My guest post on www.thealternative.in

My guest post was published on www.thealternative.in yesterday. Do take a look on their homepage for the article titled "15 replacements to make your diet healthy" or go to http://thealternative.in/environment/15-replacements-to-make-your-diet-healthy/

5+ A Day - Guest Post

Team shopHealthy.in would like to wish our customers, readers and well wishers a very happy and safe festival season! On this lovely Diwali festival full of lights and colour, what better way to remind people to fill their dinner plates with colour as well! Here's another guest post from Simran who had brought the yummy oatmeal and walnut cookies recipe to us last time around to give you inspiration and ideas on how to fill your food world with colour!

Simran writes:

Over the last few years, we (me and my family) have become conscious of what we have been eating. Its partly because of the need to eat healthy to stay fit in the long run and because of the increased awareness of what goes into the food we eat - at home and outside!

Do you know about 5+ A Day? It is the target of fruit and vegetable serves that you and your family should enjoy every day. The ideal target is 2 serves of fruit and 3 serves of vegetables.

But to make it well rounded you should try and select your 5 serves from each of the 5 major colour groups!

Fruits and veggies have a lot of nutrients and phytochemicals (pronounced fight-o-chemicals) that everyone needs for good health. Phytochemicals are also responsible for the bright colours in all the different fruits and veggies. There are 5 major colour groups. The main aim of eating the 'colour way' is to encourage eating from as many colours of the rainbow as possible!

Veggies for Pasta

Here are some examples to give you an idea of the 5 colour groups:

Red: Strawberries, tomato, red apples, red onions, red pepper, red skinned potato, red cabbage

Orange/Yellow: Carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin, melon, sweet corn, squash

White: Cauliflower, banana, pear, garlic, onion, potato, ginger, mushroom

Green: Spinach, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, kiwifruit, celery, lettuce, brussel sprouts

Blue/Purple: Blueberries, raisins, egg plant, red cabbage, beetroot

Orange and fennel salad

When you plan your daily menu, don't forget to include a range of colours! :)

So in that pasta throw in some red pepper, broccoli, onions and you've already covered 3 colours - easy isn't that!

Grab an apple or a banana or some raisins and you cover some more in the day.

Even with the veggies try cooking different colours every day - I know sounds tough, you must be thinking, with everything else now I need to think "What is the colour of my food??". To make it easy, when you shop for veggies, pick up different coloured ones and you will eventually cook and eat those!

Cucumber and black Garbanzo beans salad

Healthy Substitutes

Ever since I became a mom, I realized the importance of nutrition and a wholesome balanced diet. I started paying more attention to food as a tool for providing nutrition and health to our bodies, rather than something I used to stuff in me to please my taste buds or fulfill my hunger pangs. Now every time I am at the grocery store, I notice I read more closely, the nutritional content and ingredients on boxes of cereals, juices, crackers and other staples. More importantly, I began to appreciate the benefits of using organic food as much as possible and using healthier substitutes instead of the usual culprits to fulfill kids cravings for junk and comfort food. Over the past few years, my loyalty has gradually shifted from the supermarket to organic food stores.

Lately, I am noticing more and more people are now being careful about their food choices as well especially when it comes to protecting their children and families from pesticides, toxins and other chemicals in our day to day food. This I am learning by chatting with other moms who I see frequenting the organic food store aisles and buying pretty much their entire week's worth of groceries there as against going to a regular supermarket.

So if you are one of those people who have a nagging feeling that they should really take some steps towards a healthier lifestyle but are not sure how or are looking for smaller baby steps to figure out some healthier substitutes, here are some ideas that may be of help.

• Use fresh fruits and vegetables rather than canned processed foods whenever possible to cut down on preservatives and other chemicals.

• To make your regular wheat flour (atta) more nutritious, add 10-20% soya flour, besan, ragi flour or bajra flour (or all of them). You can also add 1 or 2 teaspoons of flaxseed powder or wheatgerm to the dough. This way you will have fortified mixed flour chapatis rather than plain wheat ones. Ofcourse you can also just choose to buy an organic brand of multigrain aata. 

• Eat unpolished red rice or brown rice instead of regular polished white rice. Unpolished brown or red rice is a good source of fiber, essential amino acids and B vitamins, including B6. Experiment with the many varieties of unpolished rice available.

• While making dosa, replace rice in the batter with brown rice or jowar/wheat/daliya batter. This will reduce the glycemic load. 

• Instead of de-husked dals, use whole dals, ragi, chana, udad dal, etc. They provide more minerals and fibre. 

• Choose unsweetened breakfast cereals and add in some honey and fruit to it. This will act as a natural and much more nutritious sweetener.

• Pick multigrain bread over white and brown bread.

• While making bhel, simply cut down on the sev and used roasted chana instead.

• Instead of refined sugar in your milk, tea or coffee, switch to palm sugar for a more natural and low glycemic index alternative or stevia for a zero calorie and zero glycemic index option. Processed white sugar can increase acidity, causes mineral deficiencies, weakens immune function. 

• Start your day with 1 teaspoon of wheatgrass powder in half a glass of water to get all the benefits you may get from 4 plates of green salad. Wheatgrass is a good source of chlorophyll, folic acid and a huge number of minerals. It is a powerful blood cleanser and an antioxidant.

• When in the mood for something warm to drink, brew up a nice hot cup of green tea with honey in it. 

• Snack on seeds or dry fruits when the mid-day snack craving hits you. 

• You can also make a dry cereal mix with lots of oats, bran, seeds,  and a variety of dry fruits (such as raisins, almonds, cashews etc.) and keep it ready.When a snack craving hits, just pour in a bowl, add milk, palm sugar and enjoy. 

• Try cooking millet as a substitute for rice at times. 

• If you are always in a rush during mornings and don't have time for breakfast, try whipping up healthy and wholesome smoothies at home. One power smoothie idea - whip together 1 cup of milk, 2 scoops of whey protein, 1 teaspoon palm sugar and 4 almonds. You can also add wheat germ or flaxseeds or a fresh fruit as optional. 

These are just a few suggestions to get you started. You can find many more yummy and healthy recipes in the Recipe Corner of our online store.

Do you readers have any other ideas or tips to improve the healthy quotient of their daily diet? Please share through this blog's comments - we'd be very interested to learn. Or you can also send in your healthy recipes at care@shophealthy.in and I can post it here as a guest post!  

So here's to spreading health - one bite at a time!