Food is fuel for the body, but the type of food we eat can dramatically impact our health and the way our bodies function. Some foods give you lasting energy and satiety while other foods can make you lethargic and sick.
Curious about how impactful one meal could be, Kate and Kayla from the Healthy Food Now team decided to test how changing what they ate for lunch affected them. They were especially interested in whether the food changes would influence their energy levels and productivity.
For the first week, they ate lunch at popular fast food chains, ordering whatever the “signature” item was. If you missed it, find out how it went here.
The second week, Kate and Kayla used recipes from the Healthy Food Now site to create healthy lunches. Here’s a recap of their experience:
Week 2
After a week of eating fast food, we were both excited to make Healthy Food Now recipes! Neither of us expected to be as affected by the unhealthy food as we were, and the thought of fresh fruits and vegetables was very enticing. We scrolled through our list of recipes, looking for ones that seemed easy to make (we have a limited kitchen in our office) and had similar ingredients to keep our shopping list short.
We chose to make these recipes: HFN Signature Salad, Sesame Almond Veggie Wrap, Mexicali Salad, Chili Vegetable Burritos, Fruit and Berry Green Salad.
On Monday morning, we started off by heading to the grocery store right around the corner from our office. Instead of going to Whole Foods Market or another speciality store, we chose to go to the local grocery store to see how easy it would be to find all of the ingredients we needed.
It took a lot longer to make healthy meals (even excluding the grocery shopping) than to run out to a fast food restaurant, but we immediately noticed a difference.
Kate: My favorite part of this experiment was making the Healthy Food Now recipes. Even though it was time consuming, getting away from my desk to make lunch was actually really rewarding. It was a nice break from the workday, and every time Kayla and I were putting ingredients together I couldn’t wait to eat everything--the anticipation of eating the finished products made the meals taste that much better, I think. Plus, I felt like a chef--just look how beautiful our meals were! Presentation is everything.
I felt full every day, but unlike the week before the food didn’t sit heavy in my stomach and make me feel gross. I felt energized and ready to take on the rest of the day!
Kayla: There were definitely days I craved a Coke after having one every day for a whole week, but I didn’t get sick at all like I did from the fast food. And although I had to eat more to get satisfied, I didn’t feel gross after eating like I had the previous week. It was great to get up to make the food and move around. It made me appreciate what I was eating a lot more! Spending so much time making healthy food really gets me excited to make the rest of my meals healthier and see how creative I can get with spoofs of the same recipes.
