Eating Healthy - You Are What You Eat

These days we have such a huge variety of food to choose from, and one would expect that 'eating healthy' would not be difficult.There is no doubt that eating habits (and the food that is available) have changed over the last fifty years or so. Probably much more than you realize.Diets used to be very simple back then and people generally ate foods produced locally or fruit and veggies grown in their own backyards. The food consumed was fresh, unprocessed, and therefore rich in vitamins, minerals, and micro nutrients. There were no Supermarkets with rows and rows of enticing foods to choose from.These days, an ever increasing number of processed and easy to prepare foods have come on to the market, many boasting added vitamins, antioxidants and all manner of additives to 'enhance' our food. ... Can we improve on nature?'Takeaways' have become increasingly popular, an ever-increasing array of 'snacks', breakfast cereals and all manner of 'goodies' are on the shelves for the choosing, so it becomes quite difficult with such a huge variety of foods available to us, to always choose wisely.How often do you see shopping trolleys loaded with processed and pre-prepared foods, soft drinks, biscuits, chips etc.etc? In fact, if we were to remove from the Supermarket shelves all the foods that we shouldn't eat, (or that aren't good for us) the shelves would look very depleted indeed!Of course, we all embrace and enjoy this great variety of food without ever stopping to think if these are the foods our bodies need. We never give a thought to the fact that the food we eat is the fuel for our body - without the correct fuel our bodies have to struggle to operate and to do all that is required of them.It is only natural for us to think: "If it's there on the shelves, it must be OK to eat!" WRONG! ... not so.How wonderful it would be if everything available for us to eat was 'good for us'!It seems that a whole generation has grown up with a completely wrong perspective of what we should be eating, what is 'healthy eating' and what our food is meant to be doing for us.Is it any wonder that we are seeing a great increase in all sorts of 'disease conditions' that were virtually unheard of when I was a child?Thankfully, more and more people nowadays are becoming aware of the importance of our food choices. Food choices influence our risk of developing lifestyle illnesses such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.Fruit and vegetables have been found to contain a large number of naturally occurring substances known as phytochemicals. Many of these phytochemicals (scientists have identified over 12,000 of them) are thought to interfere with the processes that cause cancer and heart disease. For this reason alone it is very much to our advantage to eat as many fresh fruits and vegetables as possible.Unfortunately, we have not always understood the vital importance of nutrition. There has been a tendency to view our diet as something that tastes good, fills our stomach and supplies energy; and not what it really is, the source of innumerable nutritional components that are vital for the body to achieve and maintain good health and enhance its ability to fight disease when it inevitably needs to do so.With just a little commonsense and knowledge, it is possible to make a huge difference to our overall health.It takes a constant and deliberate effort to stay healthy and to achieve total well-being and it may mean we have to make some life-style changes where necessary. Visit http://www.wellness-decisions.com where you will find help to guide you through the choices you need to make.To find out more about 'Healthy Eating' pay a visit to http://www.wellness-decisions.com/eating-healthy.htmlWhile you are there I'd love you to subscribe to my monthly ezine 'Choose-Wellness'.

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