How much to eat each day?
It's difficult to know how much we should be eating. Too much and we gain weight, too little and we get hungry and eat the wrong sort of foods. Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) have been produced by the government, food industry and consumer organisations as a recommendation of the amount of calories, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, total sugars, protein, fibre, salt and sodium required for a healthy, balanced diet.
Using Guideline Daily Amounts (or GDAs) can help us work out how much we should be eating at each meal. GDAs often appear on food labels which increasingly list the amount of nutrients in a portion compared to the GDA.
Using GDAs to plan your meals and snacks
A useful way of planning meals and snacks is that breakfast should contain around 20% of the GDA and lunch and evening meal about 30% each with the rest (20%) in snacks and 'extras'. Using these guidelines, for adult women a daily meal should roughly provide:
| Breakfast & Snacks | Lunch/Evening Meal | |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 400kcal | 600kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 46g | 69g |
| Sugar | 18g | 27g |
| Fat | 14g | 21g |
| Saturated fat | 4g | 6g |
| Fibre | 4.8g | 7.2g |
| Sodium | 0.48g | 0.72g |
| Salt | 1.2g | 1.8g |
GDAs can make meal planning easier. However, remember that the GDA is based around the food consumption of an ‘average’ adult and should be adjusted depending upon how much exercise you do, your general state of health, or whether you are applying them to men, women or children.
If you would like more information on how to use Guideline Daily Amounts to plan your meals, please click here.