Time-poor? These 4 steps will improve your diet this week

We are a young family, with a start-up business and a loud one-year-old son screaming for our attention. At times life can be very hectic, but it's full of satisfaction too. Like many of you, we sometimes struggle to maintain a healthy diet while running from one place to the next and being constantly time challenged. What we found is that it can be quite easy to be attracted to junk food and nutritionally poor options. It takes some determination to eat clean. Over the years we learned some tips and tricks about how to incorporate a healthy and balanced diet into a busy lifestyle. First of all, you need a mind shift: Can your busy life help you to to achieve a better diet? We believe so. Here are some tips that might help: 1. Nutrition is a need, not a chore We are always running around, juggling work meetings with personal commitments. We NEED energy. Eating healthy balanced food is the key to keep us performing at our best throughout the day. A good diet is a necessity - as important as shoes when walking out the door. 2. Fresh is the way If you are looking for convenient and healthy food solutions, look no further than fresh fruit and vegetables. Celery and carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, apples, bananas, oranges, peaches, grapes... the list is endless! No preparation needed, it's easy food that's full of vitamins and minerals and will keep you going. 3. Go nuts The importance of incorporating nuts into our diets can't be stressed enough. Nutritional powerhouses full of protein and omegas, they fit perfectly into a pocket. Put down that bag of crisps, pronto. 4. Bulk cooking This is especially true for grains like rice and amaranth and for seeds such as quinoa and buckwheat. Cook the entire bag of these grains and seeds and use what you need for dinner. Save the rest in the fridge for the days to come. For us, doing this meant we had to cook only twice a week in order to get all our healthy lunches sorted! What to do with those grains? Salads! Add a simple vinaigrette (even just olive oil and lemon), or your favourite dressing, throw in some spinach, raisins, nuts, tomatoes, anything you can put your hands on that doesn't need cooking. One last word, which is also at the core of what our business stands for, is the extreme importance of making a healthy diet tasty, inviting and easy to achieve. We believe that's the biggest trick. This is exactly why we designed a pasta made from buckwheat and chickpeas, already full of natural goodness and flavour that doesn't need much else. Sounds interesting? Read the recipe of one of our favourite to-go pasta salads on our blog here. Sabine Hobbel, an athlete and health researcher and her husband Nico Olivieri, an Italian chef share a love of food, fitness and nutrition are our Guest Bloggers this week in the lead up to World Pasta Day. The pair, mum and dad to one-year-old Aidan, run Leaves, a natural food company that produces delicious pasta made from chickpeas and buckwheat.