Five simple tips to turn around your diet

Legume guru Divya Jagasia, author of Shoots and Tendrils blog, has some simple suggestions on how you can make a few easy and sustainable changes to your post-holiday eating habits, and create a positive diet.

1. Bulk up your vegetable intake

Add more raw and cooked vegetables to your meals and cut down the quantity of simple carbohydrates on your plate. To make veg easier to handle, try cutting them into different shapes or sizes. Increasing your veg intake just slightly will add extra nutrients as well as fibre to your diet – keeping you fuller for longer.

2. Add more legumes to your life

Start by halving the quantity of animal-protein you eat per meal and replacing it with one cup of cooked lentils. Lentils are packed with protein and fibre, which meat doesn’t have, and they’re also environmentally-friendly and the easiest of all legumes to love. They can also be added to soups, salads, used as a thickener, stuffed into pasties, tacos, burritos and more.

3. Eat less refined sugar and flour

Make your own treats using oat flour, dates and bananas. Your taste buds are totally capable of dialling down on sugar consumption once they get used to eating naturally sweetened foods.

4. Swap double cream for cashew nuts

Dairy is loaded with saturated fats and comes with a high cost to the environment, which is a great excuse to try introducing cashew milk to your diet. Cashew milk provides a rich creamy alternative that won’t weigh you down. You can sneak it into your mac and cheese, as well as a number of other sauces.

To make it: blend 1/3 cup of nuts ground with one cup of water.

5. Always opt for wholegrain

When making or buying pasta, rice or bread, always buy wholegrain, which is higher in fibre. Rye is becoming popular because it has enough gluten to use in bread, but doesn’t increase your blood sugar like refined white flour, white rice and sugar do.

A note from Khoollect: For detailed advice on changing your diet that’s specific to your needs, speak to your health professional or doctor.

Are you looking to change your eating habits this year? Which of Divya’s easy tips will you be incorporating into your routine?