Poor diets are to blame for a host of diseases, from diabetes and heart disease through to many occurrences of cancer. Needless to say, improving your diet is one of, if not the best thing you can do for your health. Here are five changes you can make today to improve the state of your health.
Cut out fizzy drinks 
The vast majority of fizzy drinks contain nothing of nutritional value. Most of them are packed with sugar and artificial flavourings. Sugar free drinks are even worse, containing chemicals that have caused tumours when tested on rats. What’s more, the carbonation can encourage bone loss, is linked to cancer and can cause or worsen kidney stones.
Instead drink mostly water. A glass of pure fruit juice or a fruit smoothie a day is fine, but don’t forget that it’s still packed with sugar (albeit natural sugar) so don’t go overboard.
In fact, one of the acai berry benefits is that they make a fantastic smoothie; tasty and rich in vital nutrients.
Avoid bread
Bread is bad for you. White bread especially so, but despite common belief, most brown and whole wheat breads aren’t that great either. They’re both packed with chemicals in order to make them stick, give them their colour and preserve them.
If you’re going to eat bread, pick the least processed whole wheat loaf you can find, or make it yourself. But either way, try and keep your bread consumption to a minimum.
Stop worrying about fat so much
We need fat in our diet. Of course, some fats are good for us and some should be avoided altogether (e.g. Trans fats); but in general, we should stop worrying so much about fat.
The best diet tip I can give is to eat natural; therefore if the fats you’re eating are naturally occurring, there’s little reason to worry about them.
For instance, you might remember the uproar about a McDonald’s salads containing more fat than a Big Mac. While this may have been true, it doesn’t mean eating a fast food burger is better for you than eating a salad. So long as the dressing is made with healthy oils (such as olive oil) the salad should be full of nutrients. Compare this to the nutrient content of a greasy burger and chips and it’s plainly clear which the better choice is.
Don’t stop at five-a-day
The ‘five-a-day’ mantra was created because our governments thought that when it came to fruits and vegetables, few of us would manage to eat more. The truth is, in many parts of the world people are encouraged to eat 7, 8 or even 9 portions of fruit and veg each day.
If you’re having trouble consuming as much as you need, start thinking ahead. Have a large smoothie enriched with acai berry for breakfast. Shun sandwiches at lunch in favour of salads (use chicken and beans such as chick peas to make the salad more filling). And have lots of veg with your dinner. In fact, around two thirds of our dinner plate should be made up of vegetables.
Don’t boil your vegetables
Boiling vegetables leaches the nutrients into the water. Plus, they often go soggy and don’t taste at their best.
Steaming is often cited as the healthiest method of cooking vegetables. Alternatively, roast them with a little olive oil and garlic; you’ll get some extra nutrients from the garlic and oil and they taste fantastic too!
If you can’t get away from that pan of boiling water, use the water to make soup; that way the nutrients won’t be wasted.
