The best way to improve your health is to make living healthy a regular part of your life. There are a lot of fad diets and living changes going on right now, but the truth is that small changes can have big health benefits.
I am a qualified dietitian, and when people want to eat better, I share some of my favorite healthy eating tips. All of my suggestions are pretty easy to follow, and you don’t need expensive vitamins or juice cleanses to do them.
I usually tell people to pick two or three tips to start their healthy eating journey. This makes it easier for them to keep practicing healthy eating habits. You can add more tips once you know how to do the ones you already have.
Here are 20 changes you can make to the way you eat that are recommended by dietitians and will have a huge effect on your health in the long run.
How to Eat Healthily
Drinks with added sugar should be limited
A lot of drinks that look healthy, like fruit punch and sports drinks, actually have extra sugar in them. A 2024 review piece in BMC Psychiatry found that eating too many added sugars has been linked to bad things like chronic inflammation, obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and even depression.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2020–2025 say that people should eat less than 10% of their overall calories as added sugar. In terms of calories, that’s about 12 teaspoons of the sweet stuff. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the average adult in the U.S. eats about 17 teaspoons of extra sugars a day, which is a lot more than the recommended amount.
Switching from sugary drinks like soda, sports drinks, fruit punch, lemonade, and fruit “drinks” to sugar-free drinks like water, seltzer water, unsweetened coffee or tea, and even 100% fruit juice in small amounts can help your body stay hydrated without adding any extra sugar.
Eat foods that have been fermented
Fermented foods like kimchi, cabbage, and others not only taste great, but they also give our bodies live probiotics that help our health in many ways. Start your day with plain yogurt, eat miso soup for dinner, or drink kombucha in the middle of the day to get some fermented goodness into your body.
Every week, eat two to three servings of low-mercury fish that isn’t fried.
The 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans say that most Americans should eat at least 8 ounces of fish every week, but most people are not even coming close to that amount. When it comes to healthy nutrients, fish, especially oily fish like salmon, is a great source. It’s full of DHA omega-3 fatty acids, selenium, vitamin B12, and many more.
A review published in 2022 in Food Chemistry found that eating fish may also have many health effects, such as lowering the risk of heart disease.
Choose fresher meat instead of meat that has been processed a lot.
Highly processed meats like bacon, sausage, and lunch meats are very handy and taste great. But these meat options may also be high in nitrates, which are additives that, when heated, can make chemicals that might cause cancer, according to a 2020 study in Antioxidants (Basel). A lot of these meat options are also very high in salt.
So, there are deli meats that are free of nitrates and low in sodium, so look for one that has these choices. You could also use fresh cuts of meat like turkey, chicken, and beef, which naturally have less salt and no nitrates. They are just as tasty and can be used to make healthy sandwich ingredients.
Drink a glass of milk every day
Milk isn’t just for kids. A glass of milk is a basic food that goes well with chocolate chip cookies. It is full of 13 important nutrients, such as calcium, protein, and magnesium, which build bones. Even though milk is very healthy, most people don’t drink even one glass of it every day. If milk makes your stomach hurt, try lactose-free milk or A2 milk to see if they help.
Have fruit with your afternoon snack
Based on the CDC, only about 12% of people in the U.S. eat the recommended amount of fruit and 10% eat the recommended amount of veggies every day. And because not eating enough fruit is linked to things like a higher chance of some cancers, heart disease, and stroke, it’s a good idea to sneak some fruit every day.
If you’re feeling tired around 3 p.m., instead of looking for sugary candy or drinks with a lot of caffeine, a healthy snack of fruit can give you long-lasting energy along with nutrients that help your body use energy. If you mix a dose of fruit with protein, your snack will last longer, making you feel full and preventing a possible sugar crash soon after eating.
Dried, freeze-dried, frozen, and canned fruit are all healthy choices if you don’t have fresh fruit on hand. Just make sure they don’t have any extra sugar or salt added. You can choose from a huge range of fruits that have been freeze-dried, from blueberries to mango pieces.
Happy older woman having a fresh salad in a modern kitchen
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Put more vegetables in your food
One of the best places to get fiber is from vegetables. Fiber is a vitamin that can help your body stay healthy by supporting gut health and may even lower your risk of getting some cancers. Also, a lot of vegetables are low in calories and can help make meals taste better and make you feel fuller.
You don’t have to eat salad every day of the week to add veggies to your food. It’s easy to make your food healthier by adding things like extra broccoli to stir-fry, a handful of spinach to soup, or diced bell pepper to fried eggs.
Don’t eat while watching TV
Take the time to enjoy your meals. And eating while watching TV can make you lose focus, which can cause you to eat more calories while feeling less full.
Instead, eat with family and friends. Sharing food with other people can even be good for your health. Or at least make sure that the TV or any other device doesn’t draw your attention away from what you’re eating. You can eat carefully when you don’t have anything else going on around you. This means you can pay attention to your body’s signals when it’s full.
Pick canned foods that don’t contain BPA
Easy-to-use foods that can be part of a healthy diet are canned foods like tuna, peppers, and beans. But you might not be eating as well as you think if the cans your food comes in have BPA in them. BPA is a chemical that helps keep metal from rusting.
