How to Make Healthy Eating Easy

If one of your goals this year is to get healthy, we are here to help you! While it can be hard to make excellent meal choices every day, we’re in the business of making good health habits easy and lifelong. Now is always the best time to improve your skills in the kitchen and make hassle-free cooking quick and enjoyable for 2019 and beyond!

Why Healthy Eating is Important

Before we talk about how to live a healthier life, let’s take a look at why you may want to lead a healthier lifestyle and the benefits that come from a healthy diet. We all know that healthy means something that is good for you, but that doesn’t stop us from asking ourselves, Why should we eat healthy?

While each person may have their own personal reasons for eating healthy, you can’t deny that everyone wants these benefits of a good diet:

Reduced Health Risks

Eating healthy foods keeps your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels in check and reduces risk of a host of diseases and conditions.

Brain Fuel

Eating nutrient-rich ingredients will give you energy to work and be productive. Eating better foods gives you better, lasting energy.

Control

Instead of letting your diet control your health and weight, you shift the power back into your own hands when you choose a healthy diet and stick to it.

Feeling Good

When you do things that are good for you, you feel good about the choices you make. It’s the same with the food that you choose to put in your body. Another perk is that when you feel good, you’ll usually have a more positive outlook on life as well!

Keep in mind that healthy does not have to mean boring and bland! There are many ways to enjoy flavorful, delicious food and still eat healthy at the same time. Since we’re all about cooking smarter and eating healthier, we’ve come up with many fun and tasty ways to look forward to healthy eating, including our complete guide on How to Cook & Eat Healthier.

Good Health Starts with Your Ingredients

We believe that health starts with cooking real food. What we mean by “real food” is simple, wholesome, nourishing, and unprocessed ingredients. Whole foods come straight from a natural source and don’t have all of the additives and preservatives that pre-packaged foods do. Since many additives have been associated with an increased risk of cancer, it’s best we stick to eating real food as much as possible.

Once you start with real food as your base, you’ll be on your way to cooking healthy in no time! To understand some basics on how to eat healthier and grow your nutrition smarts, Kath Younger, Registered Dietitian, answers 10 of the most common nutrition questions here:

Cooking Skills are the Key to a Healthy Diet

Eating healthy is a great start to living a healthy lifestyle, but learning to cook healthy is really the secret to maintaining healthy living long term. Once you learn to cook, you’ll always have this essential life skill. Health fads will come and go, but knowing how to cook will stay with you and adapt to any situation.

Cooking helps with healthy eating because it gives you complete control over what goes into your body. If you start off with real foods and apply good cooking skills to them, you’ll be able to enjoy a variety of delicious healthy meals anytime, anywhere.

Understanding how to cook will also allow you to eat the foods that you want to eat. After all, everyone has their preferences, and cooking lets you tailor each dish to your specific needs and taste buds. No more worrying about how much sugar or salt is in a dish! You can decide for yourself the best way to enjoy your meals.

We have a set of Lessons that can help you with many cooking basics, but if you do better with hands-on learning like so many of us do, think about trying Nourish – a 6 week online cooking course taught by our Chief Kitchen Cheerleader Jess Dang!

As a Nourish student, you’ll learn the “Why?” behind the things you do in the kitchen. With this knowledge, you’ll be freed from stressful cooking experiences and feel comfortable to go off recipe, get creative, and whip up a delicious meal with whatever you have in your fridge.

Now that you understand why healthy meals are so important and the steps to making them a sustainable part of your daily life, we want to leave you with some great resources:

By choosing good ingredients, learning to cook healthy meals, and making use of our handy resources, you’ll be on your way to a healthier and happier life!

Have more ideas on how to make healthy eating easy this year? Let us know in the comments below.

As always, we create content that will help you live your best and healthiest life in the kitchen. For more cooking know-how, sign up for our newsletter below, and we’ll help you raise your kitchen IQ and cook with confidence by sending you our best cooking tips, articles, and infographic guides.