To A Healthier You - Jannah

      You are what you eat. A healthy diet helps to keep you fit and reduces the risk of serious illnesses such as heart disease. It might be hard at first to change what you normally eat and your lifestyle but it actually is easier as time passes by.  

1. Healthy diet, healthy wallet

Cheap, healthy ingredients - Basing meals on starchy foods such as rice, pasta and bread is not only good for a balanced diet but offers excellent value for money.

2. Keep the goodness in

Don't squander your money by making the effort to buy fresh fruit and vegetables and then carelessly destroying their nutritional benefits.

Fresh is best - Eat fresh fruit and veg as soon as possible rather than storing - or use frozen.

Minimal cooking - Don't cook vegetables for too long as you will overcook them. Cover to keep in    steam.

Don't dilute vitamins - Boil vegetables in as little water as possible without boiling them dry, then use the water as a nutritious stock for making soup.

Clever storage - Cover and chill cut fruit and veg and don't soak or vitamins and minerals can dissolve away.

3. Grow your own

Save on herbs - Grow the herbs you use most frequently in a window box, pot or a garden bed by the kitchen door so you can harvest them as and when they are needed. Many have nutritional and therapeutic benefits.

4. Get your essential fats for less

The omega-3 essential fatty acids are beneficial fats that can reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke. You can increase the amount in your diet at minimal extra cost.

Swap meat for fish - Replace at least one meat meal a week with oily fish. You don't have to go for expensive fish and you can also opt for canned sardines which have the bonus of being high in calcium, too, as the bones are edible.

5. Drink Water

Aim to drink up to 2 litres a day - and the more of it that is water the better as this ensures good circulation and digestion and prevents dehydration and the fatigue and mental fuzziness that usually accompany it.