The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average American household spends about $3,008 on dining out annually. Indeed, it’s easier than ever to avoid cooking, but taking full advantage of this can lead to a monotonous diet. As such, you can readily lose interest in food and may resort to unhealthy snacks for convenience. Therefore, it is prudent to find great ways to add variety to your diet to keep mealtimes interesting and ensure optimum nutrition. Below are four effective ways to diversify your diet.
- Use a meal planner
Statista data regarding meal planning in America revealed that many U.S consumers only planned meals for the days ahead, while about one-third did not plan their meals at all. However, meal planning is one of the best ways to ensure that you don’t eat the same thing repeatedly. If you are constantly hard-pressed for time, you can invest your energy into creating numerous weekly plans that can be rotated throughout the month. These meal plans will prevent you from spending too much time thinking about what to eat. You can simply purchase the ingredients required at the beginning of each week and be good to go.
- Leverage cookbooks and online sources
There are countless cookbooks out there that cover nearly every type of food in the world. When browsing cookbooks and online recipes, you will undoubtedly come across healthy foods, unusual and exotic ingredients, familiar comfort foods, and vegan meals. Consequently, use these materials as excellent sources of meal ideas to spice your diet with variety. These books will inspire you to try new ingredients and other cooking methods to keep you from preparing the same few meals repeatedly. Additionally, they offer guidance to help you cook all types of meals to perfection, whether you are following a simple eggs in purgatory recipe or making a complex Turducken.
- Try different cuisines from around the globe
Various countries worldwide enjoy different kinds of meals. Therefore, it makes sense to try cuisines from all around the globe to bring diversity into your mealtimes. You can try different restaurants when you go out for meals to savor food from specific regions. Also, you can commit to cooking and eating foods from a particular culture for a set period, preferably a week or month. For instance, you can eat only Chinese food this week and feast on Thai delicacies the next. Then, eat Italian dishes only in the third week, and avoid anything that isn’t Mexican in the fourth week. You will have eaten dishes from four different countries in just one month, keeping meals tasty and diverse.
- Eat the rainbow
Eating the rainbow is a diet concept that involves consuming fruits and vegetables of different colors daily. Plants have different pigments which give them their color, and each natural color has a specific range of micronutrients. Therefore, it would be best to eat fruits and vegetables of different colors to increase your intake of diverse nutrients for increased health benefits.
*Contributed Content
