What does good nutrition look like?

If someone was going to ask me what good nutrition looks like in 3 points, I would probably go with this:

• Healthy food choices
• Appropriate digestion and absorption
• Adequate hydration

I genuinely believe that good nutrition is quite straight-forward, and something that everyone should be able to achieve regardless of their starting point.

The first building block for me has to be our food choices. This – in my opinion – is quite simple: if the ingredients are in their natural form and we made the final product, it is good. If they weren’t (e.g. the final product came out of a box ready to eat), it might not be. Let me expand on this a little… Anything that comes out of a package has had a level of processing. Not all processing is bad, but a lot of it really isn’t good, hence why we should try and minimise how much pre-prepared food we eat. I think a good rule of thumb is 80:20. I get that some days we are just too busy/too tired to cook or we just fancy a take-away, but this, in my view, should be limited to a few meals a week.

With digestion and absorption things get a little trickier as – on the face of it – we might not be able to do much about it. This is in fact not entirely the case. Without going too deep too soon, there are 3 simple things that we can all do that will most definitely help with both digestion and absorption: eating mindfully (taking in the whole experience!), chewing our food well (20 times before swallowing!) and having a good posture whilst we eat (sitting up-right and not lying down or in bed!).

The last and final point is hydration which will in turn also help with the second point too. Good hydration is essential for all our body functions to work at their best, including digestion and absorption. Without good hydration, the body struggles to produce digestive juices, including those released by the gallbladder and pancreas. Drinking water is also importantly vital to have healthy joints, good skin and for all detoxification processes in the body to work at their best. I have written about the importance of drinking enough water before, in case you are interested.

See?! It is not that difficult after all. It just takes some organising, awareness, and a mindful approach. That’s all 🙂

Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash