I came home bone-tired from a day of lectures and 5 hours on my feet at my part time job.  I had loaded the pantry at home with my favourite whole grain bread and the fridge with diced vegetables & fruits.  I was going to eat healthy food, dammit, no matter what.

Guess who I found as I settled in: my 30-something year old cousin who was on his 3rd week of a weekend trip watching TV in the basement.  He had nearly half of my weekly eat-well food on a table.  What happened next is a mystery to me.  The state of fugue lasted for about a week but my mother gave me a dirty look every time she passed the bowl-shaped hole in her basement wall.

I don’t care who you are and how much money you have, eating well is a deliberate and conscious effort.  There is a reason why the portions at restaurants are huge.  The food may look and even taste like food but it is more poison than nourishment.

Here are two things that work for me in shopping for food:

Measure the distance between the earth and the food.  Check out how far the food you’re about to put in your mouth has veered since it was made in God’s good earth. A carrot grown in an organic farm would be on one (good) end of that spectrum and a grocery store donut on the other (terrible) end.  Get as close as you can to the good end of that spectrum in most meals.

  1. Switch all your bread products to whole grains for the fiber and proteins.  Not whole wheat but whole grains.  It will taste a little weird at first and have these lumpy grains in them but you will love the taste after a while.
  2. Make sure that you have at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetable.  This is the advice you’ll see everywhere but I say easily double that.
  3. If you’re like me and milk makes you gag, mix it with fruit and/or have yogurt.  Go for low fat or no fat.  Only babies should have that horrid full fat one.
  4. If you’re a girl who bleeds like a vampire’s mistress, put spinach and beans in your diet.
  5. Stay away from red meat as much as possible, even the halal stuff.  It is just hormone-injected, heart-clogging nastiness.  Once or twice a week is more than enough. Replace it with beans or fish.

Be judicious in how long you cook your food.  Some food like tomatoes have wonderful stuff come out when cooked.  Most lose their nutrients.  Your mom’s bariis and hilib followed by halwo is great for a nomad who doesn’t know when he or she will eat next but will make you a candidate for bypass in the future.

Read up on Asian and Mediterranean diets.  Before McDonald’s, Pizza hut, hormones and steroids made their way into the diets of these people, they enjoyed fresh food and were spared the dreadful Western diseases.

  1. Eat mostly food that you have prepared or packaged.  I eat out at least twice a week, mostly lunch with a client but even then, I choose something like grilled chicken with either a salad or long grain rice.
  2. Eat fish at least twice a week.  Canned tuna is good and cheap, I put it in my salad.
  3. Pack your lunch to school and/or work at least 4 out of the 5 business days.
  4. Eat/drink at least 1 thing that you absolutely love per day. Can’t give up that latte or swiss cheese sandwich?  Don’t. The goal is to avoid eating yourself to death but not making food the only thing you think about.

Money is always an issue when shopping for food.  However, you’d be surprised how much you save if you shop once or twice a week for these essentials:

  1. Whole grain bread.
  2. Fruits and vegetables.  Frozen vegetables are great if you’re so busy that cutting up and storing away veggies for the week are out of the question.
  3. Fish like tuna, beans, and organic meat/chicken (1 or 2 times/week).

Any tips you would like to share?