Is it easy to eat healthy food?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm not really asking anyone that, I've seen the ignorant arguments about how easy it is to access healthy food etc. I just found this really interesting.

http://www.upworthy.com/what-does-your- ... g-2?c=ufb1

I'll answer just the same though it is easier to eat unhealthy than healthy because unhealthy choices are every were lol

I didn't read the article but I'm going to say yes and no.

Is it easy? Yes because:
1) you know where to buy wholesome foods for a reasonable price
2) you can grow your own garden
3) tap into your farmer's market
4) eliminate costs by avoiding non-nutritional foods (sugars, grains, preservatives, etc)

Is it easy? No because:
1) food is like politics. people like voice their opposing opinions on you
2) we can't get away from junk food - it's everywhere and it's pushed onto our children by schools, friends, daycamps, etc
3) it takes a while to distinguish health foods from non-healthy foods (do your homework)
4) GMO's are hard to detect. if you haven't done your research, it's hard to tell how to look for it
5) labels are often reworded to fool you into thinking an ingredient is not listed

I think that at the end of the day, eating healthy is just as easy as eating badly. Everyone knows how to make or obtain:
(1.) quick, easy, and cheap healthy food,
(2.) quick, easy, and cheap unhealthy food,
(3.) elaborate, time-consuming and expensive healthy food,
(4.) elaborate, time-consuming and expensive unhealthy food.

The problem is that eating is such a primal and subconscious instinct that it's really hard to re-train yourself. For example, if you're hungry, it's just as easy to make a salad and feta cheese sandwich as it is to microwave a meat pie. But which one are you going to do? If you've spent your entire life reaching for the pies when you're hungry, you're going to have to make a conscious effort to not do that every single time.

EDIT: The poet linked in the OP says that he is talking about neighbourhoods where there are no grocery stores nearby. I'm not sure I really believe that there are such neighbourhoods. I understand the point he is trying to make, though.

Out of problems with an wisdom teeth, I was forced about 5 weeks to eat really, really healthy. I normally care as well to eat healthy in general, but not that extreme as I was forced to the five weeks.

As long as I had time and markets are open (we dont have 24 hours supermarkets) it was ok. So I could choose out of an variety of healthy products, that I could prepare at home.

But the moment, you are out of your dayplan it sucks. Being forced to work later, and you are already in the mess. No normal markets open anymore, as well as when coming home around 21:00 in the evening, being forced to cook sucks. As well as I needed to prepare my lunch always the day before, because my pause is to short to start cutting and cooking during lunch pause. Thats as well ok, as long as everything went well, but when I visit a building site and then needed to stay longer out of different causes, and so had no acces to my lunch package in the fridge of my company, finding something healthy to eat as "snack", that doesnt need to be prepared, which I cannot do on a building site, sucks.

So as long as I can plan my day, eating healthy is no problem, but the moment I am without purpose outside of that plan, finding something healthy to eat, that is easy available, and doesnt need to be prepared, is a pain and you have to endure a very reduced variety. As example, when it comes to drinking, around typical snack bars, beside plain water (and some snack shops, lack even that), there wont be much offered for you. Visiting cinema with your friends...."Mh, do I choose water or water?". ^^ Or we visited a friend, that invited us for their "house-moving" party, and they did much effort for their guests, so there were different cakes, snacks, a variety of sodas and alcohol and coffee... he felt really devastated, when I could eat nothing of that and only sipped on some water during the whole evening, and ate some olives. So he would have healthy food available, but that would have needed cooking, and if you have guests, you hardly can start cooking, only for one of them. ^^

I have a personal policy for dealing with this, which is that I let myself eat unhealthy food guilt-free if I'm socialising. My theory is that socialising is good for me, and I don't do it enough, so I don't need to be virtuous in terms of food since I'm already being virtuous in another way.

Of course, this policy won't work for social butterflies.

I will just as happily sit there and munch on raw carrots as i would a burger. Stick a salad in front of me and i'm like "yum!". Stick a quadruple burger in front of me with the calories for a full day and im like "yum!". If i get one of those chocolate gateaus i will grab a spoon and dig in rather than cutting a slice.

i find food in general is something i love, and even though im of the fast metabolism type i do put on weight purely from the volume i like to eat.

i find the gym is something that is work = lost weight and thats all there is to it. I go to the gym so i can eat basically what i want.

My main issue with eating healthily is purely convenience. If i had a personal chef i could eat healthily with ease.

Raw carrots and salad, sadly are good examples, for hardly accesable as snacks in between. I dont mind eating carrots, but when I stop during my working day in a supermarket, I have no opportunity for washing them. And prepared salads are around here horrible expensive, so they are about 4 EUR in supermarkets and 6 EUR + in restaurants. With that amount of money, I can buy ingredients for a salad that lasts 3 days. (Additional, that I had the problem of being unable to chew, which made raw salads not available. ^^)

I mostly eat healthily and spend a good £40+ a week on food just for myself. I only make balanced meals so won't skimp on veg or protein or carbs on any single meal. I still love my chocolate afterwards though, and I eat proportions according to the 50+ miles I aim to run each week. Compared to other students I'd say my food budgeting is expensive.

If you educate yourself on GMO's and the basic health requirements,then yes it is easy to eat healthy food.However not all places have access to health food stores,or it might be expensive.I am so lucky to live in a town with two health food stores and one Foodland that carries health foods as well.

It's easy, yet hard because unhealthy food is everywhere

it's spendy

Sometimes pricey...

What's hard is the temptation not to. Goldfish will be the death of me.

Hm.. I used to keep those as a "family pet"

The link is to an upworthy page with a video and the video is about food deserts. How can any of what you just said be applied to people who literally cannot access healthy food?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

It's not an uncommon occurrence in the U.S.

It's not about making better choices, it's about there being a lack of better choices for some people.