The components of a healthy diet

To function optimally, the body requires a large range of different nutrients. The aim of a good, healthy diet is to provide the body with these nutrients and fuel it so that vital functions and energy systems and the immune system can perform their tasks under any circumstances. Each different nutrient that exists in your diet has a unique role to play in the body yet interacts with all the other nutrients. If any particular nutrient is lacking in the diet, it means that essential function in the body will under-perform. But the essential nutrients – carbohydrates, fats, protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals – and water as a whole the body quickly slows down, and this is where some of the fashionable diets that advocate omitting certain food groups from the diet fall down. With the demands of modern life, eating a healthy, balanced diet couldn’t be more important.

Carbohydrates

The main function of carbohydrates is to provide the body with a source of energy or fuel. The body breaks them down into glucose, which it uses as an energy supply. Carbohydrates are particularly important as an energy source for the brain. These are divided into simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates, which are made up of starches and dietary fibre.

Simple carbohydrates

These are made up of units, or molecules, of sugar and in most cases sweet in taste. These sugars come from fruit, milk and sucrose, or table sugar (cane, sugar beet). Sucrose is added to foods such as ice cream, chocolate and cakes, and also to most carbonated soft drinks. Simple carbohydrates provide you with quick-release which means that your body can break them down faster. This is why you experience a quick energy burst after foods with a high simple carbohydrate, or sugar consumption. These foods are also classified as high glycaemic.

Complex carbohydrates

These consist of starches and dietary fibre. They have a more complicated structure than simple carbohydrates and, as a result, the body takes longer to break them down. That is why you won’t experience a sudden burst of energy after eating them. Instead, the energy release is slower and longer lasting. Sources of complex carbohydrates include grains, grain products such as bread and pasta; fruit, vegetables, beans and dairy products. Within starches, there is a distinction between ‘heavy’ carbohydrates such as white bread, white rice, white pasta and potatoes, and ‘light’ carbohydrates such as wholemeal bread, brown or wild rice, vegetables, pulses and grains. Heavy carbohydrates either have a high glycaemic value and so cause the body to produce high levels of insulin, or they are more difficult for the body to digest and slow the digestive process. Dietary fibre is also classified as a carbohydrate. It comes from the structural part of plants, and the body can’t digest it. Dietary fibre enables the passage of digestible foods through the small intestines and so helps to avoid problems such as constipation in this area. Good sources of dietary fibre include vegetables, fruit, pulses and wholegrains.


Regularly eat these foods and make them the mainstay of your diet. Fruit and vegetables all varieties and in particular fibrous fruits such as apples and pears. Different coloured vegetables of all varieties and lots of leafy green vegetables. Grains, such as barley, whole wheat, maize, corn, buckwheat, oats, wild or brown rice. Beans and pulses the bean family is a highly nutritious group of foods that are an excellent source of complex carbohydrate, dietary fibre and protein. In addition to this beans are an good source of B vitamins, and minerals such as calcium, potassium and iron, such as soya beans, broad beans, chick peas, kidney beans and lentils.

Fats

In many ways people in the west have become obsessed with fat. Very often when you want to lose weight or eat more healthily, you attempt to eliminate all fat from your diet. Fact, if you consider some of the healthiest diets in the world, the Mediterranean diet, for example, they are actually quite high in fat. This is because fats can be conveniently divided into good fats and bad fats. Good fats are essential to the body because they assist in both energy production and immune function; they also improve skin and hair condition. Bad fats are of no benefit to the body.

Good fats

The good fats are the unsaturated fats; polyunsaturated oils and fats and the monounsaturated oils and fats. Generally these fats are liquid at room temperature, and if not stored correctly, can go off quickly due to their relative chemical sensitivity. The body needs these fats as a source of energy and also to help it extract energy from other food sources. These fats are found in olive oil, nuts, eggs, linseed oil, sunflower seeds, and oily fish such as mackerel, fresh tuna, salmon and sardines. Good fats help energy production and speed up the metabolism. They strengthen the immune system, assist transportation of vitamins, help purify the blood and helps fight against heart disease, cancer, arthritis and other joint problems.

