Eating a healthy diet when staying at home

Eating a healthy diet during the coronavirus pandemic is important to maintain health and boost your immunity. Information and advice on how to achieve a healthy diet is available from:

NHS

British Heart Foundation

British Dietetic Association

Change4life

In addition here are some useful tips to follow whilst we’re in lockdown:

1.Plan meals in advance

Try and plan your meals and snacks a week ahead. This will help ensure you have the right ingredients to prepare your meals, when certain food items may be harder to obtain and whilst just ‘popping’ to the shops is no longer an option. Try to do one big shop a week, rather than making multiple trips and make a list of the food items you need.

2.Set meal times

It’s really important to try and maintain a routine whilst you are at home. Setting meal times will help create a sense of normality and will help keep you and your family from snacking on less healthy foods.

3.Try and cook from scratch more

With more time on your hands, this is a good opportunity to try out new recipes and rely less on convenience foods and take-aways. Check out some delicious and simple recipes from British Dietetic Association and Change4life.

4.Keep healthy snacks around

Being at home all day, can lead to boredom and an increase in snacking. It is ok to snack if you are hungry, but try to ensure you choose healthier snacks where possible, examples include:

• Vegetable sticks with dips, such as hummus or cream cheese
• Mixed nuts/seeds
• Fruit (try to avoid eating dried fruit in between meals, as it is high in sugar and can increase risk of tooth decay)
• Crackers / breadsticks
• Plain yoghurt with fruit
• Hardboiled egg
• Plain popcorn
• Rice cakes
• Half a bagel or slice of toast with low fat cream cheese

5.Consider taking a Vitamin D supplement

Staying home means being indoors for much of the day, which could result in not getting enough Vitamin D from sunshine. Consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D to keep your bones and muscles healthy, including:

• Children
• Pregnant and breastfeeding women
• Older people
• People who may not get enough sunlight such as people who are frail, live in care homes, those that wear clothes that cover up most of their skin when outdoors and people with dark skin, for example, people from African Caribbean or South Asian ethnic background