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So what is a healthy diet?

So - what is a healthy diet? And why bother? If you haven't already done so, you might like to read the series of short articles under What's happened to our health? You'll see there just what a a difference a healthy diet can make, not only to physical health, but also to mental/emotional health.

You'll read that whole races of people in the past remained incredibly healthy on widely differing diets, provided the foods were natural and unprocessed. The foundation of good health is still the same - i.e. a high proportion of natural and unprocessed foods in the daily diet.

Also you'll read about the damage that many of our modern foods are doing to our physical and mental health. But that's not the end of the story. The body has an amazing ability to restore itself when a healthy internal eco-system is created - and all the nutrients needed for health are supplied.

The aim of a healthy diet isn't simply
to add a few years to your life
but to experience a better quality
of life today and tomorrow.

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More about those proportions:-


10% Fat and sugar. Eat sparingly. Watch out for hidden fats, and foods high in sugar or salt.


15% milk and dairy. Eat in moderation. This group includes milk, yoghurt, and cheese - some of the best sources of calcium.


15% meat, fish, eggs and vegetarian alternatives. Eat in moderation. Ideally you should try to have some protein in every meal. Eat two portions of fish each week (oily fish is particularly rich in essential fatty acids).

Nuts, seeds and pulses are a good source of vegetarian protein but they need to be combined. They too are good sources of essential fatty acids.


20% potatoes, bread and cereal. Eat frequently. Potatoes with their skins left on, and whole grain bread, rice and pasta (especially organic) are high-fibre foods, packed with vitamins, minerals and a lot more besides. White bread, pasta, and flour are little more than health-depleting empty calories.



40% fruit, vegetables, salad. Eat unlimited amounts. Many of us don't get the five portions of fruit and vegetables a day that we need for optimum health. These are rich sources of protective anti-oxidants, vital for the prevention of degenerative disease.

Remember:-

• live, natural yoghurt is a good source of the friendly bacteria, so beneficial to intestinal health.
• salads and raw vegetables are particularly good for intestinal health and the correction of gut dysbiosis.
• Berries are packed with important phytonutrients that quite literally destroy rogue cancer cells
• fish, seeds and leafy green vegetables are good sources of essential fatty acids - so beneficial to the brain and nervous system - to the health of the heart - and for the prevention of cancer.
• whole grains, seeds, vegetables, and fruit are high-fibre foods, rich in vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids.
  
  

Cut down/out:-

• excessive saturated fat
• hydrogenated or processed fats
• refined carbohydrates (e.g.white flour, sugar)
• salt, coffee, tea
• alcohol, cigarettes

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Do I need to be a good cook?


Not at all! In fact breakfast can be the easiest meal at which to begin to make valuable improvements to your diet. For really simple, highly nutritious meal-in-a-glass try a berry smoothie.

Make your own muesli. It takes only a few minutes, once a week or even once a fortnight, to throw together the dry ingredients in an airtight container . Then - each morning, simply add milk, yoghurt or fruit juice to make a highly nutritious breakfast, rich in vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, which will satisfy the appetite for far longer than sugar-coated or refined breakfast cereals.

Also - since the more fresh fruit and salads, the healthier the diet, all the skill you will need is the ability to wash, chop and arrange the ingredients. And it's difficult to go wrong with a baked potato!

So - you can do as much or as little cooking as you like - and it doesn't have to be difficult. Quinoa takes only 15 minutes to cook. Whole grain rice doesn't stick together the way that white rice does, and both quinoa and rice are even easier if you cook them in a porringer or bain-marie.

If you can also invest in a slow cooker, you can prepare simple delicious casseroles very quickly, well in advance, then leave them to cook safely with nothing to go wrong.

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Isn't it a lot of work?


It doesn't have to be. For a really fast, highly nutritious meal-in-a-glass try a berry smoothie.

Quinoa is delicious and particularly nutritious. It takes only 15 minutes to produce three to four times its own weight of light fluffy grains. Unusually high in protein, yet it's very easy to digest.

Planning is the key to a diet that will provide the energy to live life to the full, rather than tying you to the kitchen stove. At first it may seem rather a lot of trouble to have to think about new menus and recipes, but soon they will become familiar. To begin with, searching for unfamiliar ingredients may all seem rather confusing, but before long they will become just a normal part of the weekly shopping.

Though rice, lentils or beans involve more work than ready-meals, it takes no longer to cook larger quantities than needed, and then to freeze the extra. Separate them partway through the freezing process, and they can easily be reheated straight from frozen. Even without a freezer such freshly cooked foods will keep safely in the fridge for two or three days.

Why spend hours producing a gâteau or a rich desert, when you can have a fresh fruit salad or a delicious junket desert ready in minutes? Wholemeal fruit cakes are particularly simple to prepare - and the results are very consistent. You just throw all the ingredients in a bowl, mix them together, then pop the cake into the oven.

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Is healthy food expensive?

Not necessarily! A healthy diet need not be as expensive as you might think. Whole grain rice may cost more than the white variety, but it's so satisfying that less needs to be eaten - so it goes much further. Quinoa, too, works out very inexpensive when you consider how packed with nutrients it is. Wholemeal bread and pasta can actually reduce the craving for food that their white counterpart can actually cause, and so you need to eat less.

Bean sprouts are one of the cheapest and most nutritious foods of all. A handful of beans or green lentils will produce a surprisingly large amount of a useful ingredient for salads or stir-fries. See recipes.

Pulses such as lentils are excellent value. Experiment with herbs and spices to create the delicious dishes which used to feed large families very cheaply. This means that expensive cuts of meat don't need to be eaten every day. In fact, eaten too often, meat isn't good for health. Sardines, kippers, and mackerel, rich in essential fatty acids, are really cheap and particularly healthy.

Vegetable proteins are much less expensive than meat. It's important to remember, however, that pulses need to be combined in the same meal with cereals and dairy produce in order to provide a complete protein. Many traditional vegetarian recipes have evolved in order to provide adequate protein.

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