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Healthy Eating: The 25 Rules

A lot can be written about healthy eating. However, this article is intended for all those who do not have the time or the inclination to read but would still like to get to know the most important rules of healthy eating in a nutshell. These are rules that do not require much effort, usually cost nothing, can be practiced with almost any illness, and can lead to amazing results with great well-being.

Healthy nutrition – 25 rules – It’s worth implementing!

A healthy diet is extremely worthwhile. It not only provides you with all the nutrients you need to have enough energy for the day, but also a variety of vital substances that help you to stay healthy or – if you are ill – to get well again.

The rules of a healthy diet

Get used to healthy eating and implement one rule at a time. It is therefore best not to change your diet suddenly and not suddenly throw your previous eating habits completely overboard. Your body needs time to get used to it. So proceed step by step! You will be all the more successful! Have lots of fun with it!

Only eat when you are hungry

A healthy diet is not just about what you eat, but also how and when you eat. In any case, only eat when you are really hungry. And stop eating when you’re full – so don’t just keep eating just because it tastes so good. You should definitely avoid overeating. It is best to only prepare a smaller portion from the outset.

If you do not have an appetite during an acute illness (e.g. cold, flu, gastrointestinal infection, etc.), then fast until you have an appetite again. You won’t starve. On the contrary! Your body needs its energy to get healthy again and cannot also take care of digestion. Listen to your body!

Note from 4/15/2020: This is not a call to fast when infected with a virus, as some readers wrongly assume. Because mouse studies indicate that although fasting can promote the healing process in bacterial infections, the intake of glucose was important in viral infections, according to these mouse studies. But just when you listen to your body – and that’s the only call here (listen to your body!) – it may be signaling you to only eat certain foods. So you have e.g. B. only an appetite for fruits or their juices, which is often the case with viral infections (colds, flu), but no desire for foods rich in fat or protein. However, it is precisely the fruits that supply the vital substances required for healing, including glucose (in a natural compound), without putting a strain on the digestive system.

Take your time to eat!

Always eat slowly! If you are in a hurry and at the same time extremely hungry, only eat a few bites, never the main meal. Only when all appointments are done do you eat in peace.

This rule applies not only to a healthy diet made from healthy foods. Even if you’re on the go and can’t find anything healthy, eat slowly, and don’t stress!

Because the habit of devouring makes you sick! A study from October 2021 showed that fast eaters tend to be overweight, and have high blood pressure, high blood lipid levels, and high fasting blood sugar. So it pays to eat slowly!

Chew your healthy food thoroughly!

Chew each bite carefully – ideally 30 to 40 times – before swallowing. We mentioned the advantages in the introduction above. If you do it right, you’ll still have at least half a plate when everyone else has finished eating.

Avoid desserts

Sweets after a meal impede digestion (this often also applies to healthy sweets such as fruit bars, vegan mousse au Chocolat or similar).

Conventional sweets are of course unhealthy in and of themselves, especially as they mostly consist of sugar, isolated carbohydrates, and/or dairy products.

Make it a habit to wait at least half an hour after the meal before having dessert. The advantage: Most of the time, you lose your desire for sweets. If you then still want to eat your dessert, at least it won’t hinder the digestion of the main meal as much. The feeling of satiety has also increased and you no longer eat as much of the dessert as you might have done directly after eating.

Breakfast – yes or no?

Don’t force yourself to eat breakfast in the morning. If you know you won’t be hungry by 7 a.m. but will be hungry by 9 a.m. or later, so if you’re already on the go, then take your time preparing a healthy snack at home to have by 9 a.m. or later whenever you get hungry, you can have breakfast. In this way, you avoid unhealthy snacks in the canteen or at the bakery.

Eat dinner no later than 6 p.m

If you eat dinner later than 6 p.m., eating overnight puts a strain on your digestive system. Also, the digestive power is usually low in the late evening or even at night. Food stays in the stomach and intestines for a long time and impairs the quality of sleep.

Several small meals or a few large ones?

Whether you prefer to eat several small meals or just two to three large meals depends on you, your preferences, and any symptoms you may have. If you have problems with blood sugar levels, stick to several small meals a day. But healthy people could also try intermittent fasting. You eat two large meals a day – and soon you feel fantastic. Why not try this eating rhythm: The healthy eating rhythm? Basically, however, eating several small meals a day has no health benefits.