Bad fats

Bad fats are saturated fats. Generally, these are hard or solid at room temperature. They are often used in processed foods. These fats offer no real benefit to the body at all and increase the levels of LDL’s (low density lipoproteins) in the body. Bad fats can cause furring of the arteries (just like water deposits in pipes) and thicken the blood, which contributes to high blood pressure and increases the risk of heart attack. These fats come from fatty meat, butter, hard margarine, cheese, pastries. Bad fats slow down the metabolism, encourage the builing of cholesterol in the body, thicken the density of the blood and are linked with high blood pressure and heart disease.

Visible and invisible fats

Fats come in two other forms: visible fats and invisible. Visible fats are the ones that you can see, such as butter, margarine, and the fat on meat. Invisible fats are the fats that slip into the diet without your knowing, such as fats in biscuits, cakes, processed snack foods, nuts, cheese and other dairy or animal products. All of these fats can be broken down into good and bad fats; its just knowing which foods contain which type.

Hydrogenated fats

Many of the margarines available contain oils that have been hydrogenated – treated to turn a liquid fat into a hard fat. This hydrogenation process changes the chemical structure of good fats so that they have more of the charachteristics of bad fats. For this reason, no matter what the base oil, we would classify this a bad fat. These fats are fine in small amounts, but go carefully because so many of them are hidden in processed foods. When making your choice of margarines and spreads, look for those labelled "no hydrogenated fats".

Trimming the fat

Eat less of the following:

• Butter; hard margarine and other solid spreading fats (check label: avoid products containing animal fat, hydrogenated vegetable oil, palm oil, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil)
• Deep-fried foods
• Fatty meats and processed meat products (e.g. sausages, burgers, meat pies)
• Pastry dishes
• Cakes, biscuits, puddings
• Chocolate
• Cheese

(These foods are high in saturated and/or trans fatty acids (worst kind of fats) but relatively low in other essential nutrients)

Make the following substitutions:

• Semi-skimmed or skimmed milk instead of full-fat milk
• Low-fat spread or peanut butter instead of butter or margarine
• Low fat cheese (cottage,quark) instead of ordinary cheese
• Jacket or boiled potatoes instead of chips
• Chicken, fish, or lean meat instead of fatty meat, burgers and sausages
• Crackers, rice cakes or fruit bars instead of biscuits and cakes
• Fresh fruit instead of chocolate

(These foods provide some fat together with other essential nutrients)

Make the following changes:

• Limit frying to stir frying with modest amounts of pure vegetable oil (e.g. olive oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil) instead of butter
• Top baked potatoes with a nutritious filling
• Remove skin from chicken or turkey
• Grill, bake, stir fry, or boil instead of frying
• Choose lean cuts of meat and trim off as much fat as possible

(These will reduce your fat intake while supplying other essential nutrients)

Healthy Snacks

If you feel hungry between meals, here are some suggestions on what to eat. These snacks are designed to provide balanced amounts of carbohydrates, protein and healthy fat.

• Wholemeal sandwiches, rolls, toast, bagels with healthy fillings (e.g. cottage cheese, tuna, chicken, peanut butter)
• Wholemeal English muffins, fruit buns, scones with olive oil spread
• Smoothies (home or ready made) made with crushed fruit and yoghurt
• Oat/scotch/homemade pancakes
• Oatcakes and rice cakes with healthy toppings (e.g. peanut butter, avocado)
• Baked beans on wholemeal toast
• Fresh fruit
• Dried fruit and nuts
• Low fat yoghurt and fromage frais

Protein

Protein is the building block of the body. The continuos building, growth and repair that goes on in the body is all down to protein and the amino acids that make it up. Without protein in the diet, the body cannot look after itself therefore maintenance slows down. Excess protein in the diet can also be used as energy, but should never be used as the main energy source, as in high-protein diets.

Meat is a good source of protein, but it is also possible to get protein from non-meat sources. These also tend to be low in saturated fat (cheese is the exception) and include nuts, seeds, eggs (preferably free range), soya, tofu, quorn, beans, pulses and cheese. If you do not eat meat, it is important to have as wide a variety of proteins as possible because there are not many non-meat sources that contain all the essential amino acids. Therefore, eat as many different sources as you can so that your body receives what it needs to function optimally.

