Food shopping is not the greatest of experiences, in fact most of us dash round the supermarket at break neck speed throwing all sorts into the trolley. To eat healthy you need good ingredients and that means shopping sensibly. Take a little time and plan your meals for the next couple of weeks, bearing in mind your work and social commitments. You need good quality ingredients to have a good diet so make sure you always buy the best you can afford and take advantage of the specials that abound in the stores today. By planning ahead you know what you need so you can take advantage of bulk buys as well. Make your shopping list when you have time to concentrate on it, that way you don’t forget anything and you are not tempted to just pick random items off the shelf ‘just in case’. By doing that you don’t have to dash into the supermarket every day, in fact all you need to do is pick up fresh fruit and vegetables every couple of days. Not only does it save you time but by avoiding multiple trips to the store you don’t pick up all those last minute ‘impulse buys’.

If you shop ahead, you can also cook ahead. If you make a pasta sauce, chili, casserole or soup to name but a few dishes, make more than you need and freeze it in sensible sized portions. Then on days when you know you are going to be under pressure you just take out the frozen, home-made ready meal and put it in the refrigerator to thaw ready for when you get home. Far better than grabbing a burger and fries on the way home.

If you do have to go for the fast food option once in a while, don’t beat yourself up over it just try and choose the healthier options – chicken breast instead of burger, a lovely crisp green salad instead of greasy fries. Good quality sandwiches can often be your savior here, especially if you can choose the type of bread as well as the fillings – and go easy on the dressings.

When you stick to good healthy eating guidelines you feel much better, and you don’t get stressed so easily, so the time spent planning and shopping is more than repaid and is certainly not wasted. Choose good tasty recipes like the ones you find on this site and you won’t go far wrong – and you won’t need lots of time you can ill afford.

A good friend of mine has written the most fantastic book about the best Asparagus in the world, the ‘Gras’ that grows in the Vale of Evesham. A whole industry has grown up around this wonderful vegetable, sadly it has suffered from the cheap imports from as far away as Peru, but the season is still eagerly awaited by the local residents and we munch our way through tons of the stuff from mid April to early June. A Passion For Asparagus is a beautifully written and illustrated book that is a joy to read for anyone who has the remotest interest in food, it’s place in our lives and the joys of fresh, local produce.

Chris has spent a great deal of time researching his subject and his passion for asparagus really does show through. The lore and legend of asparagus as well as it’s history is all well covered and there are a raft of excellent recipes included as well, even tales of some visitors to the area who were obviously not initiated into the joys of asparagus eating and tucked into the woody end, leaving the tender and delicate buds on their plates! There are some wonderful photographs of the annual Asparagus Auction which is held at The Fleece Inn in Bretforton, the only pub owned by the National Trust (and worth a visit in it’s own right). This is the culmination of the Asparagus Festival which started this year with a ‘dash’ to London to take the first Asparagus to the Houses of Parliament.

If you are interested in Chris’s book you can find out more, or obtain a copy here – A Passion For Asparagus.

This is my ‘common sense’ view on the topic which is raging all around us at the moment. If you have a healthy, balanced diet – why do you need supplements? I fully accept that there are some times in life when, following illness or as a result of certain health conditions your body might need some support, but surely not all the time. The human body does not hold vast reserves of vitamins and you should get all you need if you ensure that you have a diet that includes all the food groups. Anthing else is a waste of money and a strain on your body to process it.
It strikes me that we often take the ‘pop a pill’ approach to good nutrition because we are aware that we eat too many junk foods that we know are not good – we use them as an antidote. To eat a healthy diet is not difficult – even if you are not the greatest cook in the world, or are pushed for time – there are plenty of healthy and nutritious ready prepared foods available now, and they are a lot less expensive than vast quantities of unnecessary pills

3 Leeks, trimmed and cut into thick slices
3 Courgettes cut into thick slices
1 oz (25 gms) Polyunsaturated margarine
1 oz (25 gms) plain flour
15 fl oz (400 ml) skimmed milk
2 x 14 oz cans (400 gms) Butter Beans, drained and rinsed
6 tbsp (90 mls) chopped fresh parsley
1 oz (25 gms) wholemeal breadcrumbs
3 oz (75 gms) mature cheddar cheese, grated

Cook the leeks and courgettes in a little boiling water until just tender
Melt the margarine in a heavy bottomed saucepan, add the flour and cook for about one minute. Slowly add the milk, stirring all the time and heat until it begins to thicken. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and season if desired
Add the leeks, courgettes and beans to the sauce, then add about 4 tbsps of the parsley. Mix well and put into an oven proof dish
Mix the breadcrumbs, cheese and remaining parsley and spread evenly over the top of the vegetable mixture
Bake for about 30 minutes at 200C, 400F, Gas Mark 6

So how much is a portion – the following list is just a guideline – and do remember five a day is a minimum amount!

• A whole medium-sized fruit – eg, an apple, banana or orange
•  A slice of a large fruit, such as melon, or pineapple
•  An adults handful of grapes or two handfuls of berries such as Blueberries or Raspberries
• A tablespoon of dried fruit such as sultanas or dried  cranberries
• Approx 100ml of fruit or vegetable juice
• A 200 gm tin of fruit – preferably not sweetened
• A small bowl of salad
• Approx 100 gms of vegetables – eg, peas, carrots or cabbage
• Approx 6 dried apricots  or a similar amount of other dried fruit such as apples, peasrs or peaches

The vegetables and fruits in a cooked dish generally work out at about one portion, so for example the onions, mushrooms, beans and tomatoes in a chili would equate to one of your daily portions.  A bowl of homemade vegetable soup would be about a portion as well.

