll set yourself up for success and notice that healthy choices in the kitchen don’t have to be difficult or come at an extra cost (be that financial, time or flavour).

Lay the foundations of your healthy lifestyle with these simple kitchen tips:

1. Keep it simple

As soon as we overcomplicate our food choices and eating behaviours, we set ourselves up for failure as it is unlikely that we can stick to this with our naturally fluctuating levels of energy and motivation.

Two golden rules to always try your best to follow:

1. Cook from scratch as often as possible 
2. Eat the rainbow - at each meal fill your plate with a mix of colourful plant foods, quality proteins and healthy fats

2. Stock Up On Staples

Stock your cupboard and freezer full of accessible, multi-purpose wholefood ingredients. This way you have a diversity of foods at your fingertips that are full of flavour and nutrients to boost your meals and your overall health throughout the year.

Your healthy essentials shopping list:

Dried herbs and spices, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, seeds, nuts, beans, pulses, tinned tomatoes, coconut oil, quinoa, brown rice, tahini, nutritional yeast, chia seeds, flaxseed, nut butter, tinned sardines/tuna/anchovies, frozen veg, fruit, herbs and fruits.

3. Cook once, eat thrice!

Save time and energy by batch cooking. This can be an amazing way of using up ingredients and saving time on meals throughout the week or month (if freezing).

Choose a ‘base’ to batch cook such as a bolognese, veggie chilli, casserole, fritters, curry, meatballs. Then serve some portions of fresh and refrigerate or freeze the rest to enjoy a different day, and even in a different way e.g. with rice, on a baked sweet potato, as part of a salad, in a taco, create a bake. 

Need inspiration? Try this bean & vegetable stew!

4. Cook it in stages

Cooking for family or friends can feel overwhelming, especially for apprehensive cooks and those short on time. Breaking recipes down into stages means not only is the cooking process more enjoyable but also less intimidating, stressful and time-consuming. This does require some planning, but it’s so worth it.

For example, if you are going to cook a quiche or tart, make the pastry the day before. Same goes with the base of curry or bolognese.