Healthy eating is more than simply ensuring that you’re consuming the recommended daily amounts of each food group. It’s a lifestyle that encourages the use of diverse flavorings and preparation methods.
Hello, everyone. This week's post is "Healthy Eating is Diverse Eating."
A few days ago, I overheard a news report about healthy eating. The report centered around ensuring that you eat the recommended daily amounts of each food group and then provided some tips for making that happen.
I haven't talked about my definition of healthy eating for awhile, so I thought this was a good time to remind all of my listeners that healthy eating is diverse eating.
Let's be honest with ourselves. We all have our food preferences, and sometimes those food preferences can narrow how and what we choose to eat. Diversity in our flavor profiles expands our preferences and encourages us to be creative in how we're going to prepare what we're choosing to eat.
I experiment with food a lot and that gives me a little outlet or a break from the monotony of my routine that I have to do daily in caring for my mom. Food experiments for diverse eating helps to make simple things like beans a lot more interesting.
I've learned on this caregiving journey that the more interesting the flavor of a food is, the better my mom will enjoy it and the more she'll eat of it. And keeping a super senior well-fed is a very good thing. Mom still likes spicy, flavorful food and so do I.
Making diverse eating a lifestyle has taught me that spicy doesn't necessarily mean hot, and flavorful is more than just being salty. The flavor of things like ginger or thyme or shallots can make something as simple as green beans taste really special.
My encouragement to you this week is to play with different flavor profiles to make diverse eating part of your healthy lifestyle.
Be well until next time.
-Dr. Sherry
Dr. Sheri L. Yarbrough is an author, caregiver, and founder of Praxis Senior Care-Giving Solutions, a consulting business that provides care-givers with practical and easily implemented strategies that can be tailored to meet their individual care needs.
View Dr. Yarbrough's weekly blog on all things caregiving from a caregiver's perspective.
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