Healthy Eating

A tasty, varied and nutritious diet is as good for your mind as it is for your body.

What is a healthy diet?

Eating a healthy diet is not about strict limitations or depriving yourself of the foods you love. It’s about having more energy, improving your health and boosting your mood.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be complicated. The truth is that while some specific foods or nutrients have been shown to have a beneficial effect on mood, it’s your overall dietary pattern that is most important. The cornerstone of a healthy diet should be to replace processed food with real food whenever possible. Eating food that is as close as possible to the way nature made it can make a huge difference to the way you think, look, and feel.

What to eat

We all need a balance of protein, fat, carbohydrates, fibre, vitamins and minerals in our diets to sustain a healthy body.

The Public Health England's Eatwell Guide shows that to have a healthy, balanced diet, people should try to:

Eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day
Base meals on higher fibre starchy foods like potatoes, bread, rice or pasta
Have some dairy or dairy alternatives (such as soya drinks)
Eat some beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other protein
Choose unsaturated oils and spreads, and eat them in small amounts
Drink plenty of fluids (at least 6 to 8 glasses a day)

Download The Eatwell Guide

Download a Meal Planner

How to eat

Mindful eating is maintaining an in-the-moment awareness of the food and drink you put into your body. It involves observing how the food makes you feel and the signals your body sends about taste, satisfaction, and fullness. Mindful eating requires you to simply acknowledge and accept rather than judge the feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations you observe. It can extend to the process of buying, preparing, and serving your food as well as consuming it.

Pay attention to how you feel as you eat—the texture and tastes of each mouthful, your body’s hunger and fullness signals, how different foods affect your energy and mood—you can learn to savour both your food and the experience of eating. Being mindful of the food you eat can promote better digestion, keep you full with less food, and influence wiser choices about what you eat in the future. It can also help you free yourself from unhealthy habits around food and eating.

Recipes

Sara Lee Cooking Teacher, Isabelle, shares her healthy and delicious recipes.

Before you try them, see Isabelle's helpful tips:

Read the recipe first: get a general idea of what you are making.
Prepare in advance: have your ingredients ready and chopped so you can begin cooking. If you can, get others to help you.
Make changes: If you don’t like an ingredient or it's not available, listen to your taste and the content of your fridge.
Use fresh or frozen vegetables: Frozen vegetables are just as good as fresh as they keep their vitamins.
Mix colours: Eat a variety of different coloured foods for nutrition and vitamins. If you can, eat foods that are in season - they are even more nutritious.

Easy Flat Bread

Chunky Vegetable & Lentil Soup

Light Apple Oat Crumble

Easy Falafels

Easy & Tasty Sausages

Nut & Beans Sausages

Roast Seasonal Vegetables

Isabelle Shares Her Story
A little help from food through a cancer journey

When I was going through cancer, 7 years ago, food became an ally to feel stronger and better even at the toughest times of the surgery and treatment. Physically but also mentally.

I used to walk (slowly but surely) to the market where I found lovely, unusual products and fresh vegetables to cook. When I managed to do so, it was a source of joy and an empowering feeling too. I was enjoying exploring, discovering, and learning recipes and coming up with my own.

I look forward now to share what I found and am grateful to be able to do with The Sara Lee Trust’s support.

At the time though, I had felt a lack of guidance when it came to food from the medical team. A dietician or a nutritionist helps in telling what is best for each individual case but, often we are told we should eat “a variety of foods”. I used to feel annoyed with this, thinking I needed something more specific. However, there is something about this advice which on reflection was useful as variety is likely to provide the nutrients needed for a balanced and nutritious diet.

I believe mindful cooking is not only about being aware of the virtues of healthy ingredients used but to listen and trust what the body tells it needs and be open to possibilities and diversity. Good supportive food is not just about banning the baddies and only using deemed healthy ingredients but to strike the right balance with eating what is good for you, whilst also experiencing the joy of eating something delicious.

It will have the best benefits. Eat well, healthily, but also having a treat. Approaching healthy eating as something restrictive and punitive can lead to the feeling of sadness and stress rather than excitement and appetite. One nutritionist I saw then, gave me a good advice: eat healthily 80% of the time and treat yourself 20% for the rest.

However, healthy meals can be delicious too, I look into adapting favourite recipes into their healthier versions, making them as simple as possible and importantly without losing on taste and pleasure.