It can be tricky and frustrating trying to figure out what to eat. Is cow’s milk okay? How much and what type of meat is ideal? What about bread? Gluten? These are the sorts of questions I grappled with since I was a teenager. It has always been important to me to be healthy, but for the longest time I was not sure how to do it. So many health professionals were giving different advice, and it was hard to find the right answer. I started the Master of Public Health/Registered Dietitian program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2011 with hope that I would finally find answers to my food-related questions. What I learned instead was that there have been many diets throughout history that have supported good health. There are only a few pieces of dietary advice that most health experts seem to agree on, which are to (1) eat mostly whole foods, (2) make sure your portions are sensible, and (3) eat lots of fruits and veggies. These recommendations are described by Michael Pollen in his book, In Defense of Food. He summed up these tips this way: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I wholeheartedly agree with these recommendations. But what is the best way to accomplish this on a day-to-day basis? I want to share how I meet these goals in a way that give clarity to food decisions and makes meals more enjoyable.
I do want to qualify the advice I’m about to give by saying you will likely need to do a bit more work putting together meals if you have a health condition that requires additional food analysis, such as diabetes or hypertension. Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, here is my tip without further ado…
The simplest way I have found to eat healthy is to buy whole foods and make your meals colorful!
I’m not talking about a plate full of Skittles…although my younger self would have seriously loved that! I’m talking about a plate full of colorful whole foods: a bright yellow mango, a vibrant red pepper, etc. For example, as I write this blog post, I’m eating the Green 14 Bowl from Clean Juice, my favorite lunch and smoothie spot in Chapel Hill, NC. (Click here to see if there is a Clean Juice in your area!). The salad bowl in front of me is primarily made up of vibrant mixed greens, fresh avocado, red goji berries, hard boiled eggs, brown walnuts, and quinoa. It’s really quite lovely, as well as being healthy. I have come to call this way of eating the Colorful Meal Mindset.
The Colorful Meal Mindset works because colorful meals are usually the healthiest; colorful meals made up of whole foods are pretty much guaranteed to be abundant in fruits and veggies, which are generally low in calories. This means you do not need to obsessively tracking calories (no fun!). So, in order to meet the three basic principles of good health outlined above, you just need to focus on buying whole foods and making meals colorful. Easy-peasy.
How the Colorful Meal Mindset came about…
My husband, Colin, is the reason we identified and started using the Colorful Meal Mindset to help our family eat healthy. Colin is from New Orleans where the food is delicious, but not always healthy (I’m looking at you, beignets). He grew up with an appreciation for good food, but limited knowledge about how to eat healthy. I remember one day as I was sitting on the couch eating cherries, he asked, “What are those?”. When I told him, he admitted that he thought maraschino cherries were the only form of cherries that existed. I still tease him about that incident to this day. After we got married, he developed a love for cooking and ended up being the primary chef in the family. At the time, he asked me for a simple way to prepare healthy meals that didn’t take the fun out of cooking. I suggested he simply try putting together meals that are colorful. For the most part, we buy whole foods to stock our refrigerator and pantry, so this method worked well. If you tend to buy lots of processed foods, this method would not work well (Skittles are colorful, but not healthy). We’ve been preparing healthy meals this way for several years now, and Colin will attest to the fact that it has reduced stress around putting together healthy meals for our family.
This concept of making meals colorful is the primary reason for the title of this little blog, My Colorful Table. I hope the concept explained in this post and to be elaborated on in future posts will help you put together healthy meals with clarity and joy. I’d love to see your colorful meals! @my_colorful_table #mycolorfultable
2 Keys to Creating Healthy Meals:
- Buy whole foods. Fill your cart primarily with whole foods, which are simply foods in their natural form. The less processed, the better. For example, an apple is better than applesauce.
- Make your meals colorful. Find and make recipes from Pinterest or your favorite cookbooks that feature a variety of colors. Then for those days when you don’t have time for a recipe (most days for me!), rummage through your fridge and pantry to find a colorful assortment of foods with flavor profiles that go together. Try to incorporate as many colors as possible.
