If like many of us, you find yourself regularly munching down fast food on the go, local dietician Jeanette Ryan of Live Better Nutrition says there are better ways to fuel your body and still keep up with the increasing demands of 2025 .

Here are her four top tips to get you through your action-packed days, without the guilt:

1.  Meal preparation: Spend some time on the weekend cooking meals which will be easy to reheat later in the week. These include spaghetti bolognaise loaded with vegetables, curries and pasta bakes. If making a whole meal is too hard to start with, make some foods that will be easy to grab and go, like boiled eggs, chopped vegetables, pots of yoghurt, fruit and muesli.

•  Meal planning: If meal prepping seems too much in the beginning, start with meal planning. Each week aim to make a list of the meals you will make and shop for the ingredients. Having a plan and the ingredients ready to go makes it less tempting to grab a takeaway or get food delivered.

• Include frozen vegetables: Frozen vegetables can be just as, or even more, nutritious as fresh vegetables. Because they are snap frozen at the time of picking, the vitamins and minerals don’t degrade in the same way that they do in fresh vegetables which travel from the farm to the shop, then home, where they then might sit in the vegetable drawer for a week. Frozen vegetables can also be more affordable and reduce waste because they last well in the freezer.

• Stock up: Fill the fridge and pantry with foods that are easy to grab and make a healthy choice the easy choice. Good staples to have on hand include crispbreads, tins of tuna, pots of rice and quinoa, portioned nuts and seeds and yoghurt tubs.

And if you are a community group, Live Better Nutrition would like to help you you’re your health, wellbeing or community impact goals, by offering a $750 grant to one lucky organisation this year.

Applications opened Monday 31 March via email at [email protected] and close Wednesday 23 April 2025. The application form can also be found on the website: livebetternutrition.com.au

The successful applicant will be announced in early May 2025.

Organisations must be located within the Canberra region and applicants will show how the money will be used to create an impact in their community. Live Better Nutrition will pay up to 5 invoices to a maximum $750 across all transactions.

For further application criteria, please contact Live Better Nutrition via the email above.