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Emily’s Corner
Lame Excuses for Not Eating Healthy
Health Food Is Too Expensive
This is not entirely true. If you are looking at sheer volume of food to fill up your belly then sometimes it is more expensive to purchase healthy food. If you are looking at price per nutrient then junk food can be more expensive. And it’s not just the quality nutrients that health food offers either, think about what ingredients you’re avoiding; saturated fat, MSG, excess sodium, sugar, food coloring and preservatives for starters. Consider this example with one large sweet potato. It costs around 45 cents, you get 7 grams of fiber, 769% of your vitamin A, 65% of your vitamin C and approximately 180 calories. A medium order of french fries from a popular fast food restaurant costs $1.79, offers 3 grams of fiber, zero vitamin A , 6% of your vitamin C and 230 calories. The expense excuse is only convenient if you don’t want it bad enough to think through the options and make the right choices.
I Don’t Know How and I Don’t Have the Resources
If you’re the kind of person that likes someone spelling it out for you step by step then this website is for you. www.EMeals.com provides you with weekly shopping lists and meal plans based on your family size and dietary goals. It generates the shopping list based on your local grocery store of choice and the sales for that week. Best of all no food is wasted because all meals are strategically planned utilizing what you purchased at the store that week. It’s a shame when food goes to waste because you never got around to preparing that healthy meal?
Eating Healthy Takes Too Much Time
It takes at least 25 minutes to get in your car, drive to the fast food joint, order your meal, wait to pick it up, pay for it and drive back home to eat it.
It takes 95 seconds to walk into your kitchen, open the refrigerator, grab the chicken salad, spread it on a piece of whole grain bread, sit down and eat it.
It takes the same amount of time to heat up a frozen entrée regardless of the ingredients and there are numerous healthy frozen entrée options.
All grocery stores now carry produce already washed, chopped and bagged up for you so the time excuse won’t work here.
It’s just as quick to grab and eat a piece of fruit as it is to grab and eat a pack of cookies.
Life’s Too Short, Eat What You Want
Life will be even shorter if you have a steady diet of junk foods. Don’t forget that obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death after smoking. Make sure you’re not depriving yourself so much that you become a food binge waiting to happen. Allow yourself periodic treats or cheat days to kill the cravings that can kick into overdrive if you deny yourself for too long. Life is short and it’s unreasonable to expect that you will never put another morsel of sugar or saturated fat into your mouth. The key is moderation. Think of the 80/20 rule. Aim for eating healthy nutritious foods 80% of the time and 20% of the time you can have the more decadent treats.
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