Our day starts with eating our breakfast, the most important meal of the day. We should eat proper breakfast, you may have read or heard and that’s right too. But what we do is, either skip our breakfast because we have to reach office on time or eat outside food so that we save time preparing our home cooked breakfast. What type of food we are eating will make us healthy or unhealthy in future. So, having healthy meal is the only option you have, if you are concern about your and your families health.

When we were in school, we were taught about balanced diet. Let’s follow the basics. In this fast world, the lifestyle of people have changed a lot. We see so much eating joints catering fast food, Continental, Indian, Mughalai, Italian, Chinese etc. you name it and they have it. All the dishes are available all over the globe. Children love to have fast food more but consequences after consuming it are harsh. It’s necessary to provide home cooked food more often than outside food.

The preparation or dishes which we make at home are more hygienically made than at any street food seller or eating cart. It is because the vegetables, spices, oil, and other food items used in it are of good quality and selective. On the other hand vegetables and fruits which a street food seller uses is bought in bulk and can be of bad quality at times. I also loved street food and eating out but it has health hazards. The food prepared at home is healthy, nutritious, tasty, and the recipe of it is unique. We all non- vegetarians make chicken at home but the taste will be different of each recipe.

My recent short trip has made me divert my liking from outside food to home cooked food. Just visit any street food seller and try to see what things they are using and if you will be making same thing at home were you not using superior quality items? We intentionally ignore these things as it seems more tasty to our taste buds. There are some people who due to their jobs or studies are living far from their home, they may be more dependent on these easily available, cheap street food ,but it’s not good at all for health. Try to seek home cooked food around your area and have that, instead of street food. Or you can make sandwiches, learn to make french toast, these small things will not only keep you healthy but also make you future ready. As you will learn to cook more and more new dishes.

The food provided in any canteen, it may be school or college canteen, should not provide fast food. Instead they can provide local recipes to the students. The Governments can do their part by proper licencing of street food seller. So that their food items could be checked at any time by govt officials and if found unhygienic their licence can be cancelled or panalty should be imposed on them.

Eating fruits and raw vegetables as salad is good. Indulge in these, as snacks. Its important to eat healthy at all times. Having street food every fortnight will satisfy your taste bud, at least you have achieved that stage, where earlier you were eating outside meal daily, now only once in fortnight, you will see tremendous change in your lifestyle. The food we eat should be so enriched in nutrients that we don’t have to take suppliments.

As it is said ‘we are what we eat’ and that’s true. If we over indulge in something or other it will automatically harm us may be in long run. That’s why we must take a balanced diet, so that all the essential nutrients will be consumed by us and make us more immune against any disease. We all are aware about the benefits of all the veggies and fruits. So, be the change and feed yourselves and your families healthy, and nutritious home cooked food from now on.

‘Healthy food is Happiness’

Ramneet Kaur