Functions of protein

The amino acids gained from your diet, alongside those which the body is able to make for itself, are finally used to build many different proteins. These proteins in turn fulfil many functions, ranging from helping to transport important substances in the blood, to allowing growth and repair and are the tissue builders of the body. Protein is particularly important to aid recovery after heavy and intensive training.

Recommended protein intake requirements

There are no protein stores in the body, unlike carbohydrates and fat stores. All body protein is functional, therefore the body must ingest enough protein to meet its needs. Protein intake should be 10-15% of total energy intake; ie, 70-100g per day (or 1g for every kilogram of bodyweight. However this should increase in times of illness, growth, tissue repair, during pregnancy or training for performance. Many elite athletes increase their protein intake with supplements of amino acids but to date there is no evidence to prove that taking supplements enhances performance.

Minerals

The minerals your body requires for good health can be readily obtained from a balanced diet. Minerals are important for the maintenance and growth of healthy bones and teeth; the transport of nutrients to and within cells; and controlling the composition of body fluids. They also work as catalysts for enzymes in the production of energy within the body and maintain a healthy blood profile quality. The following are considered to be essential minerals that are important for good health. Try to eat the mineral-rich foods listed here as a regular part of your diet:

• Calcium: forms teeth and bones, helps blood clotting; good sources: milk, cheese, dark green vegetables, pulses
• Chloride: transports nutrients; good sources: most vegetables
• Copper: helps the production of haemogloboin, improves blood quality and condition of skin and hair; good sources: liver, fish, nuts, mushrooms, prunes
• Chromium: regulates insulin production and metabolism; good sources: pulses, wholegrains, meats,
• Iron: forms red blood cells and healthy blood; good sources: wholegrains, pulses, leafy dark green vegetables, dried fruit, oily fish, red meat
• Magnesium: forms body tissues and bone; good sources: pulses, leafy dark green vegetables, fish, seeds, nuts, cocoa
• Phosphurus: forms teeth and bones, maintains pH balance of blood; good sources: fish, poultry, cheese, eggs, yoghurt
• Potassium: regulates blood pressure, nerve and muscle function; good sources: juices, fruit, nuts, pulses, vegetables, red wine
• Selenium: important for antioxidant enzymes made in the body; good sources: nuts, seaweed, fish, wholegrains, meat
• Sodium: regulates body water balance, nerve function; good sources: common salt, wholemeal bread
• Zinc: promotes healthy nerves, brain tissue, immune system; good sources: meat, liver, eggs, beans, pumpkin seeds

Vitamins

Your body needs vitamins to regulate bodily functions, maintain bones, skin, blood and nerves and keep it strong. Try to include as many as possible of the following vitamins by including the foods in your diet. The chart below tells you the function in the body and good sources for each vitamin.

• Vitamin A: essential for good eyesight, healthy skin and body tissue; good sources: leafy dark green vegetables, cheese, fish, liver
• Vitamin B: essential for energy production, detoxifying alcohol, the metabolism of amino acids, healthy red blood cells and nerve function; good sources: meat, wheatgerm, eggs, peanuts
• Vitamin C: necessary for the maintenance of healthy connective tissue, assists immune function, effective antioxidant, aids body repair; good sources: citrus fruit, tomatoes, green peppers, leafy dark vegetables, strawberries
• Vitamin D: helps maintain bones; assists calcium supply in the blood; good sources: dairy products, cod liver oil, oily fish, eggs
• Vitamin E: strong anti-oxidant in the body, maintains health of skin, may help to slow the ageing process; good sources: leafy dark vegetables, seeds, nuts, avocados (smaller amounts in cereals, fruit, meat)
• Vitamin K: essential blood clotting function; good sources: leafy dark green vegetables, cereals, meat, yoghurt, eggs.

Snacks for eating on the run

• Wholemeal sandwiches/rolls/pitta/bagels (filled with cottage cheese /peanut butter/banana/salad/honey/marmite/tuna/chicken/turkey/ham.
• Low fat yoghurt and fromage frais
• Fresh fruit (e.g. apples, bananas, nectarines, grapes)
• Dried fruit and cereal bars
• Fruit juice or diluted
• Nuts and dried fruit mixtures
• Rice cakes, crackers, breakfast cereal

If you have to buy takeaways and ready made snacks, choose sandwiches with low fat fillings, jacket potatoes (with baked beans /cottage cheese /chicken/fish), pizza slices (with vegetable based topping, pasta and rice salads. Never skip meals altogether or leave long gaps without food. This will result in low blood sugar levels, poor glycogen (carbohydrate the bodies primary fuel source is broken down and stored as glycogen in muscles and liver, and its purpose is maintain blood glucose levels at rest and during exercise) replenishment, a lower nutrient intake and greater lethargy.

