1% Thursday: One-Ingredient Snacks

Small changes in diet can mean big changes in health.  It sounds like a cliché, but it’s really true.

That’s why I love little tips that can remind us to eat something healthy.

While reading a TIME Magazine feature on staying healthy [link no longer available], I came across this simple tip:  Eat more 1 ingredient foods.

Why?

Well, foods are a danger zone in a developed society.  Foods claim to be health foods that are high in sugar (cane sugar, of course), full of chemicals (all-natural chemicals), and highly processed (but from organic ingredients).  Some manufacturers are getting smart and selling products with very few ingredients – but even these have dangers as manufacturers try to produce them more cheaply and made to last longer (kind of like plastic.  Lasts a looong time.).

Even single-ingredient foods can be dangerous, what with pesticides and preservatives and genetic engineering.  But choosing simple, one ingredient snacks (or adding one-ingredient dishes to your meals) can help you avoid a whole lot of the problems of highly processed foods.

You need to eat regularly.  Think about about 5 one-ingredient snacks that you would enjoy.  Carrots?  Cold chicken pieces?  Broccoli?  Raw almonds?  Apples?  Dried blueberries?

Then make sure these are on hand, or in your purse or glove compartment or backpack or desk drawer, for when you need them.

Though you ought to be suspicious of something in a package at this point, here are some one-ingredient packaged foods that one blogger found (wow – somebody is reading the label!).

What is 1% Thursday?

Every Thursday at Headache and Migraine News (weather permitting) we’ll talk about one measurable, practical thing we can do to make our lives just 1% better.  Usually it will be something very easy, sometimes it will be a challenge.  Let us know if you try it, or share an idea of your own – and maybe a year from now we’ll see that things have really changed for the better!