As a teen, most of us don’t
even care if we’re eating right, or begin to understand the
implications of poor eating habits. As we age, however, we do begin
to notice the effects of improper exercise, poor eating habits,
and how they affect our health. Today, as the baby boomers begin
their retirement years, health concerns and questions are on the
rise. These aging boomers are more concerned than any previous generations
about their good health, their ability to keep their good health,
and how their diet affects their health.
The easiest place to affect our
health is through our eating habits; in fact it’s the most
effective solution to better health, sharing the spotlight with
exercise. What about our food intake? What choices do we have to
make eating a healthier occurrence?
Fruits and vegetables are a great
place to start. There are so many choices in the filed of fruits
and vegetables, that being picky isn’t even a consideration
here. It does not matter where your location, the time of the year,
or the method of preparation, there are fruits and vegetables to
suit the most discriminating taste.
The choices in fruits and vegetables
run the gamut in color preference, leafy versus compact, fresh and
raw, or freshly picked and cooked. There are fruits and vegetables
high in flavonoids, anti-oxidants, or just plain high in flavor.
What about as a snack? Do fruits
and vegetables meet the snack requirement for taste? We already
know that they’re good for us, but if we’re going to
snack, we want something that tastes really good.
There are fruits and vegetables
that fill that bill, quite successfully. What about celery? Celery
with pimento or peanut butter is quite delicious. Or, you have the
broccoli and cauliflower combination with ranch dip. That’s
a snack that any other snack would be hard pressed to surpass. In
the fruit section, you have so many snack choices it would require
you to spend hours debating which one is best. Apples, oranges,
mangos, bananas, peaches and pears, and this just begins the list.
One of a southerner’s favorite
snacks would be baked sweet potato. Now, this is normally consumed
with large amounts of butter, but doesn’t have to be, in order
to be good. The baked sweet potato can simply be peeled and eaten
straight from the oven and it’s still delicious.
Back in the fruit section, you still
haven’t covered plums, grapes, raisins, watermelons, cantaloupes,
or honey dews. My, my, I didn’t realize there were so many.
We haven’t even discussed
fruit options that would require us to cook. These are just the
fresh and raw options available, most year round. By the time you
run the gamut with these ideas, you should be ready to start all
over at the beginning.
You should have enough options now
for snacking, that healthful snacking can become a standard, not
an exception for you. These ideas do not by any means encompass
all options; these are just simply the most popular local favorites
if you live in the South and in Alabama.
Fruit, Vegetables and Health:
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