Many of us will know or have heard the prayer “Give us this day our daily bread.” In fact, we all need daily sustenance at least once or twice, but better yet, three times a day. Most animals, birds, and fish continuously eat food. Many spend their entire waking hours foraging, hunting, and foraging. Nocturnal creatures, of course, spend the hours of darkness in a similar quest.

Think of the everyday sight of birds, squirrels, and other creatures constantly running, pecking, or scrabbling for food.

Think of us humans. Many seem to spend most of their time eating and snacking or at least thinking about food. Think about the advertising we see. Probably the second most prevalent advertising topic is food and it is in front of us at all times on TV, radio, internet, billboards, newspaper and magazine ads, bus side ads and more.

FOOD, FOOD, FOOD! Is that all we think about?

Food is necessary, good tasting food is a plus, but healthy food is a must to continue living healthily as our bodies were designed to be.

Is it possible to have attractive, tasty and nutritious food all together? Well, of course it is. That’s why we have world-renowned and not-so-famous chefs and food preparers writing a host of cooking guides, cookbooks, and recipe books so we can see and eventually smell and taste these culinary delights.

The bad news is that many times the third dietary criterion, nutritional goodness, is not always met by the delicious sights and smells of what we eat. Are we brave enough to look beyond the first two and focus on the third? So, are we even more courageous to change our diet so that we can have healthy, pleasing to the eye and tasty food?

The good news is that yes, we can have it all, but we must delve into the nutritional value of food before the culinary “value”. They are not mutually exclusive!

Balancing the proportions of nutrients, vitamins and minerals in food has been greatly simplified with the tools of the Internet. I personally use a website called myfitnesspal.com* which I find to be a great way to track my daily intake. It allows me to adjust the proportions of fats, carbohydrates and proteins to fit my dietary goals. It also tracks up to six nutrients at a time and generates reports from which I can easily see trends in my diet.

It is imperative to first determine your caloric intake to match your age, weight, required weight changes (if any), and then find foods that meet those goals. Personally, I haven’t changed much of what I eat, but I have altered how much I eat at each meal and how often I eat something.

A good rule of thumb that has been doing the rounds lately is the ‘rule of thirds’ whereby you separate (physically if you wish) your plate into thirds and make sure you have a third for protein, a third for vegetables (salad) and a third for carbohydrates. It is the size of the plate and the size of the portion (total calories) that will determine if you lose weight, gain weight or maintain weight.

Although we live by having our daily bread, we must look at what that ‘daily bread’ offers us in terms of nutrition and nutritional value. If there is a shortage then we should consider supplementing our real food with readily available nutritional supplements.

Eat your daily bread more wisely, not more abundantly.

Note: * I do not make any profit from the website mentioned above, but I offer it only as a suggested tool to track your food) GO