Healthy food is often associated with food that provides nutrients to our body and helps us stay fit. There is nothing wrong in this notion but I believe there is more to healthy food then what meets the eye.

The idea of healthy as of now is only restricted to the one who consumes the food. This concept ignores the health of the place where it comes from. It also ignores the health of the one who produces and delivers the food. It also ignores the overall impact on the health of your planet and finally it also ignores financial health of everyone involved in the entire chain, from production to consumption. So this is my attempt to define or come up with a more comprehensive noting of healthy food.

In order to formulate this definition there are some other aspects of food that needs to be looked at apart from its nutritious content. Such contents that might help in building the idea are local, seasonal, organic and economical. Let me illustrate each aspect and how it implies towards the wholesome meaning of healthy food.

Local food: This is the food that is not only produced but consumed locally. Now the question you may ask is, how is local food healthy? The answer to this is very simple. If you consume food that is produced locally it travels less resulting in less pollution and less commuting also results in less middle men between producer and consumer resulting in fair share for the farmer and good price for the consumer as well. The only difficult part with local food is how can one define local? However, this is a minor challenge to achieve something which is better for the larger good.

Seasonal food: The most significant benefit of seasonal food is that there is no artificial method used to produce such food and the food is at its prime nutritious condition. This means minimum efforts are put to gain the product. More often than not the artificial method used to produce food causes damage to the environment. Seasonal food helps in restricting that negative effect on nature. It also helps in controlling the price hike of a food product as it is in season and readily available. This proposes a win win situation for both producer and consumer. Only challenging aspect one may put against seasonal food is its limited or no availability throughout the year. However, this challenge is blessing in disguise. Since every season has its own produce it also helps the consumer to innovatively use what is available.

Organic food: This category is familiar to most. It is simple, food produced with minimum use of artificial chemical while producing it. The nutritious benefits are not hidden from anyone. As we use less chemical while producing it the final product has less of it resulting in less chemical consumed. This food type as most must be aware is also helpful for the place where it is produced as it uses natural fertility of the soil it does not exploit the soils potential to produce rather it makes the optimum use of the land. So it as beneficial to the land as it is to us.

Economical food: Now this might be a novel concept for many. If some are aware of the idea there is a possibility they do not use the same term for it. Well the idea is simple as food is a necessity it should not be expensive. So the food that is inexpensive not only in production but also consumption falls under the category of economical food. In a way local and seasonal food may suit the bill.

I hope these ideas of different types of food relate to you as healthy food as it does to me. Since healthy is not specific to one but is a broad concept similarly the idea of healthy food should be broad as well. By no means am I suggesting that my idea of healthy food is better than others. It was just an opinion that it is broader that what people look at it like. Please feel free to enhance this definition with your ideas. Also let me know what do you think about this version of healthy food.