As a toddler, we are forced to eat bland food like carrot sticks and mashed peas and broccoli without cheese, while growing up, we’re hardly ever given any sugary treats like cookies and candy. We wait for our birthday and for Halloween to have an unlimited amount of cake and candy! But all of this disappears when we turn 10. The 2 digit age! We’re given a bit of pocket-money and doing chores gets us some extra cash. So the first thing we do is eat everything we weren’t allowed before! All the chocolate, cake, pizza, candy, cookies, you name it and we eat it. We start to forget about eating better and we just try to make up for lost time. What this does is that it starts to clog our bodies with fat and sugar. These take more time and energy to be broken down by the body and due to this, we feel sluggish and it affects our alertness and the ability to concentrate. So we need to come up with a plan to eat better but not compromise on taste. We are children after all and we want to eat everything we can! So let me give you a few options.
- Use a Greek Yogurt dip instead of mayonnaise.
- Try more baked things than fried ones. Potatoes baked in their skin along with some vegetables taste amazing!
- Switch to non-fat frozen yogurt instead of ice cream.
- You can try burgers with patties that are less fatty.
- Oven baked zucchini fries are much better than potato fries.
- Instead of going for chips after school, try grilled corn or popcorn.
- Try a thin crust whole wheat pizza with a lot of vegetables instead of cheese.
- Try flour-less cakes. They are healthier and actually much tastier.
- Try to avoid bread that contains yeast. Fermented food isn’t good for the body. Try bread that doesn’t need fermentation.
- Use honey instead of sugar wherever possible.
Except for this, we also should cut down the number of carbonated drinks we consume. Try to have a salad every other day. By having some tangy, spicy soup before a meal, you get the flavor and you can reduce the intake of food too. Dial down the amount of sugar you have every week. When you go out, try a few healthy places. They always make yummy food with healthy ingredients. In order to enjoy our teenage life to the fullest, we need to be active, sharp, full of energy. And only by eating healthy (and yummy) can that be possible. I promise you that once you make a few of these changes, you’ll feel more energetic, focused, alert and you won’t have to give up on taste! 🙂
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