Healthy food for good health

Healthy eating is extremely important for our body. The nutrients we take in ensure that our body functions properly. Our body gets all kinds of nutrients from our diet. When you eat a healthy diet, you get a lot of healthy nutrients that you need to grow and stay healthy. In addition, a healthy diet will keep you at a healthy weight and prevent obesity. You can also prevent other health problems, such as high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes by paying attention to your diet. Hippocrates, a Greek physician, long ago cast the famous proverb, "Let food be your medicine and your medicine your food."

Benefits of a healthy diet

For centuries it has been known that nutrition and health go hand in hand and are interconnected. It is important that your body gets enough nutrients and nutrients so that it can function properly. If you want to live a healthy lifestyle, it is very important to watch your diet in the first place. Healthy food has many benefits, such as:

Nutrition plays a major role in staying healthy, but is also very important in the treatment of health complaints, such as

Once every 5 years, the Health Council issues guidelines and recommendations for a healthy diet and the recommendation of 2015 is: 'A shift in the direction of a more vegetable and less animal diet is health. Reducing the consumption of sugary drinks is also important. Good alternatives are tea and filtered coffee without sugar, as well as water. ' . A healthy diet therefore mainly consists of the use of more vegetable foods and less sugars. But it is also very important to pay attention to extra things such as our salt intake, additives and processed food and we must ensure an adequate intake of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

Nutrients play a major role in the functioning of various functions of our body and organs. They are very important for the life processes, such as the building and repair of the body. They also give us energy and are very important in regulating various processes that take place in our body, such as the metabolism and the immune system. Proteins, fats and carbohydrates are also called macronutrients, and the body needs a lot of them. Vitamins and minerals are also called the micronutrients, of which the body does not need much.

A vegetable diet, as prescribed by the Netherlands Nutrition Center, is a habit in which more than half of your diet consists of vegetable foods. Fruit and vegetables are a large part of this, but also grains, nuts and seeds are included, as are vegetable variations on dairy products, such as soy products. These foods contain many more healthy substances than animal foods. And right now, with an abundance of food, it is extremely important to pay attention to this. These foods are high in fiber and these dietary fibers are very important to our body. They ensure good digestion, a feeling of satiety after eating and they reduce the risk of lifestyle diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and colon cancer. The Nutrition Center advises to eat about 30 to 40 grams of fiber per day. Vegetables are also rich in flavonoids, indoles, resveratrols and stilbenes, which include antioxidants and plant compounds that protect our body cells from harmful external invaders. Plant foods also contain less fats than animal foods. The small percentage of fats in these foods are healthy fats, such as the omega-3 fats.

The list of plant foods is therefore quite large. To provide your body with good, varied nutrition, it is useful to know which product groups you should take something from. Healthy, nutritious and herbal products include:

Whole, healthy foods are also processed as little as possible. That is to say, hardly anything has been added or subtracted. But sometimes you cannot escape it. For example, sometimes extra substances are added to our foods to make the ingredients better. Think of additives such as E numbers, these are additives such as colorants to make the color more beautiful, flavorings for a better taste and preservatives to ensure that the products can be kept for as long as possible. But also pay attention to the salt content in foods. Too much salt is harmful to your health and can lead to high blood pressure and kidney problems. Since it is very difficult to use only unprocessed foods, it is good to know which processed products are healthy and which are less.

To fully follow the advice, we must also pay attention to our sugar intake. Sugar belongs to the group of carbohydrates and only provides energy to the body, they do not supply our body with nutrients. If you take in too much energy, but you consume too little energy, the excess energy is stored in the body in the form of fat, which can lead to obesity. It is therefore extremely important to avoid sugar in foods and to make sure that drinks contain little to no sugar. Sugar is not part of a healthy lifestyle with a healthy diet. Unfortunately, foods you buy at the store often contain sugar naturally, so it is important to read the label carefully. Sugar in products are listed on the label with their chemical names:

Healthy eating and including more plant nutrients in your diet and reducing animal products in the same time contribute to a nutritious and healthy diet that also follows national and international recommendations. This is because vegetable products contain more fiber, vitamins and minerals and less fat and saturated fat than animal food products. This only benefits your health. But there is more. Besides the fact that it is good for your health, it is also good for our environment. Compared to plant products, more land, water and energy is needed for the production of animal products and more greenhouse gases are also emitted. So an advantage for yourself, but also for the environment.