The right drink in a healthy diet

As a drink, it is best to only choose water with an all-around healthy diet. Avoid all sugared drinks or drinks sweetened with sweeteners, all lemonades, soft and energy drinks, milk drinks, and alcoholic drinks.

Juices and smoothies are not drinks, but snacks or appetizers. You should not buy fruit juices and smoothies, but always make them fresh yourself. Vegetable juices can be bought of organic quality in the organic supermarket.

When it comes to water, choose either good spring water from your region or your filtered tap water. We use the DrinkPur Home filter for drinking water purification ourselves and are happy to recommend it to others. The water is cleaned with this drinking water filter and tastes great – like fresh spring water.

Many people who are overweight lose weight simply by following this one rule – especially if they have previously consumed sugary drinks. Anyone who feels ill often experiences an improvement in their condition if they exchange all other previous drinks for non-carbonated water.

Teas should be viewed as medicinal or dietary supplements, not as hydration. Teas provide antioxidants, bitter substances, and many other healing substances. They are chosen according to the situation and needs of the moment.

Start the day with a glass of water

If you don’t like cold drinks in the morning, then drink the water slightly warmed up or sip it hot. If you need flavor, add some freshly squeezed lemon juice. Wait at least ten minutes before eating breakfast. The water boosts digestion and helps to quickly drain the toxins that have accumulated during the night.

Whole value instead of zero value characterizes healthy nutrition

Choose whole foods! So whole grain bread instead of white bread, whole grain pasta instead of conventional pasta, brown rice instead of white rice, etc. Whole grain foods provide more vitamins, more minerals, more trace elements, and at the same time more fiber, which have a very positive effect on intestinal health and thus on general health.

Avoid wheat and wheat products

It is better to use pasta and baked goods made from spelled, rye, oats, barley, or from the ancient grains einkorn and emmer. Many people react to wheat with ailments, but rarely associate them with wheat. If you leave out the wheat, your health often improves:

  • Roundup in Wheat – It’s not just gluten that’s the problem
  • Wheat protein, but not always gluten, causes inflammation

Take the gluten test

The situation is similar with gluten, a protein in many types of grain (wheat, spelled, rye, oats, barley, Kamut, einkorn, and emmer). Many people react not only to wheat but to gluten in general with symptoms. If foods containing gluten are avoided in these cases, things often get better. Gluten-free grains are millet and corn. Gluten-free pseudocereals include quinoa, amaranth, teff, canihua, and buckwheat.

Take the gluten test, try gluten-free for 60 days and see how you feel. However, the ancient grains – einkorn, emmer – are often much better tolerated than the gluten-rich “normal” grains such as wheat and spelled. Here you can test your personal gluten sensitivity and let your body decide what is good for it and what is not.

Sugar in a healthy diet? No thank you!

Of course, sugar and products containing sugar (sweets, fruit yogurt, puddings, cakes, etc.) do not belong in a healthy diet. They contribute enormously to discomfort and the development of diseases.

Anyone who manages to withdraw from sugar will notice how good it is to live without sugar. You can concentrate better, chronic complaints improve, you spend less time at the dentist and you also become much more efficient in sports.

Nevertheless, nobody has to do without sweets, as is often believed. There are delicious, healthy, sweet meals and healthy cakes, and you can even make your own chocolate from healthy ingredients.

Eat healthy raw foods every day

Raw food is the food with which mankind has evolved over millions of years. It provides unadulterated nutrients and vital substances in the form that our body knows best.

Therefore, make sure to eat a large portion of raw vegetables at least in one meal every day – either for a healthy breakfast (fruit salad, smoothie, oat, and fruit muesli), as a snack between meals (vegetable sticks, green smoothie) or for lunch (health foods, salads, sprouts, etc.).

Remember: Always eat raw food before cooking, e.g. B. first the salad, then the main meal. “Salad” doesn’t just mean lettuce. Shredded kohlrabi, beets, radishes, carrots, celery, etc. are also included. Raw vegetable salads are particularly filling if you combine them with avocados, e.g. B. prepare guacamole as a dressing.

Not everyone can tolerate raw food in the evening. So if you have a rather weak digestive system and/or are not used to raw food, eat the raw food until around 2 p.m. and better eat a steamed vegetable dish in the evening. And don’t forget rule number 3, especially when it comes to raw food! Chew thoroughly!

