The Good Food Campaign

Most of what you eat is crap. Check out Pump Energy Food.

Of course, that is usually said to those who want to maintain their homes, or their car.

It equally applies in the kitchen though.

Save money by eating out less, and eat more healthily.

Save money by cooking from scratch, and eat more healthily too.

It’s not a lot of use eating at home if all you do is eat take-out items or frozen TV dinners. For one, it won’t save you much money, and secondly, most take out food and packets of TV dinners are highly processed, with lots of added preservatives, colors, sodium and other junk like HFCS.

If you cook from fresh ingredients at home, you know exactly what you’re eating.

If you can buy organic meat, fruit and vegetables, it’ll still be less expensive, far healthier and much more nutritious than buying junk food.

Try planning ahead and you can save even more. For example, a larger chicken can last two days, and you oonly need to cook it once. As long as you properly refrigerate the leftovers you can have a healthy chicken salad the next day, or perhaps make some chicken fried rice (which will have a lot less sodium in than that from the Chinese take out). You an also use wholegrain rice, for added vitamins and fiber.

Try to work out what you’re going to eat for at least a few days, and then you won’t buy too much, and have it go bad before you eat it, particularly vegetables and fruit (as fresh meat can more easily be frozen as-is, whereas vegetables need to be prepared and blanched first before freezing).

Have you heard “Oh, it’s ok, it’s just baby fat!” ?

Well, baby-fat turns into ‘puppy’ fat which turns into adult fat. Kids that are overweight, are more likely to turn into adults that remain overweight.

It can sometimes be traced to genetics, but it’s more often down to too much food, particularly junk food, and too little exercise.

Kids used to play in the street, or at the park, and more and more now sit in front of the computer, TV, or games console for hours on end instead.

Kids don’t need to be put on fancy diets either. That can often promote unhealthy ideas later in life, and give kids the impression that they need to be picky and fussy about what they eat. It’s good for parents to lead by example. No good telling junior they shouldn’t eat candy or fast food junk and should exercise if they frequently see you snacking on chocolate or pizza while not moving from the couch all day.

It’s no going to work if you suddenly decide to go on a healthy eating regime, and expect them to follow along without protest either.

Just stop buying one or two items. Cut back on chips. Let them have one bag a week, not three bags a day. The same with soda. It works best for ourselves, and for kids too, if we’re gradually weaned off the junk.

Try and make time to sit at the dinner table and eat, not at the TV. It promotes family conversation too, and gives you an opportunity to show enthusiasm for healthy options, by talking about them. Educate kids about what is best for them, but don’t ban them from junk totally or they’ll simply rebel and go buy it with their allowance behind your back in any case.

Often too, it’s good to cut back on portion size. Remember that your body takes about 20 mins to tell your brain that’s it’s full, so try and eat more slowly. Make it more of a family event, rather than the latest TV episode. You’ll all enjoy your food more, and less food will be more filling, and without feeling stuffed and bloated afterward.