I don’t know if you read one of my latest blogs about obesity, but I thought I would counter balance it with a blog on healthy food and healthy eating. 
 

As we all know the benefits of heating healthy are endless, and if we put our minds to it, and do a little search,  we can find healthy recipes that taste oh so good.
 

People often associate healthy food as being boring, lacking in taste and the same old green rabbit food. My friends this is not the case, there are many many recipes that have high nutritional value, are low in calories and taste amazing.
 

I started to really search for healthy alternatives when my 1st daughter started to eat solid foods. At first it was quite daunting as I hated cooking, it was so time consuming and seemed so difficult and complicated, but in reality not so. The more I cooked, the more I enjoyed it, the more I would search for recipes to tackle. My daughters are the toughest critics (as anyone with toddlers would know) and when you have made them something to eat that they enjoy that is full of vegetables and protein your feel quite chuffed I must say.
 

The recommendations are (and I’m sure you all know) to eat 5 veg 2 fruit a day, you need protein in your meals and complex carbohydrates ie grainy bread, whole grain cereals, or vegetables. How many people do you know eat 5 veg a day? Well, it actually isn’t that hard. My family and I average about 7-8 veg a day and I try to get as many of the different coloured veg as I can in ie red, green, yellow, orange, white.
 

Lots of people that work full time state that they don’t have the time to cook complicated meals, they are too tired and it is easier to take that pre-packaged frozen food and stick it in the microwave, or order that pizza, or wack the nuggets, frozen fish or chicken in the oven. But the truth is these foods are high in salt, preservatives and high in calories. They all seem like healthy meals, they state on the packet that they are low in calories, contain real meat, full of vitamins etc but don’t be fooled my friends. If you look at the ingredients you will see preservatives disguised as numbers, sugar is added unnecessarily, and the salt content is very high.
 

To make the food from scratch really doesn’t take that long, and many foods you can freeze and save for later. I discovered wonderful recipe web sites when I was very pregnant about to give birth to my 2nd daughter. I wanted to fill the freezer full of food so that when I was in hospital my husband had good tasty food and he could feed our older daughter food I was happy to give her rather than rubbish. All I did was google recipes that freeze and many web sites came up. If you are really pressed for time and hate cooking you only need to cook once a week and freeze your meals in portions so you can come home, stick your food in the microwave and eat, Just as simple as your pre-packaged frozen food but without the preservatives and high salt content. You can also take these foods to work to avoid having to buy your lunch.
 

The weekly cost of buying your lunch is very damaging on your budget, $10 a day even if it is healthy food like a salad doesn’t sit well on your pocket. Bringing your lunch from home can sometimes be dull the same old sandwich, greens in a small Tupperware box, can of tuna on the side, cup a soup etc, makes me cringe just thinking about it. Let me give you some very healthy recipe ideas that are outside the box.

Recipe for Zucchini Slice

(full of veg, had protein and really quick and easy to make)  

 Ingredients:   
            2 zucchini’s grated
            1 carrot grated
            1 red capsicum diced
            1 onion chopped
            1 cup self raising flour ( I use wholemeal flour but you can use what you like)
            6 eggs
            1 cup grated cheese
            ¼ cup parmesan cheese
           2 chorizo sausages or 100g ham or bacon or I poach chicken in chicken stock and garlic
            For 15 mins and shred it.

2) Pre-heat oven 180 degrees Celsius

3) Place all the ingredients together add salt and pepper to taste pour into a non stick lamington tin, sprinkle parmesan on the top and bake at 180 Celsius or until golden. 

This recipe freezes so you can cut it into individual squares ready to pull out when you need it for lunch or you kids dinner.
 

Soup would have to be the easiest thing to make and freeze!! You put whatever veg  you desire add water till the veg is covered add salt pepper whatever herbs you want ie parsley, dill, garlic etc bring to the boil, then simmer until veg are soft and blend all together.

This freezes as well so put it in portions and take out as needed.   
 

I could keep going and going with the recipes but we would be here all day   but as you can see it is not difficult to make tasty healthy low calorie foods, all you need is access to a computer for the recipes, good produce and 1 day a week to cook ( if you don’t want to cook everyday)    
 

What are some of your healthy recipes? Let's start a place where nurses can swap recipes that are tasty and healthy that we can take to work. Let's help us nurses get healthy in 2010.