The Best Tips for Eating Healthy as a Family

Eating healthy is one of the best things anyone can do for themselves, but when it comes to eating healthy as a family, things can get a bit trickier. Everyone has different preferences, especially the youngsters, and curating healthy, well-rounded meals the whole family will enjoy can leave even the most passionate health enthusiasts stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Thankfully, you don’t have to do it alone. Countless families have made healthy eating a priority in their homes, and no matter how picky your family is, so can you. To help you get started, or to help you finetune your existing healthy eating habits, we’ve outlined a few of our favorite tips for eating healthy as a family.

Embrace These Classic Tips for Eating Healthy

It’s not difficult to find an abundance of tips and insights into how to eat healthier. For the most part, the advice you can find out there is helpful and can get you started on the path toward eating healthy as a family every day. The most important step is that you are cooking at home regularly rather than settling for less healthy, highly processed options.

Some of the most popular healthy eating tips include things like:

• Most of the ingredients you cook with at home should not have ingredient lists, because they are whole ingredients in and of themselves! Think meat, vegetables, olive oil, spices, versus processed foods and artificial ingredient lists.
• Scheduling regular mealtimes. Knowing that you have good meals planned will help keep you from overeating or snacking excessively. Eat robust, delicious meals to stay satiated and give your body a chance to digest with time in between meals.
• Avoiding an excess of processed starches and sweets. This one is a given, of course, but sugar can also sneak up on you if you don’t know what to look out for (did you know that things like dairy-free milk substitutes, dried fruit, and oatmeal can all be high in added sugars?). Starchy processed foods don’t provide good satiety, so your body will be hungry again quickly because it did not get the nutrients it wanted.
• Reading the labels! We’ll talk more about this shortly, but always pay attention to the kind of labels the produce, meat, and other products you buy have. Can you pronounce the ingredients? Are they something your grandparents would recognize?
• Avoid processed seed oils (canola, soy, corn, sunflower, safflower, peanut, rice bran). Mounting research points to complications with these cheap, massively produced oils (added to salad dressings, sauces, marinades, etc.). They are incredibly processed and high in omega-6 Linoleic Acid. Our bodies tolerate them, but perhaps don’t recognize them as real food, leading to negative long term health effects like metabolic dysfunction and inflammation. Instead, opt for natural animal fats, olive oil, avocado oil, and ghee/clarified butter.

Find Out What the Healthiest Meat to Buy Looks Like

Meat is a fundamental part of our diet, but far too often, we may be procuring it from anonymous sources, knowing nothing about where it came from or how it was raised. If you’re looking for a way to make eating healthy as a family easier for you and yours, try replacing the meat you buy at a supermarket with cuts of locally raised and processed meats.

Beef, for example, is a nutritious source of protein, vitamins, and minerals, especially when the cattle are raised on a ranch with a natural, grass-fed, custom finished diet. Pasture-raised cattle produce wholesome meat with a more diverse nutritional profile, helping you and your family benefit from nutrients that your body wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise.

Local is Better

One of the best ways to ensure that you’re eating healthy as a family is to make local food a priority. Locally grown or raised food comes packed with a variety of health and economic benefits. A study done by Michigan State University outlines just a few of the ways local cuisine is worth investing in:

• It’s full of flavor and freshness
• It helps you eat seasonally (which means you avoid foods filled with preservatives)
• It doesn’t spend much time in transit
• It means you’re supporting the local economy and environment
• It allows you to get more transparency into how the food was prepared or raised

Here at Augustus Ranch, we produce all-natural Texas beef that lives up to its title. Too often, meat can be labeled “Product of the USA” that didn’t actually originate here. But when you work with a local farm or ranch, you can be confident that the meat you serve at dinner is locally raised, butchered, and processed.

Eating Healthy as a Family Doesn’t Have to be Hard!

Eating healthy as a family shouldn’t feel like an uphill battle. If you want to give your family meals a nutritious boost, get in touch with us today! Augustus Ranch is committed to providing local meat delivery that goes above and beyond the standards you’ve come to expect. We offer pasture-raised beef and chicken, ranch-raised pork, a variety of seasonal specials, and even meat subscriptions to keep you stocked with all of the healthiest (and tastiest) meats possible.