A healthy diet doesn’t need to be expensive if you make a few changes to your shopping and eating habits. Many of the most nutritious foods are inexpensive and readily available: potatoes, pasta, oats, rice, and other cereal grains (e.g. bulgar wheat, cous cous, millet), pulses (beans, butter beans, chick peas, lentils) and milk.

• Buy fruit and vegetables in season; either look for the number of special offers in stores or buy from market stalls.
• Avoid ready prepared meals and ‘convenience’ products – they may seem to save you time, but it would be cheaper and just as easy to make large amounts of the same dish and freeze the remainder.
• High protein foods from plants (pulses, cereals, nuts, soya products) are less expensive than those from animals (meat, poultry, fish, eggs) for example risotto with beans instead of chicken.
• If you feel hunger pangs, fill up on inexpensive, nutritious foods like wholemeal bread, toast and fruit instead of less nutritious snacks, such as chocolate bars, crisps and cakes.
• Buy the larger packs of breakfast cereals (e.g. shredded wheat, porridge, weetabix, shreddies), frozen fish, poultry, wholegrain pasta and rice and dairy products as these can generally work out cheaper.

Healthy meals can be very quick and easy to prepare. Some require no or very little cooking. Here are a few tips:

• Make larger quantities than you need of soups, casseroles, potatoes, pasta, rice etc. Cover up and keep the remainder in the fridge or freezer. Before eating, add extra ingredients such as beans, poultry, veg or sauce as toppings or fillings.
• Make a large bowl of vegetables or fruit salad, enough to last 2 –3 days and just keep in the fridge so that there is an instant supply.
• Foods that can be made in 10 minutes or less, baked beans or spaghetti on toast, tinned tomatoes and cheese; sandwiches and pitta; pasta with tomato/vegetable sauce; eggs or cheese on toast; baked potato with beans/cheese/tuna.

Sandwich box ideas

Bread

Cut thick slices from any of the following breads:
Multi grain, rye, sourdough, herb, Italian bread with olives, sundried tomatoes or onions, Spanish bread with sunflower seeds, baguettes, ciabatta, country style bread.

Fillings

Any combination of the following:

• Low fat soft cheese, dates and walnuts
• Hummous, lettuce and onion slices
• Peanut butter and banana
• Turkey and cranberry sauce
• Cottage cheese and dried/fresh apricots
• Salmon, watercress and low calorie dressing
• Ham, pears and lettuce
• Sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella and green salad leaves
• Tuna, red kidney beans and Tabasco
• Chopped chicken, sweet corn, onion and fromage frais
• Reduced fat hard cheese and pineapple
• Egg, lettuce, red pepper and low calorie salad dressing Grated carrot, raisins and cashews.

Lifestyle Changes

Lifestyle	Suggestion
Not enough time to prepare healthy meals	Plan meals in advance, make meals in bulk and refrigerate / freeze portions. Cook baked potatoes, pasta and rice in larger quantities and save
Work shifts	Plan regular snack breaks and take own food with you
Work involves lots of travelling	Take portable snacks (e.g. rolls, fruit, nuts, energy bars, muffins, dried fruit, diluted fruit juice)
Need to cook for rest of the family	Adapt favourite family meals (e.g. spaghetti Bolognese) to contain less fat, more carbohydrate and fibre (e.g. leaner mince, more vegetables, wholemeal pasta)
Overeat when stressed	Look into taking up a sport/hobby/ leisure interest
Eat out frequently	Choose lower fat meals in restaurants (e.g. pasta with vegetable sauces, chicken tikka with chappati, stir fried vegetables with rice)

And Finally!

