Importance Of Diet For Healthy Life

Jul 9, 2024 · 4 min read ·

A healthy diet is a tool of good health and nutrition.

It protects a person from numerous major chronic noncommunicable diseases:

These include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some types of cancer. Healthy diet involves consumption of a variety of foods and limiting the intake of salt, sugar, saturated, and industrially-produced trans-fatty acids.

A healthy diet comprises a combination of different foods. These include:

Staple foods are typically cereals (wheat, barley, rye, maize or rice) or starchy tubers or roots (potato, yam, taro or cassava).
Legumes (lentils and beans).
Fruit and vegetables.
Foods from animal sources (meat, fish, eggs and milk).
Here is a useful note of how, in line with WHO recommendations, to follow a healthy diet and the benefits that derive from it.

Breastfeed babies and young children:

A good diet starts early in life—breastfeeding promotes healthy growth, and may have longer-term health advantages, like reducing the risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing noncommunicable diseases later in life.
Feeding infants only breast milk from birth to 6 months of life is recommended for a healthy diet. In addition, mix safe and nutritious complementary foods should be introduced at 6 months of age while continuing breastfeeding up to two years and beyond.

Eat plenty of vegetables and fruit:

They are major sources of vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre, plant proteins, and antioxidants.
There is a much lower risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some types of cancers in people who have a diet rich in vegetables and fruits.

Use less fat:

Fats and oils are an energy-dense food. Too much intake, especially of the wrong kinds of fats, such as saturated and industrially-produced trans-fat, can increase the risk of developing heart diseases and strokes.
Replacing animal fats and oils high in saturated fats by unsaturated vegetable oils will help to consume healthier fats. This can be achieved by: Using unsaturated vegetable oils like olive, soy, sunflower or corn oil, and limiting the intake of animal fats or oils high in saturated fats such as butter, ghee, lard, coconut and palm oil.

To avoid unhealthy weight gain, total fat consumption should not exceed 30% of a person’s overall energy intake. Limit intake of free sugars:

For a healthy diet, sugars should form less than 10% of your daily intake. Further reduction to less than 5% confers extra health benefits.
Consuming fresh fruits also helps limit the intake of sugars. Other ways of reducing sugar intake are by limiting food and drinks high in sugars: soft drinks, soda, fruit juices, cordials and syrups, flavoured milks and yoghurt drinks.

Reduce intake of salt:

Limiting salt consumption to less than 5g a day can prevent hypertension and its complication on heart disease and stroke in adult populations.
Limit the amount of salt and high-sodium condiments such as soy sauce, fish sauce during cooking or food preparation.

Fruits and vegetables

Fruits and vegetables should form an integral part of your daily intake. They, by nature, are good and contain a lot of vitamins and minerals that help in keeping you healthy. Moreover, they also help in safeguarding you against some diseases.
Most Australians will benefit from eating more fruit and veggies as part of a well-balanced, healthy diet and active lifestyle. There are many different types of fruits and vegetables and ways to prepare, cook, and serve them.
Buy fruit and vegetables in season whenever possible. Alternatively, frozen or canned vegetables are also just as nutritious and more affordable.
Eat at least 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit each day. Choose different colours and varieties.
If you are a person who doesn’t really look forward to eating fruit or vegetables, begin slowly with those you like. Endeavour serving, flavouring or cooking them differently. You can even disguise them in sauces, minced meals or curries.

Vitamins and minerals in fruit and vegetables

Fruits and vegetables contain many vitamins and minerals—good for health. Many of these are antioxidants, and may reduce the risk of many diseases:
vitamin A(beta-carotene)
C
E
magnesium
zinc
phosphorous
folic acid.