It goes without saying that we learn about a lot of things at school, some of it about food. However, after all that study we still may not necessarily know the best way to feed ourselves!

Our eating habits are not getting any healthier: these days we tend to eat anything, anytime, and as fast as we can. The only goal of this kind of nourishment is to fill our stomachs without asking ourselves any questions about the foods we are choosing or what our body needs.

If you think of the body not simply as a stomach that needs to be filled when it is hungry; but more like a car that needs fuel to make it work, it's easy to see that if we want to get the best out of our engine and for it to last, we have to be careful about the fuel we choose and the way we clean it.

So is there a good way to feed ourselves? Of course the answer to that is a resounding "Yes".

Living for more than a century is becoming more and more usual in our world. But, is this trend going to last forever? People who are currently aged 70 to 100 years old have generally had a lifestyle where they did not eat too much, ate basic low-sugar unprocessed foods and were more physically active. They may also have had a calmer and less stressful life. However, medical advancements also have to be taken into account in order to explain the extension of our life expectancy.

Food for Longevity

What is also true now is that more and more people are facing obesity or disease issues because of their unhealthy lifestyle. Then, what should we do to ensure we blow our candles when we turn 100 years old? It seems the keys to longevity are a healthy social and family life, not smoking, eating a plant-based diet, frequent consumption of legumes and nuts, and engaging in regular physical activity.

Should we choose organic, vegetarian, are there other options? Organic foods are often said to be too expensive, and not everyone can afford to buy these products on a regular basis. This might be true for a lot of organic products, but it does not apply to all of them. There is also another economic phenomenon to consider: food's proportion in a household budget is getting smaller. Interestingly, we tend to spend more money these days to satisfy other needs: leisure and new technologies for instance.

Time dedicated to cooking is also being reduced, as we are often drawn to sit in front of our computers and TVs at the end of the day. It is so easy to heat up a prepared meal in the microwave, even though it may be more expensive.

Lifestyle Choice

We have to make a choice, to determine the lifestyle we want to lead.

Isn't it better to prevent than to cure? Assuming that healthy food prevents us from being sick and spending money on medicine, it can be relevant to allocate a more important part of our budget to food and to spend a little more time in the kitchen.

This action would allow us to eat quality food, high in vitamins and amino acids, avoiding pesticides, artificial food colouring and preservatives. Therefore eating more natural foods that are fresh and "alive", that are so essential to our bodies, and decreasing dramatically the amount of processed foods consumed.

Choose Whole, Organic, Essential Foods

We can't go wrong if we choose to eat essential food every day.

Whole cereals have more fibre and minerals than refined ones. Choose the organic, whole products – whole as the exterior is where most of the vitamins and essential nutrients are found; and organic as the husk retains any pesticides used. It would even be better to associate these cereals with leguminous plants such as semolina, chickpeas, rice or lentils.

We all know proteins made from amino acids are essential to life and health. These can be found in a wide variety of foods such as almonds (20% protein), quinoa, legumes, pulses (dried peas and beans), soy products (tofu, tempeh), avocado, lettuce, spinach, eggs, cheese or meat. Don't forget our bodies also require vitamins, minerals, lipids and omega 3 oils and some of the best sources are nuts and rapeseed oil.

We should limit our meat consumption to once or twice a week (or less) and choose fish two or three times, combined of course with organic vegetables. It is even better for the environment and our communities to eat locally cultivated, in-season products. This also applies to fruits. It is always healthier to eat in season organic fruits – and eat the skin, which contains most of the vitamins.

As far as calcium is concerned, cheese and dairy products are usual suspects, but it also abundant in dark leafy greens, almonds, broccoli, sea vegetables, dried fruits and algae.

Your own lifestyle recipe

It can be said that the subject of food is a much larger and more complicated field that we can imagine and the more we get into it, the more we realise how little we know about it – and all the more reason for schools to teach more about this complicated subject. There is so much to know about what makes an "ideal" food, it is not always straightforward to eat the way we should, but at least we can give it a try.

Furthermore, every one of us has to find our own "recipe" or solution to healthy eating; there are so many lifestyle factors to consider. But whatever the type of food solution you choose; one common factor should be found among all good diets: diversity.

Check out the green, organic, Aussie businesses in the terrific Organic section of the Green Times Directory

Do you have any advice to add? We'd love to hear from you...

Written by: Marie-Helene Duperier

Image credit: La Flaf via Flickr Creative Commons