The golden rules of healthy eating

1. When you get up – Start the day with a breakfast based around complex carbohydrates. These are the carbohydrates that release their energy slowly. Also, complex carbohydrates of the low glycaemic index variety help to regulate your blood sugar levels, which will prevent hunger pangs and stop your body storing fat reserves unnecessarily. Good foods to get your day off to an ideal start are whole-grain breakfast cereals, porridge, wholemeal toast and fruit.
2. Morning Snacks – Snacking during the day is fine as long as you side step the biscuits and opt for healthier snacks, such as fruit, plain nuts, yoghurts or cottage cheese. These are fairly low in calories and will keep your energy topped up, as well as providing some valuable protein for use during your workout.
3. Evening meal – This is the easiest time to pile on the calories, so try to keep your portions small, avoid creamy sauces or huge piles of starchy carbohydrates such as pasta and potatoes, and stock up on vegetables. If you cook your own meals from scratch using fresh ingredients you’ll have a far better chance of avoiding unwanted calories than if you rely on takeaways and ready meals. Also wait 20 minutes after your meal before deciding on pudding. It takes that long for your brain to register that your stomach is full, and by then you might not feel hungry anymore.
4. Eat five or six small meals a day – Most of us have been brought up on the concept of three square meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, this throws the metabolism into disarray because you stuff yourself with food, creating an energy overload, followed by starving yourself until the next meal. Your insulin levels bounce up and down as your body tries to stabilise your blood sugar, and the result is that you store more fat than you actually need to.
   A better method is to eat small meals throughout the day. That way you get a constant drip-feed of energy, your blood sugar levels remain stable, and you never get hungry.
5. Balance calories in with calories out – Very simple, to lose weight you need to burn more calories through activity than you take in through food.
6. Make fat only 25% of your diet – As we’ve just seen its calories that count when it comes to controlling your body fat. However, dietary fat contains 9 calories per gram compared with carbohydrates and protein, which contain just 4 calories per gram. Basically, fatty foods are more than twice as calorific as other foods for the same sized meals, so it makes sense to limit your fat intake. What’s more, the wrong kinds of fat can clog up arteries, making heart attacks more likely later in life. Try to steer clear of trans fats and keep saturated, found mainly in red meats and dairy foods, to a minimum. Instead go for ‘healthy fats’, such as the kind found in fish, nuts and olive oil. These are actually good for your heart if taken in small doses.
7. Eat 30g of fibre every day – Amazing stuff, fibre, and not just because it makes your bowels as regular as a Swiss watch. Fibre helps to lower insulin levels in your body, which decrease fat absorption. It also absorbs water and swells up in your stomach, making you feel fuller and less tempted by the sticky toffee pudding for afters. Good sources of fibre are oat-based cereals, beans and pulses.
8. Veg out – Vegetables are the one food you can eat as much of as you like all the time. They provide stacks of vitamins with minimum calories. Vegetables make great snack foods eaten raw, carrots, celery etc – and can provide the mainstay of bigger meals when steamed, grilled or fried. To get the most out of veg, cook them quickly and eat them crunchy before they lose their nutrients. Five portions a day is minimum – nine would be better.
9. Drink green tea – It’s been proven to aid weight loss, thanks to a combination of caffeine and phytochemical catechins, which help speed up your metabolism. Four cups a day can help you burn and extra 60 calories without even having to break a sweat.
10. Drink lots of water – There are hundreds of reasons for drinking water – you’d be dead without it being number one on the list – but its vital for maintaining a healthy weight. If you don’t drink enough water kidneys don’t function properly, and they pass some of the waste-filtration responsibilities on to the liver, which is then required to give up some of its fat-metabolising duties. The result is that you hang on to more stored fat than you would if you glugged down water on a regular basis. Drink water, lose fat – again really simple.
11. Finally……. Ditch the junk food – Have you noticed all the adverts on tv for fresh broccoli? NO? that’s because there aren’t any. Bloated corporations have no interest in selling you fresh food, only heavily branded, pre-packaged slop created using the cheapest ingredients and made to taste palatable by stuffing them with fat, salt and sugar. Most junk food is heavy in calories and light on nutrition. By junk we’re talking burgers, crisps, ready meals, anything in a delicious crispy coating, anything formed into unnatural shapes (stand up chicken nuggets), anything containing hydrogenated vegetable oils, and anything wrapped in pastry where you can’t identify the grisly substance inside.

Buy fresh and get cooking!!!!!!!!!