One nutrition program doesn’t work for everyone. We come from different backgrounds and have different genetic makeups or whatever you want to call it. You might find what works well for one individual may not work for another individual.
Food is the natural provider for nutrients. Getting the right balance of nutrients is necessary for good health.
Carbohydrates, protein, minerals and vitamins all provide nutrients to the body. There are the vitamins and minerals that everyone knows about and then there are the micronutrients like selenium, chromium and zinc and some of those that aren’t so talked about. But food in general is just a carrier for nutrients. You can take a loaf of bread it…has starch in it and protein and non-fat dry milk, the non-fat dry milk will contain lactose. The non-fat dry milk will contain casing, which is a non-fat dry milk protein. You break down the constituents in the food and each one of those provides nutrients for the body.
What is a well balanced diet?
Following the food pyramid is a good place to start and maybe it’s a good place to end for some people. If you take all the food somebody eats and at the end of the week add it all up; how much variety was there? Generally you find that there really wasn’t that much variety.
People generally have a dozen foods they like to eat and they will end up eating the same foods day after day for most of their life and that’s where you run into problems. You get stuck in a rut and fail to incorporate a vast variety into your diet and fail to get the nutritional balance that you should be getting. If you know nothing about food but incorporate a lot of variety into your diet the chances of your being malnourished because you don’t get the right nutrients decreases.
I like fresh fruits and vegetables especially in the summer time. My wife does the grocery shopping and she and I like fresh fruit and vegetables. We will just take a big salad bowl and fill it like the diet out there called the Rainbow Diet. It’s based on all the different colors of fruits and vegetables. So I will take purple grapes and onions and garlic and sprinkle some lettuce and if we have fresh strawberries, cantaloupe and really your imagination is your only limitation. (Maybe even add some nuts). You know, just basically add all your favorite fruits and vegetables and throw in a couple of tablespoons of your favorite dressing and season it to taste. Mix it all up and you have an incorporation of all of that variety. You get all of the vitamins and the nutrients and the minerals that you need in just one meal instead of just ingesting one kind of food.
My point is the more variety you can get in your diet the greater the possibility that if you are lacking in something that you are going to get it. I am an advocate of getting variety in your diet. It all comes down to looking at your budget and having some knowledge of getting what you need and looking at the food labels.
Even the restaurants and the fast food chains are starting to offer more nutritious choices, like salads. Subway is one that has really jumped on the bandwagon you can make your own sandwich with a whole host of ingredients. Mix it up and improve your chances of getting a wide variety of nutrients.
I am hoping that awareness about nutrition can combat this obesity epidemic. Some people are just succumbing to obesity and the things that come with it like cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
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