8 Great Tips for a Healthier Diet | You Can Eat Healthy Too!

More and more people across the globe are turning to the internet to inform themselves of the benefits of healthy balanced diets. This concept of eating healthy is vital for:

• those who have medical conditions (coronary heart disease, high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, etc.) that may require them to modify their diet or stick to a prescribed diet, or
• those who are taking particular medications that may interact with certain food types (eg. MAOI’s interact with red wine and cheese, fresh grapefruit can interact with statin medications, etc.).

Also, due to the increasing amount of media coverage on TV and Radio combined with healthy eating campaigns and an increased effort to raise awareness of this concept means that a lot more people are a lot more interested in taking care of their health.

Last but not least, eating healthily will also help prepare you for that special day, whether you are throwing an engagement party you need to look stunning for, or whether its your actual wedding day, everyone can do with learning & implementing these tips to improve or maintain their health.

The tips below are just designed to give you an idea of how you can incorporate healthy eating into your daily diet and to get you firmly on the Healthy Eating bandwagon that everyone around you is joining!

Eat fruit and vegetables as low fat and low calorie snacks instead of eating foods which contain refined sugars and high levels of fats. You should even use fruit and vegetables to bulk out your main meals, as the recommended amount of fresh fruit and vegetables to be consumed daily is five portions. A fresh banana milkshake made with low fat milk or ice cream could constitute one portion of the daily quota, as well as a glass of unsweetened fruit juice.

3 portions of milk and dairy products should be consumed daily (to improve bone & teeth health and maintain essential connections in the body), but use low fat versions where you can because the protein in the dairy products is what is crucially required by the body from these foods, not necessarily the fat content.

One ounce of hard cheese, a 125g portion of yoghurt or about one third of a pint of milk provides one portion of the daily requirement of the body for dairy products.

Lean meat and fish provide the body with the protein it needs, hence two 4 ounce portions of fish, meat or other alternatives (textured vegetable protein, Quorn products which is made from mushroom protein, tofu and beans and pulses) is the basic protein requirement for the day. It is better to cook these foods without any additional oils or fats, thus reducing the cholesterol and fat intake.

Most people don’t realize that 90% of the bodies cholesterol requirement is produced by the body itself, so dietary supplementation needs to be minimal to avoid long term issues such as obesity, coronary conditions, high cholesterol levels, etc.

The amount of sugary snacks and sweets needs to be kept to a minimum. Firstly they provide refined sugars to the body which increases the likelihood of diabetes and cardiovascular conditions occurring in the future. Secondly, the level of sugar they contain provokes a sharp increase in the bloods sugar levels which in turn can cause hyperactivity (particularly in young children) and unstable insulin levels.

So keep the levels of sugary snacks low, substitute with grains and fruit and vegetable snacks instead!

Salt should be used in very small amounts, if any at all. Use seasoning instead of salt! Foods that are rich in salt raise the salt concentration of the blood which in turn increases the resistance of the blood. The increase in resistance causes high blood pressure (hypertension), so use as little salt as possible to reduce the chances of such conditions.

Foods that are rich in starch such as bread, potatoes, breakfast cereals, pasta and rice should make up about half of the main source of your energy intake. At least one starchy food should be included in each meal and starchy foods should form the basis for big snacks. To promote digestive health, fiber containing versions of snacks can be used.

Foods with a high fat content should be consumed in low quantities. This applies especially to saturated fats which are found in spreading fats (such as butter), meat products, fast foods and junk food (such as biscuits and crisps/potato chips).

Whilst it is better to abstain from alcohol completely, if you are going to drink, keep your alcohol consumption to an absolute minimum (no more than 14 units weekly for women & no more than 21 units weekly for men), and ensure your week contains alcohol free days (to allow your liver to recover). Do not save up your units for special occasions, because besides the fact that getting incoherently drunk can be unsafe, the other issue is that this can overload your liver with the toxic by-products of alcohol digestion and prove to be fatal.

Carbohydrates, Proteins & Fats 101 - We always hear about ‘a healthy balanced diet’…but what exactly does that mean? Terms like ‘carbohydrates’, ‘proteins’ and ‘fats’ are used by our Doctors, Pharmacists and other health professionals when they are telling us what types of food are best for us but what roles do these nutrients play in our bodies?..And why do we need to have them in our daily diet?

This article explains it all...