Of course when I talk about variety of foods I don’t mean a little McDonald’s, a little KFC and a little Pizza Hut. I mean a good variety of healthy foods: fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, fish, grass-fed meats and water. Nothing more, nothing less (well, except for the occasional exception like the foods I enjoyed at Thanksgiving dinner the other night!).

In terms of ratios of food, we often assume that our modern diets are way too high in fats. In fact, when we compare the ratios of fats, carbs and protein to our hunter-gatherer ancestors’ (the diet we evolved to eat), what we find is that the fat percentages haven’t really changed; we just eat more unhealthy fats now. What has changed is that we eat a lot more carbohydrates and a lot less protein.

Think about it – our modern diets are so full of breads, grains, cereals and sugars that we are just overloaded with carbohydrates. So working on introducing some more protein and a few less carbs into your diet is a great first step to improving your food variety.

But even when you are eating only real foods like our ancestors ate, it is still important to consume variety. So if you want to get all the nutrients your body needs, eat some fish, some grass-fed meats (red and white), some seeds and nuts (not peanuts), plenty of water, and a good variety of fruits and vegetables. Remember that you should eat more serves of vegetables than you do fruits, and you should eat more of both of these than you do meats.

A good trick for ensuring you eat a good variety of fruits and vegetables is to make sure you have a good assortment of colours. Lots of Aussies load up on carrots and potatoes without eating as many leafy green vegetables, capsicums, eggplants or sweetcorn.

So add some variety to your menu – it will not only be better for you but you will add some variety and flavour to your cooking as well.