My Nutrition Theory To Healthy Eating

By Kit Cassingham

No-Nonsense, aka Mom, made sure we had healthy, nutritious meals. We mostly ate whole foods like oatmeal, vegetables, and fresh meat. There was also Velveeta and marshmallows (these aren't real foods, but they can be fun) to round out our diets, but that wasn't the norm. No-Nonsense always said we were getting a balanced meal if the plate was colorful. You figure a brown meat, a white starch, a green vegetable, and a colorful fruit (often in juice form) to keep us healthy.

I started my personal approach to nutrition and healthy eating when someone chided me for eating chocolate. I tend to be flippant and teasing, especially when the situation seems tense. Telling me what to eat, and when, steps into tense territories.

One eating approach I like to take sometimes is to start with dessert, and if there's room when I'm done I'll start on dinner foods like salad and meat. My X would yelp in protest, saying we couldn't eat dessert first! My reply? I'm an adult now and can eat anything I want, any time I want.

My attitude is that food should be fun. Healthy in general, but fun all the time. All of that helped form my approach to healthy eating. I call it the Color Pyramid. You have the brown, white, blue/red/purple, green, and yellow food groups.

People generally laugh and enjoy my approach, but some take me seriously, and without thinking. Let me share more about my approach.

The brown food group includes meat, chocolate and coffee, brown rice and dark rum. The white food group encompasses milk and ice cream, rice and potatoes, apples and bananas, and sugar.

You'll find red wine, raspberries and blueberries, blue corn, watermelon, and blackberries in my blue/red/purple food group category (blue isn't a common natural food color, so you aren't going to find blue curacao or blue energy drinks included there!

Green foods, for that element of my food pyramid, include peas and beans, lettuce and avocado, broccoli and lima beans, and honeydew melon. The yellow element of my pyramid includes butter, corn, lemoncello, cantaloupe, and yams.

You can see that if I have a rainbow of foods on my plate I'm eating well. Some foods can actually fit into several categories, like ice cream: vanilla fits into the white group, coffee or chocolate into the brown food group, and raspberry sorbet into the red food group.

My friend Barbara Feldman, founder of SurfNetKids, has a information for you too: Coloring Book - Food Pyramid for a bit more fun and variety. (Even if you don't have kids, her site contains information you might like on a variety of topics.)

Some people want to subscribe to the USDA's food pyramid scheme, and that's fine with me. You may still want to subscribe to the older food pyramid scheme.

But, I'm going to have fun with my healthy eating and use my color scheme food pyramid approach. (I'm sure No-Nonsense is rolling her eyes at me over this one.) Get your daily quota of brown, white, red, green, and yellow foods. Have more fun eating, and be healthier too.

Kit Cassingham has been a greenie most of her life, even having a degree in Environmental Conservation. Her articles share lessons learned, both failures and successes. Food, cleaning, travel, energy and water conservation, waste reduction, home improvement projects, etc -- it's all part of green living, which you can follow at http://www.WeGetGreener.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kit_Cassingham

http://EzineArticles.com/?My-Nutrition-Theory-To-Healthy-Eating&id=6312389