What are the 7 key components of a healthy balanced diet?
In this article we will describe what are the 7 key components of a healthy balanced diet.
A healthy mixed diet should include the following:
1. Calories. This should be about 2500 a day for men, 2000 for women. This varies according to your age and degree of activity. It can come from a combination of carbohydrate (including sugar), fat and protein. See below.
2. Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g. lentils and beans), nuts and whole grains – e.g. unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat and brown rice. Many contain vitamins.
This should be at least 400g (i.e. five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day (excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots).
3. Sugar (part of carbohydrates). Less than 10% (ideally under 5%) of total energy intake should come from sugar; equivalent to 5g (or about 12 level teaspoons).
Note. Remember sugars are added to foods or drinks by the manufacturer (or cook!), as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates.
4. Fats. Less than 30% of total energy intake should come from fats. Unsaturated fats (found in fish, avocado and nuts, and in sunflower, soybean, canola and olive oils) are preferable to saturated fats (found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese, ghee and lard) – ideally less than 10% of energy from saturated fats.
Also its good to minimise trans-fats of all kinds. These include industrially-produced trans-fats: found in baked and fried foods; and pre-packaged snacks and foods (such as frozen pizza, pies, cookies, biscuits, wafers, and cooking oils and spreads) – ideally less than 1% of energy from trans-fats.
5. Protein. Adults need around 0.75g of protein per kilo of body weight per day. For the average woman, this is 45g, or 55g for men. That is about two portions of meat or fish or nuts or tofu per day.
6. Salt. Less than 5g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day.
7. Water. There is no normal or desired water intake. And CKDEx knows no evidence for ‘drinking more’ to ‘flush out the kidneys’. Drinking about 2-2.5 litres a day is a good average human consumption.
Remember food should taste nice too!
Food, and drinking and eating, are part of the pleasure of being human. So it is OK not to ‘follow guidelines’ all the time, and sometimes go out for, or make, a nice dinner, with a few glasses of vino .. and have fun!
Summary
We have described what are the 7 key components of a healthy balanced diet. We hope you understand them more now.
This article is based on current WHO guidelines.
