By completing the Healthy Eating Quiz you’ll receive instant personalised feedback and a report on your diet quality to highlight any areas where you can improve your overall eating habits. If you want to improve your diet you have come to the right place. milk, yoghurt, cheese and/or alternatives, mostly reduced fat.įoods are grouped together because they provide similar amounts of key nutrients and eating a variety of foods from the list above helps to promote good health and reduce the risk of disease.grain (cereal) foods, mostly wholegrain and/or high cereal fibre varieties.lean meats and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds, legumes/beans.The five major food groups as recommended by the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating are: Store them in your fridge, and when it comes time to prepare your meals, build a balanced plate from the ingredients you have already prepared.Įating healthy is making sure you enjoy a wide variety of foods from each of the five major food groups daily, in the amounts recommended. Prepare a few different ingredients, or meal components that you can store in the fridge, such as pre sliced vegetables, or a premade salad, poached/grilled chicken, boiled eggs or Clare’s Sauso rolls. To do this, consider the different elements of a balanced meal, including half a plate of vegetables, some lean protein, and some wholegrain carbohydrates at most meals. If the idea of eating reheated foods isn’t appealing to you, or you want to include more variety in your meals, try preparing food/ingredients, rather than a meal. Once the dust settles on that night’s dinner, spend some time planning or even preparing the next day’s meals. The next day, pack your lunch in a cooler bag, and when you get home, heat and/or assemble the dinner you made the night before. On a day that you have extra time, prepare the next evening’s meal, and pack your lunch. Rather than feeling as though it is a race against the clock when you get home, or that you don’t have time to prepare your lunch before you leave for the day, make it the night before and refrigerate or get one day ahead. Freeze foods in single portion sizes so that you can grab one out of the freezer before you head out the door (assuming you have a microwave to heat it up). If you are going to the effort of making a healthy meal, if you can afford it, why not make double? Doubling a recipe and saving the rest in the freezer will help you save time on a future meal. Here are some great recipes to cook ahead of time: Set aside a few hours, whether it be on the weekend, or on a day that works better for you, and prepare one to two meals ahead of time, and store them either in the fridge or freezer, so that you only need to reheat, assemble or add some side salad or veggies when you get home. If you are still stuck, pick a theme for the week and find recipes that relate to the theme. If you are searching for inspiration for easy to prepare recipes to add to your meal plan, check out our healthy, dietitian approved recipes here. Take inspiration from your pantry, fridge and freezerīefore heading to the shops, take stock of what you already have stored in your pantry, fridge or freezer and find recipes that can use these ingredients up. Write it down your weekly menu using our Meal Planner here. If a favourite recipe takes 30 minutes to prep, and an hour to cook, keep that for your easy day (or weekend) and make it double and put half in the freezer. If you have a usual late day or busy afternoon, make that the time you reheat leftovers. For example, don’t plan to eat a toasted sandwich for lunch at work if your workplace doesn’t have a sandwich press. Consider where you will be, what you are doing, what you will need to do to prepare or do to make your meal ready to eat.

Whether it is for the whole week, or a few days, this activity really helps you save money, and reducing food waste.Ī common pitfall when writing out a meal plan is that it might not be realistic. It can lead to making fast food choices that may be easy, though might not cut the mustard when it comes to being healthy, inexpensive and nutritious.īy focusing some of your time to plan ahead in one sitting, you can reduce your stress related to meals and food prep decisions.

When you are hungry, or others are hungry and wanting dinner now, without a plan it can be hard to think about what to make quickly. We have included ideas for different ways to meal plan and prep, to help make it easier (and faster) to eat healthy while save you money and time: The good news is that meal planning and preparation doesn’t have to mean bulk cooking all of your meals. Not everyone has the time, and money to prepare a whole week’s worth of food ahead of time. Making healthy food choices is made easier by taking the time to plan your meals and if possible, doing some preparation and cooking to make healthy eating easier.

Healthy foodie hacks