New Year's Food Resolutions For 2018

If we were in charge of deciding when New Year falls, we’d pick July, when it’s warm, sunny, the days are long and full of motivation, and we just generally look and feel better. Instead, some plonker’s picked freezing, miserable January. Every year we commit to eating healthier, only to give in to the winter blues and Christmas leftovers within a week. We then beat ourselves up about it, before deciding there’s always next year…

via GIPHY

Sound familiar? Well, this year we want to snap you out of this cycle. January isn’t the best time to commit to eating salads day in, day out, but everywhere you look this month you’ll see motivational messages and inspiration to make changes for the better, and we agree that’s a good thing.

So, instead of cutting everything you love out of your diet and adopting a whole new attitude to food on the morning of January 1st when you’re hungover and all you want is a greasy bacon butty, we think your resolutions for 2018 should be all about making changes slowly as you commit to a healthier – and tastier – year ahead. And if you break one of these, don’t beat yourself up about it. Dust the biscuit crumbs off your top and get straight back on the wagon.

For lots of people, learning how to cook new recipes is a big part of adopting a healthier attitude to food. The dishes people tend to get most excited about are those family favourites like dad’s roast potatoes or gran’s lamb stew, but why not make them yours instead?

Ask your family members for their top tips and try to recreate their signature dishes for yourself. Remember, your dad’s not Mary Berry, is he, so if he can do it, so can you! Begin mastering these dishes now, then you’ll be able to eat dad’s roasties any night of the week, not just on Sunday, and in years to come, people will be raving about YOUR roasties.

Committing to a complete diet overhaul in the middle of winter is tough. Instead, pledge to change just one unhealthy eating habit each week. If you quickly get used to the change and feel ready to make more, go for it! But if you feel as though you’re more likely to stick to healthier habits if they don’t all come at once, this could be ideal.

For example, you could start by swapping your usual mid-afternoon chocolate fix for fruit. Then in week two, swap your white bread sandwiches for a wholemeal wrap.

In week three, stop covering your tuna in mayo and mix in some sweetcorn instead. Next week, try brown rice and pasta instead of your usual white. Other swaps to try could be making your own pizza using a tortilla wrap instead of getting a takeaway, or switching carbs for salad with your dinners twice a week.

These little changes will soon add up and you’ll find yourself feeling so much better.

Packets of biscuits are always purchased with excellent intentions in mind; rarely are these stuck to. We know it’s only a small thing, but forcing yourself to put the custard creams back in the cupboard after just having one will mark huge personal growth. If you can achieve that in miserable January, you could be a multi-millionaire by December.

So, you’ve perfected your dad’s signature roasties, but what’s the one dish you pride yourself on and rely on as your go-to when you’re trying to impress?

Make it your mission to decide on this in 2018 and work on perfecting it. Then, whenever a date asks what your signature dish is and you have an answer ready, you’ll be left feeling like Goddess Nigella herself. And if your signature dish is cheese on toast and you happen to make it particularly excellently, that’s absolutely fine. We’re not expecting haute cuisine – although that’s fine too.

Batch cooking is a great habit to get into. Spend an hour that you’d usually spend in front of Netflix making several meals in one go and you’ll have healthy lunches to take to work, dinners in the freezer for those nights when you cannot be bothered and extra meals should you ever have to entertain any unexpected guests. *Shudders at thought*.

Making a big pan of mince with diced onion, herbs and chopped tomatoes is a good place to start with batch cooking. On its own, you’ve got bolognese to stir through spaghetti or top a jacket potato with, but if you take out a third of it and add chilli powder and kidney beans, you’ve also got a tasty chilli con carne to enjoy with rice or taco shells. With the remaining third, add in some beef stock and Worcester sauce for a more smoky, meaty flavour. Add to pie dishes and top with low-fat pastry or mashed potato for cottage pie.

Even though you’ll essentially be eating the same thing every night, it’ll taste totally different, so it’s definitely worth the time and effort.

Think you’ve got international taste buds because you eat fajitas once a week and you can handle a korma? While it’s great that you’re not just sticking to classic British food like fish and chips and bangers and mash, there is quite literally a whole world of other flavours out there to try.

Pledge to treat your taste buds to one new flavour every month throughout 2018. This doesn’t have to be anything exotic. Try adding cardamom instead of cinnamon to your morning porridge and next time you have steak, rub it with za’atar (a seriously yummy Middle Eastern spice mix) before you grill it.

Could this be the hardest habit to break of all?! Remember when food was first and foremost about eating, not Instagramming? It might be hard, but you need to accept that food doesn’t have to look amazing to be extremely tasty. Will posting minced beef in gravy with mashed potato and peas win you more followers? Unlikely. But will it taste sensational? Absolutely. You figure out the rest.

Ok, we lied. THIS is going to be the hardest resolution to keep. Make 2018 the time to come to terms with the fact that you can’t have chocolate milk every day, you can’t really have fish fingers for tea three times a week and those turkey dinosaurs probably aren’t as tasty as some of the things you could be eating.

By all means save them for an occasional treat, but expand your horizons! And we don’t just mean have turkey stars instead. Try soy milk or oat milk on your cereal for a change, or make your own breaded goujons for a slightly more grown-up (and healthier) tea.

Ultimately, take your time in making 2018 a healthier, tastier year, but make yourself commit to at least one of these resolutions each month to set yourself on the right track. You’ll soon be eating food so delicious you won’t be missing your plain food and dinosaur-shaped snacks at all – well, not unmanageably…