Creating a healthy food list can be easy if you remember to choose basic foods that are widely accepted to be better for your body than others. Make a list at home, before you get in front of those tempting displays and packages. Packaging today can be confusing, as marketers holler "low fat", and "100 calorie", and other diet keywords. Making lists can save you money if you stick to it instead of randomly selecting items.

When in a grocery store, remember that the best foods are on the outer borders of the store, and not in the aisles or at the ends of the aisles. Focus on fresh fruits and vegetables. Organic and fresh are better than frozen, and frozen is better than canned food, due to ingredients used as preservatives.

Learn about labels. The first item on the list of ingredients is the item that the package includes the most of. For example, if high fructose syrup is listed first, the highest percentage of that food is that ingredient. If a juice says apple juice and other juices, but apple juice is listed first, most of that juice is made up of apple juice.

Healthy food list, the basics:

Fruits - the most colorful, ones with pulp, whole instead of juice. Most fruits are good foods, and fresh again is always best. Go easy on sweet fruits like banana.

Vegetables - organic, colorful, fresh is the rule if possible. Sweet potatoes are better than white. Red peppers contain more vitamin C than green. Salad greens are good for keeping your pH balance where it should be. Roughage in vegetable, fiber, helps clean the body from inside.

Grains - choose whole grain, multi-grain, dark over light. 12 whole grain breads, brown rice, whole wheat or spinach pasta instead of regular. For cereals, oatmeal instead of sugar laden sweet cereals. Especially watch the sugar content of cereals.

Nuts and seeds - watch out for salt content.

Spices - use spices to flavor your foods, instead of dumping on salt. Many spices have medicinal qualities that are favorable, such as cinnamon, garlic, peppermint, and parsley.

Oils - olive oil, peanut oil, and canola oil are preferred over hardened oils like butter, margarine, and oleo.

Dairy - low fat, skim, yogurt, cheese, goat or soy milk. Go easy on dairy, but include it. Skip ice cream and opt for frozen yogurt or sherbets.

Meats and Poultry - choose lean cuts, light meat instead of dark, wild game is leaner, baked or grilled over fried, low fat content. Chicken or turkey is better than red meat.

Fish - excellent, but choose lean over fatty.

Sweets - limit intake, read ingredients.

You can create a healthy diet from most foods, but it is necessary to watch out for fats, additives, and artificial ingredients. Limit portion sizes, and eat a wide variety of foods. Drink lots of water instead of soda. Learn about foods and custom design your own healthy food list for optimum health.

Wendy Pan is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about healthy food list, please visit Healthy Cities Living for current articles and discussions.

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