You Are What You Eat: Why Living in Portugal Can Change Your Health

After living in Portugal for just over three months, I’ve realized something surprising: food, not exercise, supplements, or routines, has been the biggest upgrade to my life. The quality, variety, and freshness here are on another level. Everything tastes better, and I feel better because of it.

For one, the vegetables taste like they should. They’re full of flavor, some of which I’d never even tasted before. Cherry tomatoes taste like candy (they are classified as a fruit, by the way). I’ve found avocados to have far more flavor than the ones I ate back home. A unique discovery has been the purple potato, which tastes a bit like a sweet potato, only better. Another item that’s now on my menu is sardines. The ones in a can are great, but the fried version at local restaurants is unbelievably delicious.

Where Did All the Fast Food Go?

Another wonderful thing about living here is that there aren’t many fast-food joints. Sure, there are a few McDonald’s, Pizza Huts, and others, but they’re mostly tucked away in shopping malls, a good place to keep them. Out of sight, out of mind. What you will find are lots of small, family-owned cafés and coffee shops with pastries. The assortment of styles and types of food makes it hard to choose which restaurant to try next.

I wanted to make a serious life change, and a diet upgrade was one of the first things on my mind. I now cook most everything I eat. Nothing comes out of a box or a bag if I can help it. The food in my fridge is never more than two days old and always fresh. Everything gets cooked in extra-virgin olive oil or steamed. I pour olive oil over salads and even take a tablespoon in the morning to start my day. This wonderful oil adds incredible flavor and is insanely healthy, too.

A nice walk to the local Mercado (market) every couple of days is great exercise, I often take the long way there when I have time. These life changes just weren’t feasible in the U.S., but here they’re simply part of my everyday life.

Why I Suddenly Feel Better Every Day

All that said, I knew the change was making a difference because I felt clear headed and had more energy. I also really enjoyed the taste of meals that were easy to prepare and full of good things for my body. One day, while browsing health websites, I came across an infographic on processed food. It was a real jaw-dropper.

What I found explained exactly why this change felt so dramatic.

Then curiosity got the best of me, so I dug a little deeper with a Google search. Here’s what came up:

• United States: Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) account for approximately 48% of packaged food purchases and 38% of beverage purchases. Overall, nearly 60% of the average American adult’s calories come from ultra-processed foods.

  
  

• Northern/Western Europe: High rates, led by the UK (50.7%), Germany (46.2%), and Ireland (45.9%).

  
  

• Southern Europe: Much lower shares, Portugal (10.2%), Italy (13.4%), and France (14.2%), this is largely due to strong traditional food cultures.

That was all I needed to see, and it explained everything I was feeling. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

Food should come off a tree or out of a garden, not pumped out of a machine.

This single idea now guides almost every food decision I make.

Food is one of my larger expenses and one of the most important. It’s the fuel that makes this guy’s engine run. I don’t want to waste money on things that have been processed just to last longer or scientifically engineered not to spoil. Those little chicken bites shaped like dinosaurs are definitely not on my shopping list, and I don’t even want to know what they’re made of.

I’m all in on food that’s grown in a garden and served in its natural form. I’ve adopted a simple system for how I buy food, which I call “generations before purchase”:

1. Grown, picked, and sold = 3 generations (best).

   This makes up about 80–90% of what I eat.

   
   

2. Grown, picked, cleaned/packaged, and sold = 4 generations (good).

   The remaining 10–20%.

That’s about as far as I go. Occasionally I’ll grab some spaghetti or ravioli and add a jar of sauce, but that happens maybe once a month. And yes, my sweet tooth complains now and then, but the local pastry shops fix that quickly with a little treat called pastel de nata, a small custard tart that is heaven sent.

The Best Lifestyle Decision I’ve Made in Years

This pretty well sums up my shopping and diet. After reading the data and seeing the country comparisons above, I feel more confident than ever in my decision to move and live in Portugal was the right one.

If you’re researching countries to relocate to, this might be an eye-opener, it certainly was for me. Remember I had a few items that were key to me picking a new location:

Good Weather (still winter here) = Draw

Great Food (healthy and delicious) = Winner

Affordability (cut my expenses in half) = Winner

No Political Chaos (as of mid-January 2026) = Winner

What surprised me most wasn’t just that Portugal checked those boxes, but how the “great food” reshaped everything else. My health, my habits, even the way I think about daily life changed once eating well became easy instead of something I had to manage.

That realization turned into something that needed more explanation. So I pulled together the experiences, observations, and quiet lessons that didn’t fit into a single post and shaped them into a short, reflective guide I thought might be helpful.

If this story spoke to you, you may want to continue it here: How Moving to Portugal Changed My Diet… and Me, a personal, practical look at how food, place, and pace can quietly transform the way you live.

Now, all this talk about food has me craving a huge salad. I make mine with three kinds

of lettuce, fresh mushrooms, avocado, shredded carrots, and of course, those amazing cherry tomatoes.

Click here to connect to my How-to-Guide: How Moving to Portugal Changed My Diet… and Me