A 2020 review in Frontiers in Nutrition says that some studies have tied BPA exposure to cancer, problems with hormones, and weaker immune systems. But there are still a lot of questions about how BPA works and why it is harmful.
Most can makers in the U.S. have chosen to stop using BPA, but some people are worried that related materials may also be dangerous. There isn’t enough study out there yet to say for sure if these alternatives are safe. In the end, if you’re worried about these materials, pick things that are stored in glass or aseptic paper boxes.
Make a meal plan
Planning meals ahead of time can help people eat better and make it less stressful to try to decide what to eat at the last minute. Making a plan for your meals for the week can make it easier for you to eat healthy. To plan your meals, you need to decide what you will eat each day of the week. Make a list of the things you need to buy and get them ready so you can make quick meals all week.
Don’t eat the same foods over and over.
A healthy diet needs a lot of different foods. Eating many different kinds of foods will give your body many different nutrients and may help keep you from missing any nutrients. Variety in food is also good for you in other ways, One study from 2022 in Nutrients shows that eating a wide range of healthy foods may lower the risk of getting metabolic syndrome.
A lot of dietitians say that people should try to “eat the rainbow,” which means that they should try to eat things that naturally come in a lot of different colors throughout the week. Orange carrots, red radishes, purple cabbage, and green spinach are all healthy foods, but they have different amounts of nutrients. Moving your food around on the plate can make it more interesting and give your body new, healthy nutrients every day. Another color that isn’t in the rainbow is white. White fruits and veggies, like potatoes and cauliflower, are also good for you and should be part of your regular diet.
Get your veggies ready
After shopping, prepare your vegetables before putting them away in the fridge. Having chopped onions and cucumbers on hand makes it very simple to add healthy veggies to food or make snacks that you can eat on the go.
Drink less diet soda
If you think about it, drinking diet soda seems like a healthy choice since it gives you sweetness without any calories. Some ads might make you think that drinking diet soda is a good choice, but it’s not as healthy as we thought.
In fact, a 2019 study published in Circulation says that drinking the bubbly, sweet stuff is linked to a higher risk of heart disease. A review published in 2023 in Cureus found links between drinking a lot of diet soda and a lot of health problems. These included poor mental health, delays in nerve development in children, worsening retinopathy in people with diabetes, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma in men, rheumatoid arthritis in women, hip fractures, tooth erosion, higher breath alcohol concentration when used in alcoholic beverages, and faster cell aging. There are a lot of reasons to limit how much artificial sugar you eat!
Eat less fried foods
There’s nothing better than a French fry or fried chicken that is nice and crispy. But eating too many fried foods is linked to a lot of bad health effects. It could even hurt your mental health. A 2023 study in PNAS found that eating a lot of fried foods was linked to a 12% higher risk of worry and a 7% higher risk of depression.
And a study published in 2021 in BMJ Heart shows that eating fried foods on a regular basis raises the risk of cardiovascular disease. The link between the two is linear, which means that the more fried foods you eat, the higher your risk of disease.
If you want that satisfying crunch without the extra fat and calories, bake or air-fry your food instead.
Use mocktails instead of cocktails
The CDC says that drinking booze can make you more likely to get some types of cancer. But for some, not having a drink in the evening can be a big change in their lives. One way to limit or stop drinking alcohol while still enjoying the routine of sipping on a tasty drink is to have a mocktail instead of a cocktail.
Make sure you pick leaner beef cuts
Lover of beef will be happy to hear that it can be a healthy food. It has a lot of good nutrients in it, like iron, protein, zinc, and more. When it comes to saturated fat, some kinds of beef are higher than others. However, leaner cuts like flank steak are fine to include in a healthy diet.
To get protein, eat beans.
For many reasons, beans, also known as legumes, can be one of the healthiest foods you can eat, no matter what kind of eater you are. They are a cheap, plant-based source of protein that can be used in many ways and tastes great. A study published in 2021 in Nutrients found that fiber, polyphenols (strong antioxidants), and resistant starch found in beans all work together to lower the chance of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Have breakfast
Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And studies show very clearly why this is the case. A study published in 2021 in Proceedings of the Nutrition Society found that people who eat breakfast every day get more of many nutrients, such as folate, calcium, and iron.
This study also shows that people who don’t eat breakfast tend to eat a lot more calories, carbs, total fat, saturated fat, and extra sugars at lunch, dinner, and snacks than people who do eat breakfast.
Write down your favorite foods
If you want to live a healthy life and live longer, you shouldn’t eat a dozen doughnuts or a gallon of ice cream every day. However, giving up your favorite foods may make you eat more of them in the long run.
You can stay on track and pleased by eating foods you enjoy. You can eat pie every day!
You will want to make these 25 desserts for as long as you have diabetes. Use spices and herbs. Instead of Salt
The Dietary Guidelines say that Americans should not eat more than 2,300 mg of salt per day, but the FDA says that Americans eat about 3,400 mg per day on average. If you eat too much salt every day, you might be more likely to get high blood pressure.
One good way to start lowering your sodium intake is to cut down on how much salt you put on your food. One teaspoon of table salt has more than 2,000 mg of sodium. While cutting back on added salt, add tasty things like herbs and spices that don’t have any salt but still pack a flavorful punch.
