To be able to eat healthy, you need to understand what the body needs to stay healthy and functional. Your body needs food for three main reasons. Firstly as fuel, to keep us warm and supply the energy we need to stay alive and to move about and work. Secondly, food supplies the necessary materials for growth and to repair worn tissues. Thirdly we need vitamins, minerals and other substances that are necessary for the chemical processes that take place inside our bodies. The energy supplied by food is measured as kilojoules. Two-thirds of this energy is used to maintain our normal body temperature, the normal tone of our muscles and to keep our heart and other vital organs functional and healthy.
Food Intake
Even when we stay in bed all day we will still need about two-thirds of our normal food intake to maintain our metabolic systems. Normal activities such as getting dressed, eating, walking, working and playing requires about 3350 kilojoules. A housewife uses about 9200 kilojoules to perform her basic household tasks. The harder we work and the more we move about the more kilojoules we use up. Whatever kilojoules we use up in our daily activities, is supplied by food, but if we consume more kilojoules / food than the body needs you will gain mass. The aim of Eating Healthy is to get the balance right.
If you are NOT currently eating healthy, it can be difficult to start such a plan. IF you truly want to live the best lifestyle possible, then it is important for you to follow these tips to start eating more healthy. Firstly, rid your home of all foods that do not fall into the healthy categories. Keep junk foods and beverages out of your house, so that you will not be tempted.
Healthy Snacks
Keep healthy snacks like carrot sticks, yogurt, fresh fruit, or whole-wheat crackers on hand. In case you cannot bear to toss out the sweets, try keeping something on hand, like chocolate chips. Eating a few of these won’t ruin your diet but also will give you that little sugary fix you rave. Secondly, take a few moments to learn about what foods are the healthiest for you and how they work in the body. Most people understand what fruits, vegetables, and low-fat means and that dairy products are good for you, but few people understand why.
What Does Vitamins and Nutrients Mean? Vitamins and Nutrients nourishes the body. They consist of micro- and macro-nutrients which is essential for good health and is consumed in small amounts. These are absorbed by the body unchanged and have catalytic functions. Vitamins are classified as fat-soluble (A, D, E and K) or water-soluble (B and C). The former and vit.
B12 tend to be stored in the body. Many elements present in food are essential for health such as calcium, phosphorus and potassium. Others termed trace-elements are iron, zinc and iodine. Carbohydrates, fats and proteins are macro-nutrients and when digested turns into glucose, fatty acids, peptides and amino acids.
Macro Nutrients
Macro-nutrients are interchangeable sources of energy. If sufficient non-protein calories are not available, the body cannot produce proteins for tissue maintenance. Tissue replacements and growth does not occur and considerable more dietary proteins is required for positive nitrogen balance. The polyunsaturated fatty acids are termed essential fatty acids (EFA) and must be included in your diet. The EFA and B6 is crucial in the functions of the metabolism. Fiber mainly a complex mixture of indigestible carbohydrate material is a natural and much neglected component of the normal diet. Fiber components act in various ways for instance, prevention of constipation.
Many intestinal diseases ie: colon cancer, Crohn’s disease, obesity, varicose veins and hemorrhoids are associated with the lack of fiber in the diet. Fruit and vegetables rich in pectins reduce plasma cholesterol by enhancing hepatic cholesterol, to bile acids and reduces the forming of gallstones. Fiber is the most important part of any diet. The key is learning about nutrients. When you understand how specific nutrients work in the body, you will be more likely to make healthy choices.
Remember
No single food is essential to our diet. Proteins for building up the body. Throughout life there is a continuous breakdown and loss of body tissues. If a person does not get enough protein to make up for this loss, some of the less vital protein tissues in the body, such as muscles are broken down to maintain vital organs like the heart and kidneys. Illnesses cause a considerable loss of protein like infections, burns, broken bones and the stress after surgery. Carbohydrates provide energy. Carbohydrates is a collective term for sugars, starches and cellulose. Most sugars are eaten in the form of sweets, jams, biscuits, cakes and drinks. A small amount is from fruit.
Starches are found in potatoes, rice, pastas, wheat and maize. When we eat starches it gets broken down to glucose which is absorbed into the blood stream as a form of sugar. Cellulose is not a source of energy but it is needed in the diet, because of it’s major source of fibre or roughage. It stays undigested in the intestines to promote regular bowel movements. Fats provide energy and flavour. Fat is contained in milk products like cheese, cream, butter and meat (visible around tjops or hidden in the fibres), fatty fish like pilchards, kabeljou and eggs. Fats have several roles in the diet directly because of its nutritional value and indirectly in improving foods and making them easier to chew and swallow.
Conclusion
Vitamins like A, D, E and K are found in these fatty foods and following a low fat diet you need to supplement these shortfalls. Fats are very important because of the energy it provides, it is twice as much as carbohydrates or protein. Fatty foods remain longer in the stomach than low-fat foods, so they provide a greater feeling of fullness. The term “Health Foods” include natural and organic grown fruit and vegetables, various pills and herbs. Some of these foods are nutritionally good and some such as herbs and ginseng are unproven. The term “Health Food” is very misleading since it implies that all other foods are unhealthy.