4 Easy Food Swaps For A Healthy Lifestyle
You could go on a crazy purge of your fridge
and pantry and that might work for you to encourage healthy eating, but let’s not be quite so drastic unless
necessary, yeah?
Although your kitchen
may benefit from a detox, an empty fridge is like a stab in the guts (sorry to
be so graphic!), not to mention stressful.
Don’t get us wrong, it
can be a physically and emotionally cleansing experience to rid your kitchen of
nasties, but what is more important is that your healthy lifestyle choices stick.
For most of us,
turning our eating habits upside down overnight is simply unrealistic, and may
feel like a punishment – but don’t beat yourself up.
Big changes can be
alienating and disheartening, causing you to fall back into old habits.
Soon
enough, processed foods might creep back into your cupboard and you’re back to
square one.
Our advice? Make small positive changes with these 4 food swaps.
Refined (white) for Wholegrain (brown)
Make the switch from
refined to wholegrain foods. White rice for brown rice, white bread for
wholegrain bread, plain flour for wholegrain flour and plain rice crackers for
wholegrain rice crackers.
You get the idea, and
do it at your own pace. Even substituting half white rice for half brown rice
is a step towards healthier living as you adapt to include more nutritious and fibre rich foods into your diet.
You’re not alone –
we’ve been there, and it’s worked for us. Now white bread seems dull in
comparison to nourishing, wholegrain and seeded varieties.
Regular Pasta For Veggie Pasta
Skip the high carb
pasta options once in a while for a nutritious zucchini, carrot or butternut pumpkin
spirals.
Not just for the little ones, this fun swap ‘hides’ vegetables in
plain sight and reduces your calorie intake at dinner time.
If you don’t have a vegetable spiralizer, a peeler or mandolin should to the trick in creating pasta-like ribbons. Sauté in a pan, garnish with your favourite herbs and enjoy!
Soft Drinks For Carbonated Water
Consuming excessive
soft drink can put a huge bump on your journey towards a heathier you. Our
trick? Good ol’ fashioned H20.
Add a slice
of your favourite citrus (lemon and lime work wonders) into carbonated water
and you’ve got a bubbly delight enriched with vitamin C and a zing of freshness
with very minimal calories and virtually no sugar.
Hot Chocolate for Chocolate Tea
Chocoholics - we’ve
got your back.
We know the joy of curling
up with a steaming hot chocolate on a cold morning, night…. whatever time of
day it is and we’re not going to deny you that feeling.
You may have already
made the swap from high sugar milk chocolate to antioxidant-rich dark chocolate, (or even dark chocolate for cacao nibs if you’re a super
foodie!), but we’re going to let you in on a secret.
Chocolate tea.
It’s made by brewing
boiling water with a teaspoon of cacao husks (the shell of the cocoa bean) and contains
zero, nil, absolutely zip sugar.
Not only are you
boosting your water intake (which your body loves!), you're skipping the sugary
hot beverages that may affect your health.