Cart Healthy Eating
Most people would agree a well body is one that is free of serious imbalances, excesses, toxins, and dysfunction, and certainly free from degenerative disease. To reach a level of whole health and well being, you need simply to realize that you have the ability to achieve a balanced body and mind. By reviewing your dietary habits and lifestyle honestly and implementing a few simple changes, you can redress the balance.Laying the foundation – the balanced diet
The consensus of medical and nutritional experts around the world is that we should eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, more whole-grain bread, pasta and cereals, lean meat and oily fish and drink more water. All the nutrients we need are to be found in the balanced diet like this. We should eat much less red meat and fatty foods, refined flour and sugar products like cakes and cookies, less white bread, junk food, salt, carbonated and caffeine drinks and alcohol. Golden rules for good nutrition.
OUR BODIES’ BASIC NEEDS:
Carbohydrates
These provide energy and other nutrients. There are two kinds: simple carbohydrates, which are sugars, and complex carbohydrates, which are the starchy foods like grains and vegetables. Although sugars are an excellent source of quick energy, it is much healthier to get most of our energy from complex carbohydrates, since they have few health drawbacks and come in forms that bring lots of other nutrients and benefits.
Fats
These are another good source of energy and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. some fat in the body is essential for maintaining body heat, protecting vital organs, and providing cell wall structure.
Proteins
Necessary for the growth, maintenance, and repair of body tissue, proteins help the building of cells, hormones, and enzymes by providing the amino acids that are the “building blocks” of life. Among meat-eaters and lacto-vegetarians, most proteins in the diet come from animal products, but vegetables contain adequate proteins, too. However, most vegetable proteins don’t contain a full share of the essential amino acids the body needs. (Only eggs contain all eight essential amino acids.) In a goo9d balanced diet, rich in a wide variety of vegetables and whole grains, this is not a problem because each type of food contains a different range of amino acids.
Proteins are an important energy source, but you may need less than you think. Most Americans consume over the recommended level. Too much protein can break down muscle and can create a toxic reaction over time. Serious illnesses may be linked to consuming too much meat – particularly red meat.
Fiber
As well as providing the bulk that facilitates the passage of foods through the system, fiber in sufficient quantities my also help prevent several intestinal problems, including bowel cancer. Derived from plant cell walls, fiber is classified as “insoluble fiber,” which is cellulose, and “soluble fiber,” mainly pectin, which is important in helping reduce blood cholesterol levels and stabilizing blood sugar. A diet rich in fruit, vegetables, and grains will ensure you get adequate fiber.
Vitamins and minerals
There are the substances, required in fairly small amounts (apart from the bone- and tooth-building minerals such as calcium) that are essential for the body’s processes to function correctly. Perhaps because of its obvious correlation with body weight, the one message about healthy diet that has now entered into public consciousness is that high fat intake is bad. Unfortunately, all too often this massage has produced a general fear of fa5t that is not only unnecessary but dangerous. There are several different types of fat and only two are really harmful, while others are not just highly beneficial in moderate quantities, but are also essential for our well-being.
The different types of fat
All the fats and oils we eat are a combination of what are termed “saturated” and “unsaturated” fats. The fat in most foods is a mix, but usually either saturates or unsaturates predominate.
Saturates fats
These are the fats that naturally go hard when left at room temperature. Most animal fats, including those in poultry and dairy products, are predominantly saturated. Saturates are implicated in high blood cholesterol levels, arteriosclerosis, and coronary heart disease. They are considered the type of fat you need to keep firmly in check and even reduce in your diet.
Unsaturated fats
These are generally the fats that are naturally liquid at room temperature. The oils from vegetables, nuts, and seeds are predominantly unsaturated. Unsaturated fats have the effect of reducing the bad (LDL) cholesterol in the blood.
There are two main categories of unsaturated fats: monounsaturated fats, at their highest level in olive, peanut, and canola oils; and polyunsaturated fats, at their highest in corn, sunflower, safflower, and fish oils. Monounsaturated seem doubly health in that they not only help reduce bad cholesterol, but can also help maintain or even boost levels of good (HDL) cholesterol.
Cholesterol
This white, crystalline, organic compound is found in most animal and vegetable tissue and is essential for many metabolic functions. The body makes its own cholesterol and normally regulates levels in the blood, no matter how much we consume. However, it has been established that when the diet is high in both damaged cholesterol and saturated fats, then blood cholesterol levels rise.
Cholesterol is a constituent of lipoproteins, which carry fats in the blood. Los-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL cholesterol), in excess, forms deposits on the artery walls, leading to cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) acts as a scavenger, helping clean the blood of fats and cholesterol. Sex and stress hormones are made from cholesterol.
Trans fat
For decades, people all over the world have been replaicing butter with margarine, believing they were making a healthier choice. Experts still maintain it is essential to keep a tight rein on the intake of saturated fatty acids to avoid the risk of heart disease, and that favoring cooking oils and spreads that are high in monounsaturates and polyunsaturates is much healthier. To complicate matters somewhat, recent research has shown that not all fats, margarines, and spreads made from vegetable oils are necessarily healthier. The reason fro this is the presence of trans fatty acids (often called trans fats), which consist of unsaturated fats, the normalmoleculare shape of which has been altered of hydrogenation, the chemical process that makes oils solid at normal room temperatures. They are called trans fats because they are “transformed” fats.
Many studies have demonstrated that trans fats have the same effect on blood cholesterol levels as saturated fats; they raise the level of LDL cholesterol – the bad cholesterol – and reduce the blood levels of good cholesterol – the HDL cholesterol. Some trans fats do actually occur naturally in dairy products, but these do not have the same potentially harmful properties as the trans fats in hydrogenated oils, and they are not as potentially damaging to your health. Trans fats are found in many packaged foods, such as cookies, crackers, and pastries.
The effects of trans fats are now considered so detrimental to our health that most food manufacturers are seriously reducing eliminating them. Indeed, now an over-increasing number of brands and products are carrying labels: “no trans fats”.
The essential fatty acids
As we have seen, there are fats that are bad for us and fats that are good for us, but some fats are actually vital for the correct functioning of our metabolism. Recent reports from Boston University Medical Center in America claim that a diet very low in fat is not good for your heart. Such diets can lack essential fatty acids (EFAs). Research indicates that those with low levels of EFAs in their blood are also deficient in HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol that protects against heart disease.
The essential fatty acids are almost all to be found in vegetable oils, such as olive and sunflower oils, as well as in the omega-3 oils in oily fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines. These are necessary for a healthy heart and a healthy body.
THE IDEAL BALANCE OF NUTRIENTS IN THE DIET
Nutritionists recommend that we get a minimum of 55 percent of our calories from carbohydrates, up to 15 percent from proteins, and a maximum of 30 percent in the form of fat.
