Interesting topic. And I completely agree with you there’s a wide spectrum in understanding of what a healthy diet is. And health and diet really trigger people.
Understandably, a healthy diet is expensive and time consuming. I’m currently on a juice fast 16 days and counting, a whole body cleanse to remove all the fillers the body has consumed over winter, once over I will transition to a raw diet, my dehydrator and spiraliser are sitting ready. As the summer progresses I will add eggs, then fish to my diet ready for winter.
Normally my diet would be:
11.00 Açai bowl - I add berries, a nut and chai seed mix I make, sprouted organic flaxseed.
17.00 spaghetti squash served with homemade vegan balls and tomato sauce, and salad (salad usually consists of roasted broccoli, fennel, and asparagus, lettuce etc).
other options are:
mackeral with quinoa, vegetables mixed into quinoa (finely chopped spinach, peppers, onions, carrots and green beans)
trout with sweet potato and salad (salad as above)
mussels and seafood mix cooked with spinach, tomato, chilli, onion and saffron served with buckwheat pasta.
large courgettes thinly sliced and grilled then filled and rolled with tofu blended mixture of basil, Spinach, nutritional yeast, and pine nut cooked in a tomato sauce.
weekends we will have poached eggs with a really delicious bread I get from a local farm shop made by a local woman.
snacks: nut mix I make with goji berries
chocolate (raw halo)
Carob bars (Caroboo)
‘Proper’ crisps
homemade hummus and crudités
homemade crisps using dehydrator
I will make my own chocolate bars which I do when I’m raw, my favourite is a healthier version of a snickers bar which includes making my own chocolate (not as hard as people think cocoa butter, cocoa powder, coconut oil sweetened with either maple syrup or Lucuma powder).
If I use sugar in food I tend to use piloncillo (the raw pure form of cane sugar)
Rice is a treat - quinoa is my go to rice substitute
And I’m about 90% organic
I do have days when I want to eat carbs and I have my treat recipes which I can whip up in 15 minutes. Our most recent favourite was a rice dish served with king prawns, bell peppers and spring onions. The sauce was something like fish sauce, soy sauce and oyster sauce. So simple, cooks in 10 minutes (including prep) and homemade. And green thai curry so easy to make once you can source down the galangal!
Of course we eat out our go to place in the countryside is a lovely farm restaurant where they use local produce, cote for their mussels, and a local Mexican restaurant. In London I love Vardo and Colberts. We never do takeaways if I crave a takeaway it’s a sign that I don’t want to cook and we just go to a restaurant. If we can’t afford it I suck it up and cook and do the restaurant as soon as we have that extra cash.
I will cook meat for my partner, sometimes I might eat it, but currently my body just wants to cleanse and feel clean. Having completed many 30 day juice fasts I do think we have been sold a complete lie and misconception about what our body needs to feel healthy and sustained. All in the name of consumerism for capitalism.
I eat this way not because I’m trying to be super slim but because I love it. I’m in my 40s and have been choosing organic since I could afford to buy my own food (18), I’m not riding the wave of a consumer trend, I’m doing something that I gravitated to when I was very young. I love food, I love experimenting with food, and most importantly I love my body (I’m not talking about how it looks) and I’m proud of my body.
If you can say you love your body then you’re doing something right so if it feels right and it works for you then keep doing it.