Food and nutrition: Effective management of food intake and nutrition is the key to maintaining health. Wise nutrition and food choices help prevent disease. Eating the right food can help your body cope more successfully with persistent disease. Understanding good nutrition and paying attention to your diet can help you maintain or improve your health.
What is good nutrition?
Food and nutrition in Europe are our way of getting fuel, providing energy for our bodies. We need to replace nutrients in our body with new nutrients every day. Water is an important part of nutrition. Fat, protein and carbohydrates are all essential. Maintaining important vitamins and minerals is also important for maintaining health. For pregnant women and adults over the age of 50, vitamins (such as vitamin D) and minerals (such as calcium and iron) are important considerations in choosing foods, as well as possible dietary supplements.
A healthy diet includes many natural foods. A large part of a healthy diet should include fruits and vegetables, especially those that are red, orange or dark green. Whole grains, such as whole grains and brown rice, should also play a role in your diet. For adults, dairy products should be fat free or low-fat. Proteins include lean meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, beans, bean products (such as tofu), as well as salt free seeds and nuts.
Good nutrition also includes avoiding certain foods. Sodium is widely used in processed food, which is dangerous for patients with hypertension. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that adults eat less than 300 mg of cholesterol (found in meat and whole milk products) a day. Trans fats in fried foods, solid fats, margarines and processed foods are harmful to heart health. Refined cereals (white flour, white rice) and refined sugars (sucrose, high fructose corn syrup) are also harmful to long-term health, especially for diabetics. If women take more than one serving a day and men more than two, alcohol can be a health hazard.
There are many high-quality, free guidelines for healthy eating plans that provide more details about size, total calorie consumption, what to eat more, what to eat less to stay healthy.
