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a woman who uses the food pyramid to sneak healthy food into her diet

Food Pyramid Hacks: Sneaking Healthy Food into Your Diet

Finding creative and healthy ways to incorporate healthy food into your diet can be a challenge, but by following this advice, you can incorporate all the important food groups from the food pyramid into your diet.

Make small changes.

Switching to healthy foods is not something that you can accomplish overnight. In fact, trying to make changes too quickly can lead to burnout and defeat. Instead, make smaller tweaks to your diet so that things don’t start to feel overwhelming. Some good first steps include switching to lean meats, such as turkey or fish, and adding fresh vegetables to your current diet.

Don’t deprive yourself.

When making the switch to healthy foods, it’s important to refrain from eliminating your favorite unhealthy foods entirely. Definitely cut back on your intake, but don’t be afraid to satisfy your cravings from time to time. Total deprivation is a surefire way to spur on a full-blown binge of terrible foods.

Branch out.

Some people avoid healthy foods because they’re under the impression that they don’t like any of them. However, there’s much more to the world of nutrition than Brussels sprouts and beets. You’re not required to like every healthy food you encounter, so get adventurous and find what you like by trial and error. Who knows? You might find that the world of health food is a much tastier place than you first imagined.

Brush up on your cooking skills.

Lots of times a dislike of healthy foods is due to less-than-stellar cooking skills. It’s hard to enjoy something when it’s not properly prepared! No one is asking you to become the next Julia Child, but brushing up on the basics like grilling, sautéing, and braising may just make enough difference to turn you into a health food connoisseur.

Last Updated: January 05, 2015