Healthy Diet foods

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Healthy diet foods make up a healthy diet. And a healthy diet, also called balanced diet, is one that provides all the necessary nutrients and enough energy required by your body to maintain normal health, a healthy weight, optimal growth and development of physical, mental and emotional aspects of a person.

Our bodies need a variety of nutrients to maintain normal health and a healthy weight. And no single food provides all the nutrients essential for our body. There are different groups of healthy diet foods, and each food group provides different types of nutrients which are all essential for our body.

So let us see what the different goups of healthy diet foods are, what they contain, and why they are good for us.

There are 5 main food groups -

1. Cereals and grains
2. Milk and milk products
3. Meat and Legumes
4. Fruits and vegetables
5. Fats and oils

Cereals and grains - Include grains and products made with grains like bread, pasta, rice, wheat and breakfast cereals. They contain high amounts of carbohydrates. So they are also called 'carbohydrate rich foods'. They are easy to digest and provide energy to keep us going all day and a feeling of fullness (satiety) that keep us from the urge to munch something all day.

Add plenty of these foods to your daily diet. Make it a point to choose whole grain breads, crackers, biscuits, etc rather than refined products made with just white flour.

Milk and milk products - Include cow's milk, goat's milk, milk shakes, cheese, cheddar, feta, yoghurt and steamed puddings made from milk.

They are good sources of calcium and vitamin D needed by our bodies for building strong bones and teeth. If you don't like milk and milk products or you are allergic to them, try to include non-dairy products like soy milk, rice milk, tofu, etc in your diet.

Eggs, Meat and Legumes - Include poultry and poultry products,Veal, lamb, beef, pork, fish, seafood, beans, peas, nuts and seeds.

These food sources have high amounts of proteins. So they are also called 'protein rich foods'. They build muscles in our body, provide immunity against infections, etc. They are very essential for our body and not eating enough of these can cause improper physical and mental growth. Try to include a good amount and variety of these foods like eggs, meat, poultry, beans, legumes, lentils, etc wherever possible.

Fruits and Vegetables include:

• Fruits - Berries, citrus fruits, apples, bananas, pears, melons, yellow fruits like mangoes and papayas, etc.
• Vegetables - Yellow and orange vegetables like pumpkins and carrots, dark green vegetables like peas, green beans, zucchini, and broccoli, and starchy vegetables like potatoes and yam.

Fruits and vegetables are colorful, attractive, juicy, tasty, and easy to digest. Not only that, they are also very healthy. They are very good sources of vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber that are needed in order to keep all the activities in our body running smoothly. These foods can be included in as many servings as you like. Choose a variety of fruits and vegetables every day, as each of them have different nutrients and also variety keeps boredom away.

Fats and oils - include vegetables oils like peanut oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, olive oil, canola oil, and fats like butter, margarine, lard, hydrogenated or solidified oils, etc.

Fats and oils are packed with energy, but it takes a long time to digest them. And if they are not used up for energy, they get stored in our body as fat. Choose vegetable oils rather than animal fats, as vegetable oils are easy to digest compared to animal fats. Also avoid as much as possible hydrogenated fats and solidified oils. These foods are also needed by our body, but not in very large quantities. So do not exclude them completely, but just take them in moderation.

Each of these food groups is important. They all have different kind of nutrients and are beneficial to us in different ways and a healthy diet is one that has all the above 5 food groups in every meal.

Try to include healthy diet foods that have a variety of colors. As a rule of thumb, the more colorful the vegetables are, the wider the variety of nutrients they have. Eating healthy diet foods help maintain normal health and a healthy weight. It also enhances the natural immunity of the body and results in the overall physical, mental and emotional health.

Author - Ruth Courtis
Published - October, 2008

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