Healthy balance
A 'healthy diet' contains a wide variety of food which will provide a range of nutrients. The Food Standards Agency has devised '8 Tips to eat well’ which provides easy to follow guidelines:
- Include a good sized portion of starchy food - such as cereals, bread, rice, pasta and potatoes - with each of your main meals. Try to choose wholegrain varieties. These foods should make up about a third of the food we eat. Starchy foods can also be the basis of snacks (e.g. wholegrain Crackers, breakfast cereals, cereal bars).
- Every day aim to eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables. Fresh, frozen, tinned, dried or juiced are all good for you, but remember that drinking juice should only count as one of your five daily portions.
- Eat more fish - including a portion of oily fish each week.
- Cut down on saturated fat and sugar - choose foods containing unsaturated fat and eat them in moderation and cut down on sweets, cakes, biscuits and sugar-containing drinks.
- Try to eat less salt - no more than 6g a day for adults, that's 2400mg sodium as shown on food labels.
- Get active, do some exercise and try to be a healthy weight.
- Drink plenty of water and other fluids to stop you getting dehydrated - about 6-8 glasses a day – and drink alcohol in moderation.
- Don't skip breakfast as breakfast breaks an overnight fast. It provides energy as well as fibre & valuable vitamins and minerals needed for good health.