Your diet and nutrition are key components to your ongoing wellness and wellbeing. Your daily diet should be nourishing and well balanced if you want to live a long and healthy life. After a while, however, it can become boring to eat salad, grilled chicken, steamed vegetables and all the other things in your ‘healthy’ list. Boredom is a really dangerous thing when it comes to healthy eating, because as soon as boredom sets in, the allure of takeaways, convenience foods and junk snacks starts to kick in. To avoid this, make sure that you stay away from bland food; healthy food doesn’t have to be boring and in fact can be exciting and packed full of flavour.
One of the best things to do is to experiment with using new and exotic fresh herbs and spices. Don’t use the same old familiar seasonings in everything you cook! Purchase some of the less-common spices and give them a try. You could roast your veggies with curry powder, for example, or add it to stews and soups. Herbs de Provence can be a great addition when rubbed onto meats and fish or used to flavour sauces or marinades. Star anise when combined with grated ginger and cinnamon can make a beautiful poached chicken.
Tofu is always worth trying, too. Although it has a bad reputation, tofu is a very lean form of protein. It doesn’t taste like much on its own but it takes on the flavour of anything you cook with. Use extra-firm and firm tofu to make stir fries, casseroles, soups etc.
You could also liven up your menu by whipping up some great new sauces, or using a low-fat bottled sauce that you haven’t tried before.
You can also jazz up salads with the addition of a homemade dressing.