“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.
Also Read Calcium Rich Foods For Bones
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.