Balanced Diet: How To Balance Your Food Choices

A balanced diet can be defined as the art of balancing your food choices. Thus, if you are asked to balance your food choices, then, you are actually advised to opt for a balanced diet. Balance your food choices with proper proportions of carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals salts and fibre. 

Protein deficiency would hamper your body’s growth. Proteins are also required for healing wounds. Energy-generating foods are required to keep you active throughout the day. Again, too much energy-generating food can lead to obesity. So, you need to balance your food choices for healthy living.

How To Choose A Balanced Diet

A balanced diet is one that includes a variety of foods in amounts and proportions that satisfy the body’s requirements for energy, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, fats, carbohydrates, and other nutrients for maintaining health, vitality, and overall well-being. It also includes a small amount of extra nutrition to help people maintain their leanness for a brief period of time.

• Carbohydrates are considered to be the most important sources of energy and carbohydrates are made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
• You should consume a considerable amount of starch in the form of potatoes, rice, bread and cereals. 
• Proteins are required for growth and healing wounds. In old age, you should be consuming more proteins and fewer fat items.
• It is also better to avoid too many carbohydrates in old age as most old people suffer from diabetes and carbohydrates are known to tempt diabetic complications.
• Balance your food choices according to your age, the need for energy and physical conditions and so the proportions of various components should change from time to time.
• If you are physically very active, then, you should include fatty acids in your diet along with protein and carbohydrates but if you are physically not that active, then you should consume fewer calories.
• Both water and minerals are essential for carrying out various metabolic activities and so, one should eat green leafy vegetables and consume plenty of water irrespective of his or her age and physical condition.
• Vitamins are required in very small quantities but, you should be including all types of vitamins enriched food items in your daily diet as vitamin deficiencies can lead to various diseases.
• Vitamin A is good for the eyes, B Complex can fight beriberi and pernicious anaemia, C heals wounds, D helps in the development of bones and teeth and K helps in blood clotting.
• Balance your food choices in order to avoid vitamin deficiency complications like rickets, night blindness and osteomalacia by including, fish, cod liver oil, egg, meat, milk, peanuts and citrus fruits in your diet.
• Protein deficiency can lead to Marasmus and Kwashiorkor whereas fat deficiency is counted as the major cause of skin problems like phrynoderma.

Know Your Diet Pitfalls

Are you going through an unhealthy eating habit? If yes, then, quickly come out of it. If you come to know your diet pitfalls, then, you would surely want to switch to something different. If your diet is not a balanced one, then, you would be more prone to diseases as deficiency of each and every food variety can lead to some or the other diseases.

A balanced diet should include bits of each and every food variety and there are six types of food- carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and water. One is expected to consume bits of each variety.

Thus, you must develop a healthy eating habits in order to avoid your diet pitfalls. Carbohydrates are necessary for energy generation to perform metabolic functions. And, if you are not consuming an adequate amount of wheat, rice or other whole grains, then, an adequate amount of energy cannot be produced. Energy is produced by the breakdown of carbohydrates by aerobic and anaerobic respiration. Carbohydrate deficiency is surely one of the most important diet pitfalls.

Know your diet pitfalls so that you can work on them by including all the essential food items in your daily diet. Protein-enriched food is a must for the proper structural development of the human body. So, if you have excluded protein from your daily diet, then, you would be in soup very soon. Moreover, protein can also be converted to glucose to generate energy when your body is running in a carbohydrate deficiency state. You should include both animal and plant proteins in your diet.

Fat stores energy and releases enormous amounts of energy when the body is in need of it and so, you should also include meat, milk, butter, coconut oil and sunflower oil in your daily diet. You should not consume everything at a time but you are advised to consume some carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and water every day in order to stay healthy. If you know your diet pitfalls, then, you can supplement the components through certain food items which your body might be in need of.

Vitamin deficiencies lead to various diseases like night blindness, rickets, beriberi and pernicious anaemia. Human bodies require a very little amount of vitamins but that does not mean that you can do without them. Minerals play a major role in pigment and enzyme formations and you should consume plenty of leafy vegetables, fruits, eggs, meat and fish.

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