Whatever happened to eating a fresh and balanced diet?  I wonder every day why we need to follow fad diets and crazy food trends.  What is it about us humans that make us want to follow in the footsteps of celebrities and money makers (the people whom we don’t know and who will lie to us to get us to buy anything and everything)?  We really are a funny lot and gullible to!

I myself am not a follower of diets and fads as I get bored way too easily and I’m a bit tight with my money so won’t waste it on so called pre-packaged diet food.  Don’t get me wrong, I do like to try new things, foods in particular, but if it is a fad and it costs more than what I think it is worth than I won’t be buying into it.

Fresh food is the best food!

With so much fresh produce available to us we should be able to eat healthy, tasty meals every day and still not get bored.  Even in these days of long working hours and busy weekends there are recipes for easy yet fresh and healthy meals to be made with ‘normal’ ingredients we can buy at the local supermarket and/or fresh food market.  And with the internet, celebrity chefs, food magazines and cookbooks, we can find any number of recipes to suit our tastes and needs.

A range of cookbooks for healthy eating

We are lucky in Australia to have the benefit of such a variety of fresh food grown right in our own backyards, food that has not been genetically modified and some which is grown/reared organically.  But we still seem to be following the trends and fad diets that are thrown at us on television and in magazines, and which are promoted by celebrities.  We buy pre-packaged diet foods, pills, powders, artificially sweetened foods or just limit ourselves to one or two food types.  This to me seems strange, boring and destined to failure.

In the past we have been told eggs are bad for us and then they weren’t, all fats were bad but now some are of great benefit to our health (in moderation) and now flatulent cows are killing our atmosphere.  Who do we believe and what do we eat?  Again, I think we need to eat all foods in moderation, some cooked, some raw, some meat, some fruit and veg, some dairy, some nuts, etc……  A bit of this and a bit of that.  Maybe it’s just me but it worked for our parents and grandparents so why can’t it work for us?

Having said that, why would we want to eat like cavemen (as I’ve heard it described) on the Paleo Diet or overload on cabbage on the Cabbage Soup Diet.  I like cabbage and I like soup but I would get somewhat bored and a little bit flatulent with that one!  Then we have the Raw Food Diet.  Didn’t someone invent electricity, fire and appliances so we could cook at least some of our food to make it just that little bit more interesting and edible?

I could go on but I won’t.  But I do want to know why we can’t get back to basics, use the foods that are available to us fresh and natural.  Foods that we can buy at the market or grow in our gardens, food that we can cook at home and freeze for those busy or lazy days when we don’t feel like cooking.

Unless you have a specific food allergy there is nothing wrong with eating dairy, eggs, meat, seafood, poultry, fruit, vegetables, nuts, good fats, grains and small amounts of salt and sugar.  To me it is all about the amount you eat and as long as you enjoy a balance and try to stick with eating foods available seasonally you should be able to maintain a healthy diet.

So many good foods to choose from

I am by no means a nutritionist or professional in the area of food, diet or health and I’m not perfect, so this is just my opinion.  I have my vices.  I love cheese and could have a diet of cheese on everything but I know that is not viable or healthy.  I love eating out at restaurants but I’m not a fast/junk food eater so if I want a treat can’t I have one…..  In moderation!?

So for now I think I am just going to continue on with eating a little bit of everything, eating seasonally, cooking at home and still going out for lunch or dinner once a week as a treat.  I will still have a couple of potato chips from time to time with a sandwich and I will still eat sweets.  But not every day!  I will eat a balanced diet of all the foods I can get at my local shops and I won’t jump on the fad diets bandwagon.  That would be a ride too bumpy for me.