It seems the latest eating and living trends are rapidly moving towards a more healthy approach. Eating junk is all very tasty, but it doesn’t lead to longevity with a good quality of life. And, as modern documentaries expose the hazards of consuming too much sugar, GMO, takeaways and food that’s pumped full of hormones, it’s getting harder and harder to turn a blind eye to the consequences of our poor food choices.

In fact, as consumers become more enlightened, their spending patterns are starting to change to the point where regular stores are now stocking the kind of products that were previously only available from specialised health stores. It seems they’ve realised that if they don’t stock these products, they are going to miss out on a lot of profit.

Talking of which, healthy eating and living is not for sissies. Firstly, it can be rather expensive to buy the healthy options. Some people say that it doesn’t have to cost more to eat healthily – and that’s true if you’re living on ordinary fruit and veg. However, slap an organic label on that and the picture changes. Not to mention that you can easily spend a small fortune on nuts, cold-pressed coconut oil, honey, free-range eggs, hormone-free dairy products, grass-fed beef, vitamins and minerals, etcetera. One can only hope that as the demand for these products increases, the prices will drop to reasonable levels.

Secondly, healthy eating is hard work. In fact, I take my hat off to vegans and vegetarians, because I don’t know how they do it. I mean, it takes a lot of creativity and culinary flair to ensure those veggie dishes and salads stay interesting, because vegetables can get really boring, very fast. Granted, I’ve always preferred fruit to vegetables so I may be a bit biased. However, at the end of the day, cabbage is still cabbage no matter how you slice it, dice it, cook it or spice it.

And then there’s the chopping and the chewing. Serving up a healthy meal with lots of salad and vegetable dishes takes far more time than it does to throw together a relatively ‘instant’ meal. You have to wash and wash and wash everything before you can even start the chop, chop, chopping process – and then comes the chewing. Eating salads can give your jaw a real workout. I never feel quite so much like a cow chewing on cud as I do when I’m trying to get through a plate of salad. A single meal can be quite exhausting. No wonder you don’t get fat on salads, since you burn a ton of energy just eating them.

Last week, I made the decision to only eat salad for lunch the entire week. Well, by the time Thursday came, I was dreaming about pizza and I couldn’t help looking at my three Tupperware containers full of salad with scorn. Did I really have to eat that – again!? After debating for some time over whether or not I actually wanted lunch at all (and reminding myself of all the wonderful health benefits of green produce), I decided to man up and eat my salad.

“Okay,” I told myself, “let’s do this” – Fear Factor style!

If I’m honest, it felt like a chore to eat that lunch. Generally, I like eating and I enjoy my food, but life would be so much better if healthy food could just taste as good as junk food. People say that your taste buds change over time and you will start to enjoy healthy food more, which is true to a point. However, when it comes to healthy eating, sometimes you just need some junk food to keep you sane and give you the motivation you need to carry on consuming those leafy greens.

© 2017 Audrey Whyte   All Rights Reserved