Healthy eating isn’t about any strict dietary restriction, unrealistically staying thin, and depriving yourself of the foods that you love. Instead, it is about feeling good and having more energy, boosting your mood and improving your overall health. Suppose you feel very overwhelmed by the conflicting diet and nutrition advice, you are not alone. It appears that an expert who informs you about certain food is actually good, and you will find some saying completely the opposite. However, by using these tips, you may cut through this confusion and know how to create—or stick to—the tasty and nutritious diet, which is good for your body and mind.
What’s a healthy diet?
Eating healthy food does not need to be very complicated. Whereas some specific foods and nutrients are shown to have the beneficial effect on your mood, it is your dietary pattern, which is important. Cornerstone of the healthy diet pattern must be replacing the processed food with the real food when possible. Eating healthy food that close to the nature made it will make the huge difference in a way you look, think, as well as feel.
Major food groups
Here are 5 food groups:
- Fruit
- Vegetables and legumes or beans
- Milk, cheese, yoghurt, or alternatives, mainly reduced fat.
- Grain (or cereal) foods, mainly wholegrain or cereal fiber varieties
- Lean meats & poultry, eggs, fish, nuts & seeds, tofu, legumes, and beans
Foods can be grouped together as they offer the same amounts of the important nutrients. For instance, some key nutrients of milk, cheese, yoghurt, and alternatives group will include protein and calcium, whereas fruit group is the source of the good vitamins, particularly vitamin C.
Include these food groups into your diet
It is not very tough to include healthy foods from these five food groups in your meals and snacks. Some suggestions by surveyH include:
- Fruit –It is simple to carry as the snack and can also be included in many meals. For instance, you can try a banana with the breakfast cereal, apple for your morning tea or add a few berries in the yoghurt for your afternoon snack. Having whole fruit is suggested over the fruit juice or dried fruit. The fruit juice has less fibre compared to fresh fruit & both dried fruit and fruit juice, and are concentrated sources of energy and sugar. The dried fruit can stick to teeth that will increase your dental caries risk.
- Vegetables & legumes – The raw and cooked vegetables are used as snack food and as lunch or dinner. The salad vegetables are used as the sandwich filling. The vegetable soup can also make a healthy lunch. Vegetable patties, stir-fries or vegetable curries will make nutritious meals. You can try some raw vegetables such as celery sticks and carrot as your snack ‘on a go’.
- Lean meat, eggs, poultry, fish, nuts, tofu and legumes – These can give protein. It is simple to include the mixture of protein in meals and snacks. Try to add lean meat in your sandwich and have some nuts for a snack. You also can add legumes in stews or soups for your evening meal.
- Milk, cheese and yoghurt – You can try to add yogurt in your breakfast cereal, or you can use cottage cheese as the sandwich filling. The shavings of cheddar or parmesan cheese can also be used in steamed vegetables or salad. Use mainly reduced fat products.
- Bread, rice, cereals, pasta or noodles – You can add pasta, rice, and noodles to your serves of vegetables and protein for a complete meal. There’re many different varieties to try out. Where possible, you can use the wholegrain in cereals and bread.
