Healthy Eating: Key Principles of a Balanced Diet
Healthy Diet
What is a Healthy Diet?
A good diet is important for our health and can help us feel our best, but what is a good diet? Apart from breast milk as food for babies, no single food contains all the essential nutrients the body needs to stay healthy and work properly. For this reason, our diets should contain a variety of different foods to help us get the wide range of nutrients that our bodies need.
How Much Food Do I Need to Have a Healthy Diet?
A healthy diet should provide us with the right amount of energy (calories or kilojoules) from foods and drinks to maintain energy balance. Energy balance is where the calories taken in from the diet are equal to the calories used by the body. We need these calories to carry out everyday tasks such as walking and moving about, but also for all the functions of the body we may not even think about. Processes like breathing, pumping blood around the body, and thinking also require calories.
So, foods and drinks provide the calories we need to go about our daily lives, but consuming more calories than we need over a period of time will cause weight gain. This is because any extra calories we consume but don’t use will just be stored as fat.
Eating only as many calories as you need will help to maintain a healthy weight. However, the foods and drinks you choose need to be the right ones and in the right proportions to stay healthy. Having this balance in your diet can be achieved by following the Eatwell Guide.
Mediterranean Diet
There isn’t “a” Mediterranean diet. Greeks eat differently from Italians, who eat differently from the French and Spanish. But they share many of the same principles.
- The daily consumption of bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, and other foods made with cereals is recommended.
- Legumes, fruits, and vegetables, foods high in carbohydrate complexes and fiber, have been shown to be efficient health protectors. The consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and dried fruits and nuts is recommended. The regular choice of fresh fruit as a dessert is the best option, which can from time to time be accompanied by something sweeter.
- Eating more fish is associated with a reduction in death through coronary heart disease. Eating more fish than meat is recommended, and it is better to choose “blue fish” for its type of oil (omega-3 fatty acids), with an enhanced effect that protects the heart. Red meat should be consumed in moderation, and as part of varied dishes or as a sandwich filling.
- The consumption of dairy products is important for growth and development at these stages of life. This is why we recommend that they are consumed daily, in the form of milk, cheese, yogurt, and so on, being sure to choose those with a lower fat content. Fermented milk is also recommended as it improves the balance of the intestinal microflora.
Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet
Research has shown that the traditional Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of heart disease. The diet has been associated with a lower level of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol – the “bad” cholesterol that’s more likely to build up deposits in your arteries.
In fact, a meta-analysis of more than 1.5 million healthy adults demonstrated that following a Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality as well as overall mortality.
The Mediterranean diet is also associated with a reduced incidence of cancer and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Women who eat a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil and mixed nuts may have a reduced risk of breast cancer.
For these reasons, most if not all major scientific organizations encourage healthy adults to adapt a style of eating like that of the Mediterranean diet for the prevention of major chronic diseases.