Posted by admin | Posted in Healthy Eating | Posted on 13-03-2010
Tags: Diet., eating, healthy, tips
There are various things we can do right away that ensure healthy eating and a healthy diet.
In summary a balanced and healthy diet is composed of an assortment of different food types, which includes a considerable amount of fruit and vegetables, and also starchy foods for example brown bread, preferably wholemeal and cereals that are labelled as wholegrain. There should also be the presence of foods that are rich in protein, for example, oily fish, meats, and also dairy products, which also includes certain milk and eggs. Lentils are also known to be rich in protein.
A fundamental component of a healthy eating and a balanced diet is the presence of starchy foods. Specific examples of these types of foods are pasta, rice, cereals, bread – wholegrain is preferable here, and potatoes. These types of foods should at a minimum be a quarter of the amount of food we consume overall, or even better, one-third of food consumed. These foods are an excellent point of supply of energy and the principal point of supply of a variety of nutrients within a diet. Together with starch, these particular foods have a considerable amount of iron, fibre, calcium and Vitamin B.
As many people as possible ideally need to have a goal to increase their consumption of the starchy foods, and this can be achieved by adding a minimum of one extra type of starchy food into one of the three predominant meals in the day. More specifically, breakfast could be a cereal that is of a wholegrain variety, lunch could consist of a sandwich made from brown or wholemeal bread and dinner could contain rice or pasta or perhaps potatoes.
It is a commonly held view that these starchy foods will mean that you will automatically put on weight, but in fact on a closer look they are actually have under half of the calories of fat within them. It is always important to monitor closely the actual fats that are included during cooking and whilst serving foods of this type, if serving to the public then you will need a food hygiene certificate, as at the end of the day it will be the defining factor in whether your calorie consumption increases or not.
Wholegrain foods in particular hold a great deal of nutrients and fibre, and this is certainly higher than when compared to the white counterparts and variations of bread and other starchy foods that have been refined. Wholegrain types of foods will not be broken down as quickly or digested as fast in the stomach.
Consuming a higher amount of fruit and vegetables is a typical piece of advice but it is also one of the most important. The five a day adage is in place because five portions of fruit and vegetables per day is a minimum requirement.
It is a lot easier than you might think to increase the amounts of fruit and vegetable portions you would have in one day.
Some examples include consuming a piece of fruit at breakfast together with a bowl of cereal, or by drinking a glass of fruit juice. Some fruit or a salad with your lunch or by adding vegetables to dinner is also worthwhile.