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We are all creatures of habit and so often without even realizing eat the same breakfast (hopefully you are eating breakfast!) and lunch and perhaps only leaving variety and change for when you are eating out.

The body needs a cocktail of vitamins, minerals, essential fats and anti-oxidants to keep healthy, combating sickness and more importantly giving you optimum health both mentally and physically.

Breaking out of your comfort zone and including new foods and recipes will not only keep your taste buds tantalized but ensures you’re giving your body the variety it needs in vital nutrients. Often an area of foods considered too extreme or complicated is the growing arena of raw foods and gluten free. For the health conscious this is a great step to better health, improved digestion, greater energy and stabilized blood sugar.

Gluten grains are wheat, barley, rye, oats, kamut and spelt. The problem with wheat is that it causes a rise in blood sugar, unbalanced blood sugar is linked to many chronic diseases including insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. So choosing a reduced gluten diet is making a greater step towards better health. Gluten free choices include buckwheat, the flour makes great pancakes/blinis and in Japanese foods used to make soba. Rich in magnesium and also rutin, which is a bioflavonoid.

Go raw! Aim to increases your intake of live food, which means your eating the enzymes, which are meant to be in your foods to aid digestion and increase energy. Heat destroys these enzymes. Whether it means you increase your salad intake, experiment with raw soups, like gazpacho, try making coconut yoghurt or make noodles from courgettes, not only are you boosting your antioxidants and vitamins but also improving digestion too! Raw can also include raw fish, eating more sashimi, especially salmon increases your essential fats. Sashimi is widely available and makes a great lunch with salad.

Eat more greens! Green vegetables keep the body alkaline and seaweeds are especially good at removing heavy metal toxins. Experiment with Nori sheets and make your own temaki rolls! Wrap with chicken or smoked salmon and then add avocado, lettuce and alfalfa sprouts.

Consider the different proteins, egg, meat, wild fish, tofu, beans and pulses, raw nuts and seeds. Aim to rotate your proteins so each day your giving your body a different protein at each meal. Going vegetarian at the beginning of the week is a great way to have a mini detox after the weekend!

Eat more fermented foods, our gut flora is the key to good health, immunity and mood, fermented foods create the right environment for the good bacteria to survive. Choose organic natural yoghurt, kefir, natto (fermented soya beans) kimchi, pickled vegetables or saukeraut.

Pick a new recipe once a week or a theme like Thai food. Using different herbs and spices gives you many different phyto nutrients. Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, coriander removes toxins.

Break out of your comfort zone, choose some new foods, a new vegetable, a new spice, follow different recipes, pick a new grain to serve with a different protein. Discover a new herbal tea, experiment with some coconut yoghurt and go raw when you can!

Susie Rucker
Rucker Nutrition