As I begin to do more work on non-communicable disease prevention (specifically policies needed to bring about environmental change), I grow more obsessed about my diet. Living in Asia and having others cook for me has made it easy to avoid heavily processed food; most of what I eat has been fresh or minimally processed (rice, lentils, bread). Now that I am spending more time in Sri Lanka and cooking for myself, the question arises as to how to prepare healthy foods from fresh ingredients (preferably bought from small vendors rather than supermarkets) in little time. Admittedly I am only cooking for one, but the one-burner stove and many unfamiliar ingredients (fruits and veggies I’ve never seen; coconut vinegar??) can be a challenge. Thus far my main discovery has been the importance of doing food prep when I feel like it, which is usually once a day: cut up fruit, boil or lightly sauté a pile of vegetables; eat some and put the rest in the fridge. Why is this important? One of the reasons that supermarkets, with their aisles of processed food, are replacing traditional markets is that as more women enter the workforce and commutes get ever longer, people have less time to cook. Traditional cooking can indeed be enormously time-consuming, but I am convinced there are shortcuts in terms of time that require no sacrifice of flavour or healthfulness, and I need to learn them to be prepared to counter claims that preparing fresh food is simply unrealistic in today’s world! Of course far more would be possible if we spent less time watching TV and stuck in traffic… Fortunately we have the Slow Food Movement to counter the fast-paced, corporate-controlled world of food lacking in both nutrition and flavour. (As for the physical activity part of the equation, I’m fortunate to be close to the beach and in walking distance from many shops…and will of course continue to work on and write about the need to create better environments for walking and cycling, and for finding fresh, healthy, tasty, nutritious food!)