Tip Tuesday: Simple Meals

I pride myself in making healthy well-rounded meals for my family. However, through my Holistic Nutrition course, I’m learning all kinds of tips and I’m slowly incorporating them into our family meals.

Once I wrapped my head around the concept, learning about simplifying meals was music to my ears. But at first I thought, “how boring!”

So far I have experienced:

• Simple meals are easier on your digestive tract. There’s less stomach upset, less bloating, and your tummy won’t grumble all evening.
• Simple meals equal less expensive meals and make for a nicer grocery shopping experience.
• Simple meals are so much faster to prepare.
• Simple meals create fewer dirty dishes.

There’s kind of a butterfly effect to “going simple.”

Supper doesn’t need to be meat, potatoes, veggies and a salad, oh and bread on the side… maybe dessert too? What if I told you all you need is two or three items on your plate… and sometimes just one item will do, if it’s a snack. Your body will thank you.

What’s a simple meal you ask? I’ve had the following meals or snacks over the past little while:

• Breakfast: two eggs and one piece of toast.
• Breakfast: fruit smoothie with two or three ingredients.
• Lunch: Salad greens with two or three toppings.
• Lunch: 1/3 orange pepper, hummus, sliced tomato and green onion.
• Lunch: Dill Triscuit crackers, avocado, sprinkled with candied pecans.
• Supper: Grilled chicken breast with half a baked yam.
• Supper: Curried brown rice with red lentils and one chapati (Indian whole wheat flat bread).
• Snack: one fruit or small bowl of one kind of berry.
• Snack: one handful of one kind of nut.

At first I thought simple meals might be boring. How would meals look appealing? But rest assured, I find simple even more appealing, not only visually, but now that I recognize how much better I feel after each meal. The benefits are recognizable instantly.

It’s always okay to use herbs and spices to add a variety of flavours to your meals.

What kind of simple meals do you enjoy?