Healthy living means not only eating healthy, fresh foods, but it's also knowing when to eat them. It's balancing them so that ... ]]>

You are what you eat, and that’s why eating healthy foods will help to keep you healthy and enable you to live longer. There are so many foods on the market that are advertised as healthy and necessary, so what foods do we choose and what foods do we avoid?

Healthy foods are basically foods that are free of chemicals, toxins and preservatives. That eliminates over half of the grocery store, but it leaves a smorgasbord of foods that are delicious and good for us.

Eating healthy means eating a balanced diet every day and avoiding fad diets that demand specific elements of foods such as only protein or no fats. Eating healthy is a lifestyle that allows for those special festive days of over-indulging because those days are an exception to the rule.

When we go on crash or fad diets we force our bodies to live the exception instead of in balance, and as a result we suffer from malnutrition. Our bodies need balance on a daily basis and that includes all the essential vitamins and enzymes. We cannot force our bodies to go without the things it needs to survive because when we do that, we actually damage the body.

Starving or going without what the body needs forces it to go into stress. And this stress is more than just hunger pains from starving, it’s actually changing the chemistry of what it should be. When we go on and off diets the term is yo-yo dieting we actually damage organs and the mechanism of the normal functions. And this doesn’t stop just because we decide to stop the diet. It’s a damage that can affect the function of the body permanently.

Healthy living means not only eating healthy, fresh foods, but it’s also knowing when to eat them. It’s balancing them so that each day is filled with a continuous input of essential nutrients. And it means eating when you’re hungry and not counting calories or passing meals.

What foods do you avoid? Foods that are packaged, preserved and pre-made are often loaded down with some form of chemical or an abundance of sodium to keep it from going bad. Packaged cookies, for example, are loaded with chemicals and trans fats just to keep it fresh while it sits on the store shelf.

A great rule of thumb that helps you to know if it’s fresh is if it goes bad after a couple days, then you know that there were no preservatives in it. There are excellent grain breads that are very healthy to eat yet have no preservatives and will go bad if you leave them in your cupboard for a day.

Canned foods are all filled with preservatives to keep them fresh in the can and these chemicals are deadly for you. Some of attack the organs and others attach themselves to cells of the brain. All of them are suspicious of initiating or encouraging cancer. These foods should be avoided.

Frozen foods such as fruit, vegetables and meats are excellent and usually without preservatives. However, there are many pre-made meals that are frozen that are preserved with an abundance of sodium such as frozen dinners.

Red meats should be eaten only sporadically because they are very heavy on the heart and add to high cholesterol problems. Chicken and turkey are excellent meats to eat and can be used in a myriad of recipes. And of course, fish remains the best meat yet and is not only high in protein, but is excellent brain food.

Eating healthy doesn’t mean going without the good things in life. It means just the opposite. The good things in healthy foods gives us a long, healthy life and not a short-term thrill.