New Year, new Eating - the whole issue

So, what are your resolutions for 2017? Most people tend to say eat better and exercise - both positive actions, often short lived though! Making changes can be hard, especially if you are doing it on your own. With social media, however, you never need be alone now, and there are campaigns throughout the year you can join in with to help keep you going on your well-being mission.

There's been a huge rise in eating a more natural plant based diet and the Veganuary campaign during January has played a big part in this (see www.veganuary.com for more information). It's easy to access, with lots of information, ideas and recipes to keep you interested throughout the month, and hopefully feeling keen and enthusiastic to make lasting changes to the way you eat as well as your health.

Big campaigns that raise awareness are great, and as customer demands increase, so does supply of products - you only need to see the expansion of 'free from' ranges in the supermarkets to note how animal-free is becoming mainstream. But that's where my word of warning comes in - just because something is 'vegan' doesn't automatically give it 'healthy' status. Chips (as a rule) are vegan after all!

Essentially, the way I look at it from a nutrition, and therefore health, side of things is that processed and refined food is still generally junk, whether it's animal or plant derived. Once the 'whole' has been taken out of 'food' and chemicals and extras added in the nutritional content goes down and the negative impact on us, and the environmental cost, goes up.

As a sensitive eater, vegan processed food is often still a no-go area, with yeasts added in all over the place, whether as yeast extract or 'natural' flavourings and preservatives. And you'll often still find a high amount of refined sugars in varying forms as well as highly refined oils.

So what to do? The best way is to eat as close to a food's natural form as possible most of the time and enjoy it in all it's lovely gloriousness, and add in a few plant based extras in every now and then. Then you will get all the amazing benefits of going plant based, and will feel so good and energised that Veganuary will slip into February, then March........see where it will take you!

So if you're taking the plant based plunge for New Year - enjoy!  Don't forget there's loads of easy, tasty recipes for you to try on this blog. And if you want to know more, then why not check out my Eat Well, Live Well course that starts again at the end of the month? You will gain loads of essential information about eating whole food and plant based plus a whole bunch of amazing recipes, meet some great people and dine on dishes made by me. What more could you want to really get 2017 off to a great start? Check out http://www.thesensitivefoodiekitchen.com/courses.html

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year!