Generally speaking you should only count one juice portion a day as you don’t get the dietary fibre that you would with the whole fruit.  Drink more by all means but only count it as one portion.

Whilst not a diet book by any means, this is a comprehensive guide to what is good and what is not good to eat. If you follow healthy eating guidelines you will find that your body weight naturally adjusts to it’s optimum. We were not all built to be stick insects! Healthy eating involves eating enough food to maintain an active and healthy body, not one that just exists.

As he quite rightly says, our food choices are limitless these days and it is often difficult to know where some of the more unusual things that are coming into our diet fit in terms of healthy eating. How many types of bread do we have now for example?

The Complete Guide to Delicious Healthy Eating covers a wide range of topics on choosing foods, what’s good, what’s not so good, sensible guidelines if you feel you must diet, and a comprehensive examination of our dietary habits and how to change them for the better. There is a wealth of information that is invaluable for anyone who is aiming to try and improve their health and wellbeing by looking at what they eat. Recommended reading in my view.

One of my favourites is dried apricots, these are brilliant in crumbles and Fruity desserts or cakes, and are good in a stuffing for chicken or pork.  You can use dried peaches too but I don’t like the flavour quite so much.  If I want to cut down the sugar and fat in a cake recipe I make a date puree by warming some pitted dates in milk and then blitzing them, it does affect the colour of your cake a little but you can barely taste the dates and it can reduce the sugar and fat content by up to half.

Figs, Prunes and Vine fruits are also useful and can be used in both sweet and savoury without any problem.  Do remember to wash any dried fruits you use –they are often dusted in sulphur as a preservative and should be carefully cleaned.

For savoury dishes where you want a sweet flavour rather than actual sweetness you can use Allspice, Ginger, Cardamom, Nutmeg and Coriander  with equal success  Desiccated or shredded Coconut is also useful but be careful that it isn’t sweetened when you buy it, a mistake I made once.  Also useful are fruit juices, particularly Apple which can be used as part of the fluid in any recipe, sweet or savoury.

The best method is to experiment a little and you will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of sugar you can cut out of a recipe.  I also find that with most cake recipes, just cutting the sugar by up to one third causes no problems and fits well within healthy eating guidelines.

The real question there perhaps is ‘Why are you Snacking?’ If it’s because you are hungry, then the chances are you are not eating enough to supply your energy needs, if it boredom or habit, liking eating Popcorn when watching TV then you should perhaps look at your behavior patterns – or what you choose to snack on.  Very often people think they are hungry when what they actually want is a drink so if you find yourself continuously tempted when you know you aren’t hungry – have a drink instead.

If you do feel the need to snack then try and make sure you choose foods that are healthy.  Cereal Bars are better than chocolate bars, fruit or vegetables are better still.  It’s easy enough to have a box of prepared fruit or vegetable sticks in the fridge if you are at home.  When you are out or at work then cereal bars are a more practical choice.  Crisps, sweets and chips are not good but a handful of crunchy nuts and seeds are more satisfying and much healthier.

If you find that it is thirst, not hunger that is driving your snack habit, consider what you drink.  Sweet fizzy drinks give you a quick sugar buzz that will soon drop and leave you feeling worse than before.  If you don’t want water, try fruit juice diluted with water as a thirst quencher, fruit or green tea can be good too, if it’s something more substantial you want a fruit smoothie can go down well but they can also give you something of a sugar buzz as they don’t take long to get into your bloodstream.

The main thing you should bear in mind when you choose a snack is ‘Does this fit sensibly into my diet’, if it does, great!  If not, think again and try to follow the healthy eating guidelines by choosing something different.

Protein is one of the most important food groups but we don’t need as much as we think, to follow good healthy eating guidelines you should choose low fat where possible – chicken, turkey and fish are good. You need some oily fish too for it’s health benefits so Salmon, Tuna, Mackerel and the like are great choices. Red meat has come in for some bad press of recent times but a reasonable amount does no harm and if you limit it to a couple of times a week you will have no problems.

Dairy Products also come in for a lot of bad press, but again you do need some – semi-skimmed or skimmed milk is best, though young children need whole milk. Cheese, eggs, cream and so on are things that again, should be eaten in moderation but there is no need to remove them from your diet in order to eat healthily.

Fresh green vegetables are a must as they contain loads of vitamins and minerals which are essential for good health, kale, spinach, broccoli are all good as well as other ‘non-green’ veges like sweet corn, sweet potato, squash and carrots. Along with the veg comes the fruit and there is so much choice – apples, bananas, pears and all the lovely rich soft berries.

Healthy eating also means you need carbohydrates, potatoes, nuts, beans and other pulses. Seeds like pumpkin, sunflower and linseed are a tasty addition to lots of dishes and are pretty good eaten on their own. Oats are a big favourite of mine, good for so many things. Buckwheat, Rice and Barley come pretty high on the list too.

We do all need a bit of sweetness in our lives now and then, honey and maple syrup are good and better than processed sugars. Flavour can come from herbs and spices and doesn’t have to be Salt based all the time, I love the rich tastes that come from herbs like Basil and the sweet spicyness of Ginger.

Most important of all is fluid, we need lots of fluid to stay healthy, water is best but most things will do the job just as well apart from sweet carbonated drinks. Fruit teas chilled in the fridge make a really refreshing drink and there are no end of choices around.

Following these simple healthy eating guidelines with regard to food groups is the first step to a healthy diet and a healthy you.