Healthy Eating

Healthy Eating

Our body needs a constant supply of energy, which it derives from food and drink, to fuel our life processes. The amount and type of food we eat has a major influence on our healthand a good diet should include the right quantity and balance of foods - essential nutrients like protein, vitamins, carbohydrate, fats and minerals.

Unfortunately, most partake convenient, fatty foods (junk food) in great quantities. Junk foods include potato crisps, French fries, burgers, hotdogs and even pizzas (in short most American take-away foods) and also chocolates, biscuits, lollies, cakes. Foods prepared under unhealthy conditions are also ‘junk’, though they may not be completely devoid of nutrients.

Junk foods add empty calories, is of little nutritional value and too much intake skews our diet, increasing chances of heart diseases and cancer, obesity and weight gain, joint problems etc. Sadly, the intake of junk food is very high among young people and only one out of five eat a healthy, balanced diet.

Most nutritionists recommend:

• Eating a plant based diet rich in green-leafy vegetables, fruits, whole grains,
• Healthy fats like canola and olive oil,
• Low red meat and unhealthy saturated or trans fat consumption,
• Exercise and drinking lots of water to check calories and flush out toxins from our system,
• Cutting back on American staples like potatoes, sugary drinks, refined grains and salty snacks.

In the United Kingdom, the intake of vegetables and fruits, until recently, was very low compared to fat and sugar (potatoes). However, wheat in the form of biscuits and cakes continue to be national favorites while bread and fish proteins promise little on the British menu.