Wednesday, June 13, 2018

What motivates real change?



There has been pretty reliable basic nutrition information available to most of us for a while. I think most of us know that we need to eat more veggies and less junk food. Drink more water and have less soda. Sure the guidelines are updated and changed and fine-tuned every once in a while.  To give us a more detailed and up to date picture of what is happening in the world of nutrition. But the guidelines that Food $ense follows and are provided by MyPlate have stayed pretty basic and straight forward.

So most of us know some of these things, or have a pretty good idea where to start. But what motivates us to start in the first place? What motivates us to make a dinner at home instead of eating out? Or to add a snack of vegetables to our day instead of some salty chips or a candybar?

I would like to think that the motivation for change at the most basic part is knowledge. Each of us has learned something and then decided that our life would be better in some way if we implemented this knowledge into our lives. First you have to know there is a need for change before you can want to change.

Food $ense and the Snap-Ed programs in general are a really great place to start to gain some knowledge about food and nutrition. There are some great programs that can help you become a nutrition-wonder in your home and family. I think it is presented in a easy to digest and understand way. One of my favorite programs has been the Eat Right When Money is Tight series. It encourages you to be informed and make the small changes that you can. Even one little change is a movement in the right direction.

Another great place to start gaining some knowledge is the Food $ense lessons at home. Or to contact your local county extension agent and ask when local classes are being held.


Learning is what really leads us to change our lives. We all think that we have "heard it all before" and a lot of us probably feel like eating healthy is too hard, too expensive and too yucky. But it isn't any of those things. With a little bit of know-how it can be the exact opposite. Eating and Feeding our families healthy can be easy, we can do it on our budgets and most of all it can be really really delicious!