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The Importance of Having Healthy, Ready-to-Eat Foods on Hand

Written on
July 20, 2010
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Changing your diet from processed, unhealthy foods to fresh, healthy ones doesn’t come easily for most people. It takes time and effort — to read and learn, to prepare, to create new habits — and it often involves two steps forward and one step back.

As we go through this journey in our own home, I’ve learned that the key to making lasting changes is to make them one at a time rather than trying to change everything at once.

We’ve started with some little changes — whole wheat flour instead of white, made-from-scratch dinners and fruits & veggies for snacks — and these changes naturally encourage other changes as well.

One thing that has made a huge difference in our eating habits is simply having healthy food on hand and ready to eat. It’s not enough to just have a pineapple sitting on the counter; it needs to be cut up and ready to serve.

Because we’ve realized that we’re much more likely to eat healthy, fresh food if it’s already prepared, every Sunday after dinner I spend time cutting up a ton of fruit and veggies and preparing other food for the week. This last week, I washed the blueberries and grapes, cut up strawberries and pineapple, boiled a dozen eggs and made a double batch of whole wheat waffles for later this week.

These are now in the fridge and ready to go, which makes them actually easier to serve than a lot of other snacks or side dishes. It also means a whole lot less ends up going to waste!

Do you keep cut up fruits and veggies in your fridge? What other tips do you have for making healthy changes to your diet?

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