Face it, we’re always hearing about how overweight our society has become and how we should exercise more and eat healthier foods, such as fruits and vegetables, but nobody ever bothers to tell us exactly which healthy foods we should eat or how much of them we should eat. Thus, the challenge of making the leap to a healthy lifestyle becomes a daunting task before we even attempt it, so it’s no wonder most of our society is still overweight.
To better help clear up confusion, the following is a list of general healthy foods and their quantities to help you begin eating healthier.
Important Foods for a Healthy Diet #1 Whole grains
In order to make sure you’re eating enough whole grains in your diet you should eat at least six ounces. However, you can eat more if you combine your diet with an exercise program. Foods you can eat which will provide you with whole grain nutrients include cereal, pasta and bread.
Important Foods for a Healthy Diet #2 Vegetables
There’s really no limit on the amount of vegetables you can eat in a day. However, you should eat a minimum of two and a half cups everyday. As far as which ones you should eat goes, you should attempt to mix and match everyday. Eating a variety of vegetables ensures that you’re getting a healthy dose of the nutrients that each vegetable type provides.
Important Foods for a Healthy Diet #3 Fruits
Just like vegetables, there is really no limit on the amount of fruit you can eat every day; however, you should eat a minimum of two cups per day. Again, like vegetables, make sure to mix and match the types of fruit you eat each day in order to fully benefit from the many different nutrients fruit offers.
Important Foods for a Healthy Diet #4 Milk
Drinking milk, combined with a regular workout regimen, has been scientifically proven to help promote weight loss. You should attempt to drink at least thee cups per day. However, avoid drinking whole milk and stick to low fat or non fat milk to avoid getting too many calories in your diet. If milk is not your forte, you can also opt to get your recommended dairy in the form of yogurt. Again, either low fat or non fat. Whichever way you choose to get it, just make sure and get it. Dairy provides a good source of calcium which is important to living a healthy lifestyle.
Follow these guidelines and you will be able to rest comfortably knowing that you’re eating healthier than the majority of the people in this country. Be sure to try and avoid foods such as margarine, butter and lard, which you might use for cooking or adding flavor to food. Eating too much of these can negate the effects you’r trying to achieve from a healthy lifestyle.
So there you have it, a small blue print for eating healthy. Don’t put it off any longer. Everyday that you do could be a day that you are looking better and adding extra years to your life span.
Yuki Shoji
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/4-important-foods-for-a-healthy-diet-127314.html
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5 Responses for "4 Important Foods for a Healthy Diet"
Is a healthy diet more important when you are young or when you are old?
Are there any reliable studies on this issue? On the one hand, I can see how a healthy diet when you are young might set in motion some long term positvie health benefits. On the other hand, it may be the case that children's bodies are so efficient at squeezing the nutrition out of the foods that they eat that a child's poor diet may not have the detrimental effects that an older person's poor diet would. My 8 year old son's diet is very limited, yet surprisingly, at least to me, he acts and looks very physically healthy.
I think it is most important in the long years in between.
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A healthy diet is important throughout your life. What you do and eat when you're younger, may affect you later on in your 30's, 40's, etc. Many people and youngsters may look and feel very healthy however, it may not mean they are.
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Both - it's important at every stage of your life. When you're young and your body is still growing, it's very important to have all the right nutrients for building bones, teeth, muscles, organs, etc., as well as providing energy. It's true also that reinforcing healthy food choices for a child will set a pattern which he will probably follow throughout his life, and this is further protection for his health.
Recent studies are showing more and more how important good nutrition is as we're aging, though. Some conditions thought to be unavoidable or irreversible as a result of aging have responded well to a healthy diet. Conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes have shown greatly reduced symptoms in studies of adults with these health problems after they were put on diets with specific foods in them. We know now, too, that a number of fruits & vegetables have strong anti-oxidant properties, preventing a number of cancers and slowing or stopping the spread of cancer in people who have the disease.
A healthy diet strengthens our immune systems and cleanses toxins from our bodies, helping us fight off disease and helping our whole bodies function better. This is true from infancy to old age. I had heard from a pediatrician that if a child goes through a period of being picky or eating very few foods, it's not cause for concern. I've watched my 6 and 8 year-old sons go through phases of not eating certain foods, and I've seen them slowly come around to eating those foods they used to refuse. The best thing to do is to keep offering your son a healthy variety, and show by your example to do the same; these will have an influence on what he eats.
As far as sources for studies on diet and health, I've seen numerous articles in the last few years in medical, health, and nutrition magazines reporting studies about nutrients in foods and their individual properties. You could go to the library and go back through a year of issues from a particular publication and easily find several articles on the subject. A good one with reliable sources and reports on these studies is Prevention magazine; I read this one myself.
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