Healthy Living - Eating REAL Food

The next step on our journey to healthy living was to eat more "real" food.  When I talk about real food, I am referring to food that generally doesn't come in a box off a shelf at the grocery store.  I recently heard a tip for eating healthy that recommended eating from the "perimeter" of the grocery store.  Generally, you will find fresh fruits and vegetables, refrigerated dairy products, fresh meat, and frozen foods around the perimeter of the store.  Most boxed, processed, & bottled foods come from the center shelves.   The fresher a food is, the less processing it has been through, the better it is for you.
You may be thinking that it costs more to eat fresh.  That's what I thought too.  However, if you watch for sales and shop smart you can eat healthy on a very small budget.  You can also find affordable fruits and vegetables at food co-ops (like Azure), farmers' markets, and from your own garden.  At first, it was hard for us to make this switch.  Like I mentioned before, I was trying to save money, not just eat healthier.  We started out by trying to eat more fruit and vegetables and less "boxed" convenience products.  We also grew lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, beets, carrots, etc in our garden.  We were able to can a lot of veggies and ate them fresh from the garden as often as possible.  Once you are in the habit of eating fresh, it is easier to do so, even in the winter.  Now we order 20-30 pounds of fresh fruit from Azure every month.  Any fruit leftover at the end of the month is either frozen or canned to use later.  The fruit from Azure is much cheaper than our local grocery store and mostly organic.  We eat the vegetables we have canned ourselves, along with some fresh vegetables from the store when we can find it on sale.

Eating fresh is an important step in healthy living.  First, you get a lot more vitamins and minerals from your food.  The longer food sits or the more it gets processed, the fewer nutrients it retains.  Second, fresh foods do not usually have additives like artifical colors & flavors or sugars.  Third, fresh food tastes better.   Although fresh food may cost a little more initially, the savings will come in the form of fewer doctor visits and less supplements/vitamins.  Fresh food tastes better, nourishes your body more, and helps keep you healthy!