Healthy Food: Just Keep It Balanced!

What is healthy food? This is a very hot topic today and the prophets are plenty. I will daringly say that I have the answer! Just keep your diet balanced - not too much or too little of anything. In some cases you should avoid certain products and procure others.

A Healthy Food Diet Includes
- Carbohydrates
- Fats
- Fibres
- Minerals
- Proteins
- Vitamins
- Water

Within these nutrient groups it is recommended to:
- avoid simple carbohydrates such as sugar.
- eat unsaturated fats, avoiding saturated and trans fats. General intake should be limited.
- eat food with fibre to help the digestion.
- eat food that contains all vitamins and minerals needed.
- drink plenty of water but not too much.

Almost all doctors recommend a big portion of fruits and vegetables in your diet.

Agrotoxins And Bacteria
There are other aspects you have to consider as well. The widespread use of agrotoxins is a potential hazard to our health and can cause cancer. Only buying organic food is of course a good solution but at least cleaning raw vegetables and fruit in running water is highly recommended. By washing vegetables and fruit you also remove dirt and bacteria from transport and storage after harvested.

Intake of Meat and Large Fish
Avoiding large quantities of meat is recommended since hormone treatment and stress accumulate poisonous substances in the meat. If you eat meat procure low fat meat since the fat is the "wrong type". Avoiding big fish is simply because their placement in the food chain, being top predator makes their meat contain high levels of hazardous substances like mercury.

Artificial Food Stuffs
Modern food is many times almost pure science and full of artificial substances. Avoiding these is recommended since many are proven to be hazardous and cancerogenic, and others we do not yet know the effects of. Avoid fast food since they it most of the time is very processed. Natural food is healthy food!

Calories In Food
The term calories is referring to energy content in food. We should limit excess intake of food calories since it creates obesity. How much calories should we eat to maintain a certain weight? You can use a so called BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) index to find out, here is how. Note that these calculations are for normal adults:

US
Women: 655 + (4.3 X wt in pounds) + (4.7 X height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: 66 + (6.3 X wt in pounds) + (12.9 X height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)
Metric
Women: 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X height in cm) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X height in cm) - (6.8 x age in years)

According to your level of physical activity you should multiply the rseult from above with:
- Sedentary X 1.2 (no exercise)
- Lightly active X 1.375 (exercixe 1-3 days a week)
- Moderately active X 1.55 (exercise 3-5 days a week)
- Very active X 1.725 (exercice 6-7 days a week)
- Extremely active X 1.9 (elite athlete or very physical job)

The result you get is how many calories a person with a certain weight, height, sex and age should eat to maintain that weight. The type of calories should be those that are from the recommended nutrients mentioned earlier.

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Gillian is a friend of mine and also a newly certified Health Counselor. She has a great monthly blog where you can get great recipes and tips for a healthy lifestyle. Check out Gillians blog by cliking here . In this modern age of junk food getting a few hints and tips can really help, this is a great place for it.


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