The general principles
A healthy diet should be able to meet your nutritional needs. That means it will supply what you need and not include undesirables such as excess saturated fat, sugar and additives. A healthy diet has plants at the centre and is largely whole foods that have not undergone processing that can reduce nutrient and fibre content. Here are the main points.
- Your food needs to taste good
- The food you eat should be nutritious – fresh, varied, and where possible, in its whole form
- You shouldn’t have to spend hours preparing your meals
- Healthy and delicious food does not have to be very expensive
- The healthy eating approach should include food that the whole household can eat; that is, it shouldn’t be fad-food, obscure hard-to-get and even harder-to-eat food
- Ideally, meals can be made in larger amounts so you can have leftovers for lunch or put in the freezer for when you have little or no time to cook
About the food
- Use fresh food wherever possible
- Use minimal or no processed and packaged foods
- Focus on natural wholefoods (they are as close their original form as possible – think whole potato versus salt and vinegar chips, lean steak versus devon)
- Limit gluten/wheat products to one meal a day or less
- Ensure you eat adequate protein, but don’t only rely on animal sources (such as beef, lamb, chicken, fish) but rather include legumes (kidney beans, chick peas etc) and nuts and seeds
- Use organic food where that is feasible; if you can only buy a few things organic, always chose organic animal products (meats, dairy) as most toxins are stored in the fat of animals, not in spinach!
- Avoid having large amounts of liquids with your meals
- Try to eat most of your food during the day and have a light(er) meal in the evening
- Enjoy a variety of foods
- No added sugar; be careful with bought sauces, spreads and yoghurts in particular. You might want to have a small amount of berry jam for example, so chose a brand that is ‘fruit-set’ with no added sugar
- Limit alcohol to twice a week and no more than 2 standard drinks at one time (= about 200ml of wine)
- Have healthy snacks on hand at home, in the car, at work
- Avoid canola, vegetable and peanut oil. Use olive, avocado, walnut or coconut oil. A small amount of sesame oil can be added at the end of cooking stir fries for taste
- Use butter or nut butter; avoid margarine
- Have at least 5 serves of vegetables per day – so eat some as snacks and with lunch and don’t try to have them all at the evening meal
- Use lots of herbs (fresh or dried) and spices to add flavour and nutrients without the added fat and sugar of bought sauces
- Have a maximum of 1 serve of ‘deli meat’ per week; this includes ham, smoked salmon and pastrami. Avoid mortadella, devon, chicken slice, tinned ham and any other ‘mystery meat’ where you are not quite sure what it is!
- If you are buying packaged foods, read the food label. Better still, see if you can make it yourself.
- Drink water. Nothing fancy, just plain water. Herbals tisanes are another great choice.
- Crowding out: if all you do is increase your fruit and vegetable intake, you will hopefully reduce your capacity for less healthy processed foods.
- Try to eat most of your food during the day and have a light(er) meal in the evening
- Enjoy a variety of foods
- Avoid burnt foods such as burnt toast and blackened meat (eg overdone on the barbie)
- Avoid rancid fats; these usually smelly a bit acrid and they may have changed colour (e.g.g butter going bright yellow). Nuts that are rancid may be sot and bitter
- Be careful with organ meats as this is where hormones, pesticides and herbicides are often stored. If eating, always buy organic organ meats.
