The importance of variety in food
If you are someone who eats the same thing every single day and never gets bored and likes it that way then stop what you’re doing and look away!
This article is all about the benefits and culinary delights of prioritizing variety in your healthy eating journey of which there are many.
Below are just 5 important reasons why variety is so important when it comes to healthy eating.
Food culture gives you variety
Ever go to the grocery store or a CVS and notice aisles of different kinds and combinations of chocolate and candy and chips and crackers and cookies? There is no lack of diversity in processed foods. The good news is that the same can be true for healthy foods and particularly fruits and veggies should we seek them out. When we can actively seek out new types of fruits and vegetables and whole grains we can make our healthy food experience more exciting, more intriguing and more sustainable. My daughter and I created a challenge together to try a new type of fruit or vegetable every week and find an interesting way to prepare it. For those more rare vegetables, just googling recipes, benefits, preparations and learning how to choose the best-tasting kinds is fun in and of itself.
Suggestions to widen your Veggie/Fruit terrain
Local farmers market
Instacart (the cheapest way to have a personal shopper pick perfect produce for you and delivered)
Grow your own - here are some tips for growing a garden
Sensory specific satiety
Did you know that part of why diners go back for seconds at a buffet is because their palate is craving a different taste or texture? As it turns out, our taste buds can become saturated quite quickly with certain tastes, flavors or due to the richness of the food you are eating. But if you then switch up your plate with in taste, flavor, heat or texture then you can still derive pleasure from the experience. So, this benefits you because if you’re sick of munching on carrots and hummus all the time for instance, switching to let’s say a smoothie on some days offers both a different taste or flavor profile and a contrasting texture. It’s a way to preserve your healthy eating momentum but also honoring your need for variety to fully feel satisfied after a meal or snack.
To learn more about sensory specific satiety, click here.
Abundance mindset
Diet culture offers us restriction, denial and frankly just a bunch of no’s. That always frustrated me as a former yo-yo dieter myself. For me it created a scarcity mindset that led to a fear of certain foods in general. When you’re eating out of fear rather than pleasure, joy and nourishment how can that possibly be enjoyable? Sure I felt virtuous when I ate a fruit or vegetable but if I was really honest with myself, I always preferred the chips or crackers and cheese or whatever. Creating an abundance mindset gives you freedom. Think of ALL the yes foods you can have and enjoy whenever you want. Focus on TO-DO’s versus all the not-to-dos that we learn to fear and revile. Again, variety in our healthy foods gives us even more food freedom and pleasure to sustain healthy eating habits.
Gut health
Our gut bacteria LOVE variety with fruits and vegetables and adore all fibrous foods that they can feast on. From an overall health perspective and from a gut microbiome perspective the best thing you can do for your health and to reduce inflammation in your body is to focus on eating a variety of those foods. The antioxidants and phytochemicals in the red foods like watermelon and tomatoes for instance are different but complementary to the ones in the green types of vegetables and fruits and the orange-colored and the purple colored ones etc.... The good bacteria in your gut metabolize those foods and produce short-chain fatty acids which are the by-product of that process. Short-chain fatty acids play a critical role in your immunity, brain health and digestion. (source) Therefore, when you hear the phrase “eat a rainbow of fruits and veggies” now you have a better sense as to actually why it’s so important.
Boredom
When I was a chronic yo-yo dieter, I just felt bored and blah all the time. It was like I was Ariel from the little mermaid (wish I could be….part of your world!!!) peering into the outside world of “normal eaters” who could just eat whatever they wanted and never gain weight or have any bad consequences whatsoever. Who were these special unicorn people? Well, even though it’s been years since I’ve dieted or restricted my calories, I still rely on variety to help me stay motivated and excited about eating in a really balanced healthy and delicious way. We all deserve that. So, yes I’m the one buying all the weird new chutneys in the supermarket and the first to hoard the cotton-candy grapes when they are in season for one random week in April. The bottom line is that we crave variety. Food manufacturers are happy to oblige and while you read this post they have probably created 15 new varieties of the oreo cookie. So it’s up to us to counter that with as much variety as we can with the foods we love that are also nutrient dense and unprocessed.
Remember, the best way to stick with a new health behavior is to practice it and find ways to make it as fun and enjoyable as possible.
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