The staple of a healthy diet is vegetables

The staple of a healthy diet is vegetables. The main ingredient of your meals is therefore vegetables. There are also legumes, whole grain rice, whole grain pasta, whole grain couscous, whole grain bulgur, polenta, quinoa, buckwheat, etc., and/or tofu/tempeh (as a burger, patty, roast slice, etc.). There is also delicious tempeh made from chickpeas.

When it comes to vegetables and fruit, buy seasonal and regional produce whenever possible – and always give preference to organic products.

Vegetables can be prepared raw or gently steamed. Searing or preparation methods with a lot of fat should be avoided.

Healthy diet: It is best to eat the fruit raw

Fruits should be eaten raw, not cooked. Raw fruits have a cleansing effect – when eaten on their own and on an empty stomach. Eating fruit with other foods can cause discomfort and indigestion. However, the fruit is not to blame for this, but the unfavorable combination.

This is because fruits are digested faster than any other food group. If you eat them together with other food groups, then these inhibit the fast intestinal passage of the fruit. The fruits are therefore unnaturally long in the digestive system and begin to ferment there. Bloating, abdominal pain and stomach cramps can result.

Those who are not used to raw fruit often believe that they can make it easier to digest by cooking it. However, the opposite is often the case. Cooked fruit remains in the digestive system for many people longer, leading to bloating, heartburn and discomfort, but fresh raw fruit does not (provided it is chewed well and eaten on its own!). It leaves a feeling of lightness. Fresh raw fruit is also considered alkaline, while cooked fruit is more acidic.

There is actually no real reason for cooking fruit because it tastes so delicious raw that – unlike some vegetables – you don’t have to make it tastier by cooking it. Also, unlike beans, you don’t have to cook them to neutralize certain toxins in them. Only allergens are destroyed to a certain extent during cooking, but these substances do not bother those who are not allergic in the least. And since the valuable vital substances in the fruit are also reduced in quantity during cooking, cooking clearly leads to a loss of quality that is not worthwhile.

Meat, fish, eggs, and dairy rarely fit into a healthy diet

Meat in manageable amounts (two servings a week) doesn’t usually make you sick. But meat (and products made from it) does not fit into a healthy diet. A diet should only be described as healthy if it is not only good for people, but also for the rest of the world. And a meat diet is not healthy for the environment or for the animals that eat it. For them, man’s choice of a meat-based diet is not only unhealthy but excruciating and ultimately deadly.

Anyone who wants to eat meat or fish should not do so more than twice a week and buy the meat directly from the organic farm. In this way one is considerate enough if one wants to use the word in connection with meat consumption at all, to spare the animal the slaughterhouse transport and operation.

Sausage and other processed meat products should not be eaten. Most of these products contain numerous additives. B. nitrite curing salt and is associated with an increased risk of disease.

In view of the overfishing of the seas and the pollution with heavy metals and other environmental toxins and the conditions in factory farming in conventional aquaculture, fish is hardly an alternative.

If eggs are eaten, then only organic eggs! In addition, buy organic eggs preferably from the organic supermarket from Bioland, Naturland, or Demeter farming. The EU organic regulation (“normal” organic eggs), on the other hand, makes for less comfortable living conditions for chickens.

Here e.g. B. 230 laying chickens are kept in the same place where only 140 chickens are kept on an organic farm. There are no regulations for the rearing of pullets in the “normal” organic sector, nor for the use of veterinary medicines. A Bioland farm, on the other hand, adheres to strict rules and specifications. Many medicines are only permitted to a limited extent or are banned entirely.

From our point of view, dairy products (milk, buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, cheese, quark, etc.) are not foods for adults and very often lead to complaints, which unfortunately are not associated with dairy products. These include frequent respiratory infections, constant clearing of the throat, a tendency to allergies, chronic head and/or digestive problems, chronic skin problems, and constant tonsillitis and middle ear infections in children.

Instead of cow’s milk, you can use rice milk, oat milk, almond milk, or – if tolerated – soy milk.

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Written by Micah Stanley

Hi, I'm Micah. I am a creative Expert Freelance Dietitian Nutritionist with years of experience in counseling, recipe creation, nutrition, and content writing, product development.

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