A recent article about our ‘love affair’ with food took a unique historical approach. Cornell University’s Andrew Weislogel, PhD. And Brian Wansink, PhD. explored early European American Art and analyzed the food products depicted in 16th century paintings. The results revealed “our love affair with visually appealing, decadent, or status foods” and sounds quite familiar to our preferences of today! Vegetables were depicted less than 25% of the time, over 60% included meat and/or fish, and well over 80% displayed bread. And finally, salt was also noted as a common finding. Sound familiar?
Embracing a healthy diet can be challenging at times, but is not impossible. Making half of your plate fruits and vegetables is an easy way to keep a meal in line with a healthy eating pattern. The chooseMyplate.gov website provides an awesome set of tools to guide one through the making a healthy meal. The tools available not only allow for tracking your food intake, but can also aid with meal planning, recipes, weight loss, physical activity and even pregnancy weight gain.
Small changes can lead to great rewards. Involve everyone in the household. Kids are more apt to try new things if they help pick them out and prepare them. Role modeling a healthy diet not only beneficial for you personally, but also can truly impact those around you.
Be a trail blazer, the past does not have to depict the future.
0
