Making 2017 the Year of Healthy Habits

How are you getting on with your New Years promises to yourself? I didn’t want to mention the “R” word, because we all know that these “R’s” inevitably end up unfulfilled and often leave us with a feeling of regret and disappointment. Let’s not go there this year.

The R word

My best advice for 2017 is to embrace food – wholefood – locally produced preferably. Don’t be afraid. Fats are good for you, in correct format and measure. Calories are life saving measures of energy, not toxic substances. Sugars are entwined in many of the most wholesome of foods you can eat and you shouldn’t be running scared from it when it comes in this form.

When you eat food- mostly from plants, best organic and locally grown and stock up your cupboard with surprisingly inexpensive essentials like wholegrain cereals, dried pulses, nuts, seeds, dried fruits and fine teas you may find that the old “R” word becomes unimportant.

Drying herbs

Ensure that your cosmetics and cleaning products are as natural as your skin will tolerate and let your inner glow flow. Embrace abundant Irish ingredients like wild hedgerow herbs, seaweeds and sustainably grown oils. Take them into your homes. Add them to you foods, your baths and your cleaning regimes. Embrace their restorative and health boosting properties.

Some of these qualities you will know already. The generations before us have handed down many of their key health giving attributes to us and it’s imperative that we continue to utilise as much of natures bounty as possible rather than succumbing to cheap and toxic petroleum bi-products and artificial additives. All IAHS stores will have a local cosmetic producer who will have remained uncompromising in their commitment to using ethical and local ingredients in their products.

Locally grown fresh food

While globalism is a justifiable concern in its corporate form, it has, at other levels, provided opportunities for once down-trodden and impoverished communities to share their local foods in a sustainable way and in a way that can lift them from a dependency on large corporations. The Fairtrade mark has laid the template for this but there are many other marks of sustainability to guide you to good provenance.

When it comes to sourcing the myriad of organic and sustainable global staples and exciting and ever evolving ranges of superfoods, but doing so in a way that ensures the maximum benefit to all the contributors along the supply chain and the least possible cost to the planet, you can rely on independent health stores to ask the necessary questions. To ensure it’s sustainable. To ensure it’s the highest possible quality, trust IAHS health food stores, we care like you do.

Run the Run

So, walk the dogs, cycle the bike, dance the dance, run the run, practice some mindfulness, be nice to yourself and all around you and eat the best wholesome food you can find. Health food stores are a great place to look. Enjoy it a lot in appropriate moderation and not just while the “R” word holds by a thread. Do it always.