Simple can be difficult. There’s no doubt about it, we have complicated lives these days. We all seem to do so much—and then fill our lives to overflowing with distractions—that we don’t have the time for the truly important things. What is really important in our lives? Surely health must be up there near number 1, as it impacts on our every moment. How did our thinking get so screwed up that we don’t take time to research what will make us healthy and then as a matter of priority, implement that in our lives?

This is the one thing we should get right before bothering about all the rest, yet it’s something that we mostly ignore.

Some of us don’t cook at all. We allow ourselves to eat things prepared by others who surely don’t have our best interests at heart. Others make dishes so complicated and flavoursome that cooking becomes a huge imposition on time, effort and purse. But talk about getting back to simple foods and people think you’re mad.

I’m a great fan of wonderful tasting food, but I also believe that some foods that are probably quite bland by today’s standards should still make up a great part of our diet. Fresh fruit, eaten unadulterated. Vegetables steamed and eaten as is. I’m even a believer in bread and butter. Dense, farmhouse style bread that you make at home with spelt flour then top with the very best quality butter you can find. If you need more flavouring, add a ripe tomato dusted with a little salt and pepper. Or for an even better option, what about Ezekial bread?

Why do we find this so difficult? Steve Jobs said that “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

I’m not here to move mountains. I’m here to move towards vibrant health. And if I can get my eating clean and make it simple, I’m winning the game.

Life is all about balance. Let’s try some word association to prove the point. Night and …? Good and …? Joy and …? Yin and …? Sweet and …? See how the opposites balance each other?

Now for some fun. What if we took the two most opposite dietary stances, veganism and paleo, and put them on the balancing scales? Then if we used the very best concepts from each and applied them to our diets we would have, I believe, a wonderfully balanced diet filled with all the nutrients we need to thrive.

The diet might look something like this: All fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds plus a small amount of the very best grains (think Ezekial bread and quinoa), grassfed beef, organic chicken and free-range eggs.

Many different diets have sustained people throughout the world for millennia. The healthiest diets, whether they include meat or are totally vegetarian, seem to have in common one element—most of the food is natural. We in the so-called civilised world need to ditch a lot of what we’re eating now and get back to basics. We should be aiming for the best quality real food that we can afford.

Not allowed. Don’t eat. Exclude. That’s why diets don’t work. They’re too negative and they take us out of our comfort zone. I believe, rather, that we need a mindset that expands our options, that gives a positive spin on food.

Everybody can benefit greatly from the spirit of inclusion. This is not saying you can’t have. It’s saying, start with these extra foods. Add this to your diet.

I just keep adding good foods to the foods I already eat. Putting cake out on the table now means putting bananas and grapes out as well. Eating a simple salad is made more nutrient dense with chia seeds, pepitas and macadamia nuts or cashews or almonds. I drink a green smoothie made of fruit, leafy vegies and seeds for my ‘first’ breakfast then have something else later if I feel like it. While I’m preparing food I munch on cucumber. I cut about four inches off a cucumber then chop it lengthwise into quarters and crunch away.

This is very liberating. It’s a delicious, expansive way of living. It stops me falling into the trap that I must embrace some kind of diet (ranging from veganism to paleo eating) to be healthy. I don’t have to become a crank who has an ever-limited range of food that is ‘acceptable’. I simply include more. I have more salad vegetables at lunchtime. I always add chia and pepita seeds. Sometimes I make up a quinoa salad as well, sometimes cottage cheese, sometimes haloumi cheese that I pan-fry dry or in a little coconut oil. Sometimes a piece of bread and butter. I still eat chocolate afterwards. At night I cook meat and vegies as normal, but these days I prepare more vegetables.

Losing weight is no longer the issue. Eating more nutritionally is the grand consideration. I don’t need to ban bread, never eat cake again or eschew the delicious crunch of chips. There are so many wonderful vegetables out there (including sea vegetables), so many interesting fruits, seeds and nuts.

And if, horror of all horrors, I put on weight at first, what does it matter? My poor fat, starved body will at last be getting the nutrients to needs to stabilise, to heal and to work properly in my service for a long and healthy life. That’s how it’s happening for me, anyway.