Few days back, we discussed about the junk food dilemma. Now let’s turn to the common topic that everybody talks about and only a handful follow: Healthy food Habits.

If you find yourself contemplating for hours and hours on what to eat, what’s healthy and what’s not; you are not alone. The seemingly healthy foods do not for most part contain proper nutrition. Yet you get tangled up with the temptation of tasting that delicious cup of pudding or plate of risotto. Finally when you make up your mind to settle on a full vegetable diet, you remember the article that you’ve read about warning against genetically engineered food.

So now the million dollar question is: what is healthy? And what proof do I have? So here’s my tip for you. Do not despair in your confusion. Learn the basic tips about healthy diet and you will know through intuition what to eat and what to avoid.

Here are the best tips for choosing a healthy diet.  

• Fruits and vegetables are known to do wonders to your body. Pick up fresh vegetables and fruit. Always make sure that you have picked different colors to maximize the variety.
• Give priority to non starchy vegetables such as carrots, spinach, green beans and broccoli.
• Include raw vegetables in your diet at least twice a week and make sure your daily meals contain enough components of fiber. If your main meal does not contain fiber, compensate for it through fruit such as apple and melon.
• If you are prone to food allergies, avoid tropical fruits.
• Avoid processed food. This is especially important of meat items and grains. Replace the processed food with whole grain foods and fresh meat items.
• Brown rice and whole wheat spaghetti contain a sack full of nutrition. Try them out in different styles.
• Have a preference for fresh fish over meat. Try to add fish items to your meal at least twice a week
• When you eat meat, make sure you avoid the fatty components such as chicken’s and turkey’s skin.
• If you are over 35 of age, try using non-fat dairy products such as skim milk, non-fat yogurt and non-fat cheese
• Include dried beans such as lentils, green grams or pinto beans in your diet.
• Water is the best medicine for all your ailments and imbalances in the body. Consume at least 4 liters of water every day. Avoid carbonated drinks. Always choose ‘diet’ drinks over sweetened drinks such as regular soda, sweet tea or cordials.
• Use liquid oils in cooking.
• Cut down on full-fat ice creams, puddings and cakes.

So give in a little thought according to above tips, before you start preparing your meals. I’m sure you will come up with amazing menus that will be both delicious and risk free.

If you find warnings about food every where you turn, I will not be surprised. Starting from your grand mother, mother, aunty and all other elders will warn you against your diet. They will say junk food is bad for health and you need to slow down on them. At one point it may seem like that people think all that you ever eat is junk food.

But for you (especially if you are very young) you diet seems perfect. Your favorite hamburger with fries will have green leaves, tomatoes, meat, bread, and potato fried in oil so it looks quite balanced because carbohydrate, fiber, protein, fat and vitamins all seem to be there.

So why is everybody making a huge fuss over it calling it ‘junk food’? The matter of the fact is hamburgers and other quick fix take-away food contains ingredients that are over used to bring out a certain taste. With the help of such ingredients, the manufacturers are able to cover up for the empty calorie diet they sell. In addition, some green leaves and tomatoes are used to decorate, so as to add a ‘healthy’ look to the food; after all people have this impeccable belief that anything ‘vegetable’ is great.

But if you analyze closely, such food have low nutritional content in them. They are mostly made up of saturated fat, salt, sugar and food ingredients. Among these, monosodium glutamate and tartrazine have been recognized as the main culprits that make food less nutritious.

Monosodium glutamate is also commonly known as flavor enhancer 621, MSG, Ajinomoto, Vetsin, Accent, Sodium salt and Glutamic acid. Tartrazine on the other hand is commonly known as E102 and FD&C Yellow 5. It is mostly used as a food coloring & additive agent and is known to be produced from coal tar.

So you may be curious to know what type of food contains these ingredients the most. When it comes to tartrazine; soft drinks, instant food like puddings and flavored chips and confectionery tops the list. Other foods include cereals and cake mixes.

If you consider things such as chewing gum, bubble gum, marzipan, jellies, gelatin and mustard pastes, ice creams and certain noodles; they are food with very low or no nutritional value. Even some rice items such as paella and risotto, puddings, custards and soups can be surprisingly low in nutritional value although tangy in taste.

So remember that looks and tastes can be very deceiving when it comes to any sort of food, no matter if they are classified as ‘junk food’ or not.