Healthy Food

What exactly is healthy food?

Personally I think there is no exact definition - it is completely subjective.  It depends on current thinking and current fashion plus your own experiences and background.

My parents would have said such things as eggs, milk, an apple a day and don't forget to eat your greens.  Fresh orange juice, meat, onions, a good roast dinner or meat and two veg.  For children, sugar especially malt, to give them the energy to run around and cod liver oil for their bones and joints.

For me in my younger days it was whole foods bran and wholemeal, health food stores selling nuts, beans, grains, dried fruit and supplements.   Margarine was considered healthier than butter and the general public had ever heard of the term hydrogenated vegetable oil even though it was all around us and in everything.  Butter was a big no no NO! except for those who preferred the taste.  Oh yes and don't forget to drink a pint of milk a day and go to work on an egg.

Now (October 2014 to be precise) we have to eat our 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day and they (whoever "they" are) are considering raising that to 7.

Nowadays it's not reduced fat but low to zero fat.

Fruit smoothies, or even better, green smoothies are the height of fashion.  Fat free yoghurts that taste like they  really have got fat in them is another big thing.

Then there's rice, pasta and healthy stir fries (with just a drop of olive oil) which thousands of men and  women claim are the secret of their weight loss.

Of course olive oil itself is highly fashionable, particularly if it is cold pressed.

You will never hear now that a roast beef dinner is a good nutritious healthy meal like it was considered to be 50 - 100 years ago.

Oh and you can no longer go to work on an egg - not every day anyway.  Drink a pint of milk?  Fine as long as it's not full fat.

The Future of Healthy Food

Right now I feel we are also on the cusp of new things.  There's murmurings from scientific directions that are seeping onto the internet and into the media and onto youtube of the latest fashions to come.

Whisperings of "fat is actually good for you" but watch out for the sugar, particularly fructose.  A growing interest in home grown, chicken keeping and organic.  A bringing of the family back to the table away from the tv and of gathering in masses to celebrate food at food festivals.

But isn't it all getting a bit confusing? Because if yesterdays healthy food fashions are out of date and no longer true, then why should we think that today's are any better?  Because come tomorrow it will all change again. And besides that there is just too much to think about when all we really want to do is just eat, and eat well.

With the massive overload of information we have now I can't help thinking that we have completely lost our way and don't know which way to turn. 

Maybe it's time to go back to the beginning and start again.  back to a time when we just ate and didn't tamper

Back to real food

Here is a rather interesting website from Friends of the Earth about healthy food and the environment

Start the day with a...

 ......healthy breakfast

Healthy meals don't have to be complicated

 healthy easy recipes 

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REAL FOOD ON PINTEREST

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Please remember that the author of this website is not a professional.  All statements are opinions and not to be taken as advice.