Healthy Eating, Simplified

By Blair Doucette, MScN

Somewhere along the way, eating healthy has gotten the reputation for being difficult and a little expensive. I can see why the rumor has been sustained: large grocery corporations and pricey health food stores have found that they can make a pretty penny off of the confusion. Mix in some fancy marketing and the constant race to find the world’s next expensive superfood is on - and the prices are rising! In reality, eating a nutritious diet is actually quite easy and doesn’t have to cost much more than the average grocery bill. The key is to eat local (which conveniently guarantees that you’re more likely to eat food that is in season and fresh), simplify (focus your diet on single-sourced ingredients rather than processed items), and eat foods across the color spectrum to guarantee diversity.

All naturally grown food items have health-giving benefits. In fact, I believe that, for the most part, food can be used as medicine and should be seen as the first line of defense in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Looking at produce, you can see that it gets its coloring from a variety of different phytochemicals that are prese