What is “Healthy Eating”?

“Eat healthy and exercise: one minute of exercising adds one minute to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5000 per month.” Of course, it’s a joke, but with a grain of truth.

Healthy eating starts at the grocery store. It’s easy to make nutritious meals and snacks when your kitchen is stocked with healthier ingredients.

A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition. The requirements for a healthy diet can be met from a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods from all food groups to feel good and maintain your health. Nutritious foods nourish your body and give you energy to lead a healthy, active lifestyle.

The seven major classes of nutrients are: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber, minerals, vitamins, water.

These nutrient classes can be categorized as either macronutrients (needed in relatively large amounts) or micronutrients (needed in smaller quantities). The macronutrients are carbohydrates, fats, fiber, proteins, and water. The micronutrients are minerals and vitamins.

Molecules of carbohydrates and fats consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Carbohydrates range from simple monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, galactose) to complex polysaccharides (starch). Some fatty acids, but not all, are essential in the diet: they cannot be synthesized in the body. Protein molecules contain nitrogen atoms in addition to carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. The fundamental components of protein are nitrogen-containing amino acids, some of which are essential in the sense that humans cannot make them internally. Most microorganisms and plants can biosynthesize all 20 standard amino acids, while humans and animals must obtain some of the amino acids from the diet.

Most foods contain a mix of some or all of the nutrient classes, together with other substances. Some nutrients can be stored internally (e.g., the fat-soluble vitamins), while others are required more or less continuously.

A properly balanced diet (in addition to exercise) is also thought to be important for lowering health risks. A poor diet may have an injurious impact on health, causing deficiency diseases such as blindness, anemia, scurvy, preterm birth, stillbirth and cretinism; health-threatening conditions like obesity and metabolic syndrome; and such common chronic systemic diseases as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. A poor diet can cause the stunting of marasmus in chronic cases of malnutrition.

Poor health can be caused by a lack of required nutrients or, in extreme cases, too much of a required nutrient. For example, both salt and water (both absolutely required) will cause illness or even death in too large amounts.

Eating healthy meals can be easy even when you’re busy. All you need is a good plan. Spend a few minutes each week to plan your meals and snacks. This will help get meals on the table faster and save time and money.

Don’t take diet tips too seriously and laugh every day: one minute of laughter kills 1,000 calories.

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