We have all seen 5 am lifestyle videos with home-cooked avocado and egg sandwiches for breakfast, mainly eating foods that have been advertised and marketed as healthy on the internet for ages. While it is mostly true that these foods are good for you, such as fruits and vegetables, often these foods aren’t able to replace the usual meals many Americans eat. Fast food, restaurants, and food companies have taken over the food industry, which, as many industries once were, made on an individual level and in the homes of the people that eat it. So now, in an age with access to information from all over the world, what exactly does it mean to eat ‘healthy’?
Social Media and Food
Social media platforms such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Pinterest often display the most aesthetically pleasing and popular pictures of food, regardless of the actual nutritional value or how ‘healthy’ it is. In fact, many posts of ‘healthy’ foods are complimented with secret sugars or are more similar to small snacks than proper meals. However, there are very helpful resources and recipes on the internet that not only make interesting and diverse recipes, but informative advice for eating in a healthy and balanced manner.
Diets and Eating Habits
Diets have come and gone throughout time, with trends and beauty standards changing. Most recently, with the introduction of the internet, dieting has become an exponentially important aspect of life with increasing demands as the body standards across different nations have evolved. An obsession with being thin and lean has created diets such as intermittent fasting, which has been proven to be very dangerous for your body and health, low-carb diets, and much more. Therefore, the perception of what is healthy has transformed into how much we are eating rather than the actual quality of what we consume throughout the day. Of course, we know eating candy and sweets all day everyday is not healthy for us, but we don’t know much about what actually is healthy or recommended for our health regarding what we eat.
The Secret to Eating Healthy
When we want to improve our health, we often think of going to the gym and working out as one of, if not the only way to do so. However, dietitians and food researchers across the world have discovered that eating patterns and contents are extremely important in improving one’s health, both physical and mental/emotional. For example, when we eat junk food and fast food, we feel happy instantly, but only for a short period of time. Though when compared to eating healthier, has long-term effects on our happiness and satisfaction with our bodies and health. Eating more health-conscious has several effects, including a physical boost in energy and feeling much better about your health as your body has the nutrients it needs and can function at its best. Eating properly and healthily varies for each and every person as we are all different with different bodies and different physical needs or conditions. The best advice is to eat consistent, balanced, and nutritional meals with few to moderate amounts of snacks throughout the day, meeting the calorie and dietary requirements that are recommended to you by your doctor or dietitian. If you don’t have access to a professional to receive personal nutritional advice, listen to your body and take everything in moderation as balance is key to eating healthy.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Overall, balance is the best diet that is available and practiced in accordance with the proper amount of vitamins and minerals. To find fun and balanced recipes to create a healthy diet, the best recommendation that we have to offer is to find chefs and cooking blogs online with the types of meals that intrigue you the most but include nutritionally balanced ingredients. One blog that has breakfast, dinner, and sweet recipes that I recommend is Gochuzhe by internet sensation cook Zhe. Gochuzhe.com provides a variety of dishes that are appealing to the eye, tasty, and with balanced ingredients.
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