“Early to sleep, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” is an old school rhyme taught to children from the start. But we should ask ourselves, are we having healthy habits? In this busy scheduled world, eating properly and sleeping sufficiently are two things that people feel as luxury.

Health is wealth, but to maintain that health, we need to eat proper diet. A proper balanced diet is that which gives us sufficient amount of carbohydrates, proteins, fiber, vitamins and minerals, which helps boost immunity in us to fight against ailments.

These requirements of carbohydrates, proteins and minerals can be gathered from plant-based products such as vegetables and greens and animal-based products such as dairy products and meat.

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What Exactly Does This Balanced Diet Do To Our Body?

A healthy diet supports energy requirements and provides for individual nourishment exclusive of experience to toxicity or unnecessary weight gain after having extreme amounts.

Appropriately balanced diet along with physical work outs is also said to be vital in lowering health threats such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

Poor nourishment or lack of proper diet is an unrelieved and never – ending problem over and over again linked to poverty, poor understanding and practicing the value of healthy diet, and lacking cleanliness. Encouraging good quality diet helps children develop and nourish.

A balanced diet is a diet based on foods containing starch such as potatoes, bread, rice and pasta, ample of fruit and vegetables, protein filled meat, fish and lentils, milk and dairy foods and a very little amount of fat, salt and sugar.

Balance is the key in getting a healthy diet. That is intake of an extensive assortment of foods in the accurate proportions, and consuming the correct amount of food and drink to attain and preserve in good physical shape the body and weight.

While being healthy, body mass index should be in check, as obesity or fat accumulated in the body because of the all the eating and no physical strain can cause untold ailments mainly those associated with heart, liver and kidney.

How To Choose The Proper Diet?

There are few diet groups to choose from for a balanced diet and this assortment must be taken daily.

Starches or carbohydrates are classified as monosaccharide, disaccharides, or polysaccharides based on the number of sugar units they hold. A large part of foods such as rice, noodles, bread, and other grain-based products come under this category.

Polysaccharides are usually referred to as compound carbohydrates because of their complex branched chains of sugar units which take longer to digest. The sudden increase in blood glucose levels after digestion of starches can be associated with heart and vascular diseases which is more frequent in modern times.

Carbohydrates must occupy one third of our meals and should be taken thrice a day. Simple starches are digested easily and quickly, and as a result elevate blood-sugar levels more hastily than other nutrients. On the other hand, the most essential plant carbohydrate nutrient, starch, differs in its absorption.

Gelatinized starch or a starchy substance heated in water is extremely digestible than raw starch. Substitutes such as Brown wheat, wholegrain or whole meal varieties can be taken to increase fiber intake.

Second part of our meal is fruits and vegetables. Fruits like Oranges, apples, bananas, carrots, peas, tomatoes, kiwi, pineapple, cabbage, broccoli, grapes, lemons, aubergine, courgette etc are high in vitamins and minerals which play major role in our body. These must be a most important part of every meal apart from carbohydrates.

Fruits like oranges, grapes, tomatoes, carrots are rich sources for Vitamin C, Carotenes, Folate or B-Complex, Carbohydrate, and fiber.  Our aim must be to include various fruits and vegetables every day to supply us with a variety of advantageous nutrients.

Whole grains, beans and other legumes, fruits, and vegetables are also fine supply of nutritional fiber which is important for stomach health and is said to reduce the risk of colon cancer and can help to ease both constipation and diarrhea.

Third part of our meal must be of proteins. It is a universal delusion that a vegetarian diet always lacks essential proteins but has been proved wrong.

Proteins are the foundation of many animal body structures. Proteins consist of amino acids in dissimilar proportions. The most significant feature of protein from is its amino acid composition.

Milk and dairy foods and Meat, fish and alternatives like Milk, cheese, yogurt and Beef, lamb, pork, chicken, beans, lentils, eggs and fish etc are rich sources of proteins.

Apart from proteins, these foods are also rich in Calcium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, VitaminB12, Iron, Protein, B vitamins, Zinc, Magnesium, Essential fats.

Vitamins and Minerals:-

The most vital vitamins needed for body are vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, K and folic acid. The crucial minerals needed are calcium, iron, magnesium, selenium, potassium, sodium and zinc.

A healthy balanced diet that includes lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and dairy sources supply us most of these nutrients in abundance. Only note to be considered is if you're a vegan, you may have to be alert and keep a watch on the mineral intake.

Reduce the ingestion of food and drinks that are high in fat and sugar. Fats and sugar are good sources of instant energy for the body, but if eaten too much of them, we devour more energy than we can burn, and this means more weight which leads to obesity, which in turn spikes the risk of type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, heart disease and stroke.

Though sugars are found naturally in foods like fruits and milk, we need not cut down the quantity of it. Only the sugars added for extra flavor and in more quantities like bakery products or fizzy drinks need to be rationed down.

The top foods that are very much suggested for a healthy standard of living are Beef and Pork, Chicken and Turkey, Fish which is rich in protein and Omega-3 fatty acids. Wild salmon, tuna and mackerel are a few of the fish to be considered to have at least once a week.

Flaxseed is a good source of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which is an omega-3 fatty acid. Flaxseed can be ground and added to cereal and salad. Some people also use flaxseed oil for salads as an ingredient for the dressing.

Pumpkin Seeds, Chia Seeds, Whole-Grain Bread And Pasta, Oats, Kidney Beans, Almonds, Walnuts, Tuna, Tofu, Brown Rice, Soy Milk, Carrots, Spinach, Broccoli, Red Bell Peppers, Asparagus, Papaya are few sources of nutrients that can substitute the meat or animal products easily for vegans.