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Your daily diet needs to be composed of many different foods, which supply a mixture of all the nutrients you need to keep your body working efficiently. In fact, the more variety you can include in your daily food intake, the easier it is to get the full range of nutrients you need: as far as your diet, variety really is the spice of life!
The trick is to get a mixture of all the nutrients you need and in the right proportion, known as a balanced diet. A balanced diet equals a healthy diet, and it’s not that hard to achieve.
Eating a good diet has many positive effects on your health, from reducing your chances of heart disease and cancers to helping you to feel your best.
In order to help you to visualise the proportion and types of foods that are needed to make up a healthy balanced diet, nutritionists have developed a pictorial model called The Balance of Good Health, which is pictured right.
You will see that there are the following groups:
The fruit and vegetable group (green section): these need to form a major part of your diet and make up a good third of your dinner plate.
The starchy foods group (orange section): Your meals need to be based on starchy staple foods such as rice, potatoes and pasta, and it is always good to have the wholegrain variety of these. Again, they need to cover at least a third of your dinner plate.
Dairy foods (blue section): You need 3-4 helpings of dairy foods a day, such as 1/3 pint of milk, a pot of yoghurt and a piece of cheese. One of the important nutrients that this group provides is calcium for bone health. If you can’t eat dairy foods then you will need to find alternative sources of calcium.
Protein foods (pink section): This is where fish fits in, and a portion of fish can count as a protein serving. You need about two servings of protein foods a day. This group also includes meat, nuts, beans and pulses.
Fatty and sugary foods (yellow section):Nutritionists don’t say you have to cut these out altogether, but they should only form a small part of your diet. eating too may of these foods could lead to weight gain and other diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
So if this is the balance for the whole day, what should a balanced meal look like if your having fish?
Well you would have your fish as your protein part of the meal but don’t forget the vegetables and starchy staple! You also need to try and get in at least five different types of fruit and vegetables every day, and potatoes don’t count. Your starchy accompaniment are best if wholegrain, such as brown pasta or rice. The vegetables and wholegrain cereals also provide antioxidants which help protect the vulnerable polyunsaturated fats found in oily fish from oxidation.
Puddings are allowed too a dairy and/or fruit based one will help you get your variety of nutrients you need in the day, for example fruit with ice cream or yoghurt. Or finish your meal with a small piece of cheese with some fresh fruit.
Remember The general advice for fish is to have two portions a week, one of which should be oily. |
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