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Nutrition

One of the hardest things to grasp when transitioning to independent living is nutrition. This page focuses on the basics of nutrition, including the food groups, how to build nutritious meals on a budget, and ideas for cost-effective recipes. 

Nutrition

Fast ideas on how to make sure your meals are complete with different food groups.

Basic Nutrition

Nutrition is an essential part of staying healthy, but it’s complicated. Typically, food is split into five “food groups”: fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, and dairy. Splitting food into groups makes it easier to portion meals and eat well. It’s important to eat food from all of the food groups, as each provides nutrients that the body needs. 
 
Ideally, most meals we eat are balanced. Even two out of three meals a day is doing better than most Americans. Balanced meals can be portioned out using the imaginary “plate” graphic from MyPlate, a resource from the US Department of Agriculture. About one half of the imaginary plate is fruits and vegetables, about one half is proteins and grains. Dairy can be eaten throughout the day, such as milk at breakfast or cheese as part of a snack. For dietary guidelines and more information on balanced meals, visit the MyPlate website at https://www.myplate.gov/
Basic Nutrition
Diets, Fads, and Eating Out

Diets, Fads, and Eating Out

Diets often claim to help make us healthy or lose weight quickly and with little effort. But especially with resources found on the internet, if something seems too good to be true, it normally is. Being healthy or losing weight isn’t as simple as just cutting out carbohydrates or only eating fruit. Following these “fad” diets are a good way to deprive your body of essential minerals and vitamins it needs to function normally. It’s important to eat three fairly balanced meals a day to keep your body healthy and strong. 
 
However, we can’t always make perfectly balanced meals. You might lack the time, money, access to ingredients, or energy. In this case, most of us turn to fast food or restaurants. “Eating out” is often demonized for being incredibly unhealthy- which it can be. But it’s something hard to avoid, and can often be cheaper and less time consuming than making your own meals. It’s important that when you do eat out, you are conscious of the choices you make. For example, many restaurants give portions 25%-50% more food than you should actually eat. This means when you go out to eat, you can save food for later by taking it home and storing it. There’s also the basics, like getting a salad instead of fries, and eating more balanced meals when you go out. 
Safely Storing Food

Safely Storing Food

Food should be stored in sealed containers, like tupperware or sealable bags. Generally, things that you cook and store in the fridge should be eaten within 3-5 days (a week maximum, depending on how the food is holding up over time), with seafood being cooked and eaten within 3. 
 
When freezing meat, pull it out of the freezer and put it into the fridge about a day before you’re going to use it to let it defrost. Try not to put it under warm, running water, as that can encourage bacterial growth. Instead, use a 2 hours cold water bath to defrost. If something looks bad, smells, gets mushy, or is falling apart, don’t eat it! If things “look fine”, and there’s no smell or mold, you might be able to cook it. Fresh fruit and vegetables you get at places like farmers markets might last longer than what you can get at grocery stores, but they can also be more expensive. 
Tips and Ideas

Tips and Ideas

Tips and Ideas: 
 
  • When you cook, make more food than you’re going to eat so that you can save some to reheat later when you don’t feel like cooking.
  • When buying non-perishable stables, it’s often cheaper to buy things in bulk and eat them slowly over time. 
  • Put foods in your fridge out where you can see them, so you remember that you have that food before it goes bad. 
  • For cheap, nutritionally balanced meals, you can check out sites such as https://www.budgetbytes.com/

We're Nest, an online database dedicated to helping young adults transition to independent living by helping them to build life skills. All of our information is contributed to by experts in their fields, and we aim to build an accurate, surface level understanding of important topics such as nutrition, personal health, and budgeting. If you have questions, comments, or concerns about the website, please contact us! 

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