Is your fridge or grocery cupboard calling out your name at all hours of the day? Resist temptation by making a few small changes to how you store your groceries. Vitality dietitian Terry Harris shares tips to help you cook and eat more healthily at home.
If healthier eating is one of your 2022 goals, we've got you.
Discovery Vitality dietitian Terry Harris shares 14 tried-and-tested tips to help you develop healthier eating habits this year.
- Tip 1: Get organised
Being organised is key for supporting healthy eating habits. Having a well-organised pantry allows you to quickly see which healthy foods you have in stock. This will also make compiling shopping lists quicker and help you avoid buying more of what you already have - keep a running shopping list by adding to it every time an item runs out.
- Tip 2: First in, first out
Follow the first-in, first-out principle. Put older food in front or on top so that you use them first to prevent wasting food and to save money.
- Tip 3: Don't buy more than you need
Avoid stockpiling your food. Having more food in the house than normal or necessary may motivate you to eat more.
- Tip 4: Store food correctly
Storing food correctly, by for example, using airtight containers, will help keep food fresher and tastier for longer.
- Tip 5: Keep foods that are the same together
Store like with like. For example, keep all of your wholegrains or wholegrain starches in one area of the pantry. This will make it easy to substitute ingredients in meals for variety while still keeping meals balanced.
- Tip 6: Know where everything is
A well-organised and stocked pantry or fridge can make the cooking experience more pleasant and may motivate you to cook more often. Cooking more often from scratch is associated with better dietary quality.
- Tip 7: Keep food in the kitchen
Avoid keeping food visible throughout the house; for example, keeping sweets in your bedroom or having a cookie jar in your office.
- Tip 8: Stay away from the kitchen
Try to keep out of the kitchen except for during meal times. You may find yourself reaching for something out of habit.
- Tip 9: Make healthy food visible in your pantry
We are much more likely to reach for the foods that we see first, which is why grocery stores often use this trick to nudge us into buying certain foods.
You can make use of this trick by stocking your pantry with Vitality HealthyFood items (while getting rewarded for it), and keeping these foods front and center and at eye level in your pantry. Keep it in transparent or colourful containers to make it more inviting.
- Tip 10: Store unhealthy food out of sight
In contrast, storing unhealthy items such as sweets, crisps, biscuits and chocolate at the back of your shelf or on higher shelfs and in non-transparent containers will make you less likely to reach for them. Of course, the best way to avoid eating unhealthy foods is to not keep it in your home.
- Tip 11: Or put it on a high shelf
Also consider storing unhealthy foods on a high shelf. It's a good barrier if you have to go through extra effort to get to it, such as having to fetch a stool to reach it.
- Tip 12: Organise your fridge the same as your pantry
Place healthy foods such as chopped veggies, fresh fruit or plain yoghurt in front where you can see and reach it easily, while keeping treats at the back of the fridge or on a high shelf.
Have a fruit bowl within easy reach in your kitchen or jugs of water available in your fridge. - Tip 13: Create a healthy snack area
If you find yourself often looking for a snack, consider creating a healthy snack area in your pantry with, for example, nuts and seeds.
- Tip 14: Plan your portions
Snack foods, even healthy ones, can be easy to eat too much of, so store snack foods in pre-portioned individual servings to help you stick to appropriate portion sizes.
- Tip 15: Size matters
We often don't give our crockery much thought when it comes to our eating habits, but the size of your plate or bowl can influence how much you eat.
We tend to want to finish everything off our plate. A large plate may cause you to serve yourself a bigger than necessary portion. Eating from a smaller plate or bowl can trick you into thinking that you are eating more food than what you actually are and help you stick to appropriate portion sizes.
Bonus tip (from Riaad Moosa): "Hide it, bra!"
"Only keep healthy food in your house, that's the best way!" Riaad says. "And if you do have unhealthy food, hide it, bra! Hide it!"
Make 2022 healthier and even more rewarding, with Vitality.