Eating healthy at snack time can be a bit of a challenge if you’ve not given it a bit of research and thought. There is certainly no lack of items available to snack on, however, many of those readily available are not the healthy choices that we should be making.
Eating healthy or even dieting is not about going hungry and starving your self. It is about making healthy decisions on what we choose to eat and enjoying those choices. Variety also adds to your ability to maintain your goal of eating healthy. Consistency may be good in some areas, but you’ll start looking askance at that wheat puff by day three.
One of the hardest parts many people find is that many healthy foods are also the ones that spoil quickly. In our busy lives it is so much easier to grab something on the go rather than make the effort to stop at the grocery store and pick up some fresh fruits and vegetables to munch on. Not only are they harder to fit in a purse, but they seldom come conveniently wrapped and of course the checkout lines take longer at the grocery store.
Many of us grew up in the age of mother’s cod liver oil supplementation to keep us healthy, but few have had the experience of being raised with the same emphasis on apple cider vinegar.
Vinegar is a condiment which many of us are familiar with and in fact, was invented during the Xia Dynasty in China around 2000 BC. This product of natural fermentation is mentioned in the Bible and was call a “blessed seasoning” by the Prophet Muhammad.
Vinegar is produced when there is oxidization by acetic acid bacteria of ethanol in any liquid containing alcohol, including beer, cider, and wine and fermented fruit juice. A bacterial culture called the mother of vinegar is often added to quicken fermentation. Many health enthusiasts insist that the apple cider vinegar they buy be of the unpasteurized variety and have the mother of vinegar present in it. This appears like a dark mass at the bottom of the container.
The history of vitamins and minerals goes back as far as memory. Although many of the early physicians did not recognize the content of what they prescribed as vitamins, they did recognize that adding back to a patients diet that which was lacking could reverse certain conditions.
Today the vitamins and minerals industry is a multi-million dollar business that continues to grow each year. Its success comes largely from people’s need to find more natural means to improve their health and guard against disease. People around the world now rely on vitamins and nutritional supplements to give them back the value lacking in their foods and diets.
When Congress voted to change the FDA regulations of nutritional supplements in 1994, an increase in the popularity of vitamins and minerals supplements was seen. Since that time, the consumer has been able to find these products in almost every store and mall throughout America.
Developing healthy eating habits to become a healthy eater begins with educating yourself on how to be food smart, on what healthy eating habits are, and then applying them to your daily lifestyle. There is more to being food smart than simply counting calories.
Becoming a healthy eater and learning healthy eating habits is about learning to moderate and balance your eating. Healthy eaters consume a minimum of three meals a day without limiting themselves to a specific food group or food type. Three meals a day is a minimum. Your goal should be to work up to five smaller meals a day to maintain your metabolism.
Here’s an eating schedule you might adopt. Adjust to suit your daily schedule.
1. 7:00 a.m. – Breakfast
2. 10:00 a.m. – Light snack
3. 12:00 p.m. – Lunch
4. 4:00 p.m. – Light snack
5. 7:00 p.m. – Small dinner with a treat




