If you’re aiming to eat a balanced diet, rich in all of the necessary nutrients for a healthy body, it’s important to know exactly what your body needs in order to work effectively. A balanced diet consists of plenty of fruit and vegetables, starchy foods, protein, dairy products, and small amounts of fat and sugar. While each individual meal doesn’t need to be expertly balanced, if you can gauge your week correctly, you could start benefiting from improving your wellbeing over time.
Fruit and vegetables are packed with vital vitamins and minerals, as well as providing the body with much-needed fibre to help ease digestion and encourage healthy bowel movements. Health experts recommend that we each eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables each day, which can include canned, dried, frozen and juiced – in order to reap the most nutrients, try to eat them raw or lightly cooked as often as possible.
You can add starchy foods into your diet with food such as pasta, bread, rice and potatoes. While carbohydrates are great for providing you with energy and ensuring you feel full without consuming too many calories, they are also a surprising source of vitamins and fibre. Wherever possible, eat wholegrain varieties of noodles, cereals and oats so that you ensure as healthy an option as possible.
Dairy products are necessary to ensure the body has plenty of calcium, as well as protein and vitamins A and B12. You can add these into your diet by eating cheese, yoghurt and by drinking milk. Try to eat around two to three portions of dairy every day, eating low fat options where possible in order to limit consuming excess calories. If you don’t or can’t eat dairy, aim to choose soya, rice or oat drinks which also contain plenty of calcium.
Protein is necessary to build strong and healthy muscle tissue and provide energy to the body. You can include this in your diet by eating foods such as eggs, lean meats, tofu, pulses and nuts. Pulses and lentils are great as they are low in fat but offer the body lean source of protein, vitamins and fibre. Finally, fatty and sugary foods are needed by the body but should be limited in order to stave of health problems and weight gain. The category includes foods such as crisps, oils, pastries and cream.
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