Balanced Diet: Its Benefits and Importance.

We are all aware about the importance of maintaining a balanced diet for our healthy life. People try to understand about balanced diet at different stages of life. We are aware that we should eat healthy to stay healthy. So, let’s understand about balanced diet? Why is it important to eat balanced diet? What should we eat for a balanced diet with the benefits? Let’s understand in depth and find out.

A balanced diet provides nutrients in essential quantity and perfect proportion. Too much of any food item is bad to maintain a balanced lifestyle. We should have the perfect combination of healthy fats, vitamins, nutrients. This helps to live a healthy life. All the sources of nutrients are important. They help in proper functioning of our body. Every person requires different quantity and kind of nutrients. It is not similar for all persons. It may vary depending on the age, gender, health, lifestyle, and weight. The diet may also differ depending on the metabolism of the body.

We need a planned and healthy diet so that our body gets all the essential nutrients. Let’s understand balanced diet with it’s importance and benefits. A balanced diet includes six important nutrients. They are carbohydrates, fats, minerals, proteins, vitamin and water. These nutrients are available in many food items that we eat on regular basis.

Apart from this, the body also requires antioxidants, dietary fibre, and phytochemicals. They are beneficial for our good health. Antioxidants like selenium, vitamin C, E, etc. help to save body from free radical change. Spices like garlic, clove, ginger, and turmeric have good amounts of antioxidants. Phytochemicals like flavones, polyphenols, etc. helps to safeguard the body from oxidant damage. Food items like broccoli, spinach, carrots, berries, etc. are rich in phytochemicals.

Why is Balanced Diet Important?

Now the concept of what is balance diet is clear. Let’s know about why is a balanced diet important? Our body gets essential nutrients from a balanced diet. It is a must for proper functioning of our body. The growth of body and the capacity of body to work improves with a proper diet. Our body is able to prevent and fight from diseases. A balanced diet helps to boost the immunity of our body. It also helps to fight from common illness. This helps to improve the mental state of our mind. You will get a good quality of life.

If you don’t eat a food with proper nutritional values there are some problems. These problems may be frequent illness, fatigue, infection. It may also affect other issues on growth of body. You may also turn out to eat unhealthy food. The consumption of unhealthy food like fast food will reduce the growth of our body. But this does not mean that we should avoid our love for fast food and stop eating it. Eating fast food on daily basis is harmful for our health. We can have it once in fifteen days. A balanced diet is possible by lifestyle changes. It is not possible to gets desired results from temporary solutions.

Along with eating a healthy diet, doing any kind of exercise on a regular basis is important. This will help to lower the risk of issues like obesity, high blood pressure. It is also helpful to treat heart diseases, diabetes, etc.

Benefits of a Balanced Diet

• A healthy diet boosts your energy levels. This enhances the functioning of our body. It helps to strengthen the immune system of the body.
• The balanced diet provides the body with the necessary nutrients. This helps to reduce the nutritional deficiencies, if any present in the body.
• Healthy eating acts as a barrier to the risks of developing certain diseases. They are diabetes, cancer, blood, pressure and other heart related issues.
• The proper diet helps the body to fight against certain illness. It reduces symptoms of some health-related issues.
• Healthy eating helps to live a longer life
• You can maintain a healthy weight with adequate diet.
• A wide variety of food acts as a strong pillar of cultural and social events. It not only supports nutrition, but also helps in smooth relationship between people.
• You will be able to keep your eyes, skin and teeth healthy by eating a nutritious diet.
• It helps to strengthen the bones and muscles of our body.
• A balanced diet is beneficial for women. It helps in their pregnancy and breast-feeding period.
• Healthy eating helps in brain development. It also supports proper functioning of the digestive system.
• Eating food with proper nutrition keeps you healthy and fit. This helps to save your medical expenses.
• Foods that are rich in antioxidants help have anti-aging properties. This helps to stay healthy as you age. It also prolongs. You may get wrinkles after a longer time.
• A balanced diet will help you to sleep better. The diet plays a significant role in getting consistent, quality sleep. On other hand, if you are food-deprived, you will end in bad eating habits.
• Eating healthy food helps in improving the health of new generation. Children learn importance of nutrition from their parents and family members.

Tips for Healthy Eating

• We should never skip any meals as it reduces the metabolism of our body.
• Eat raw foods like fruits and salad on a daily basis.
• Do not over eat. You ought to stop eating when you feel full. It helps in weight management.
• We should have breakfast daily in the morning. It keeps us energetic throughout the day.
• Drink plenty of water throughout the day. You ought to drink somewhere around 8-10 glasses of water everyday.
• Your food menu for the day should include variety of foods. This will help to have all the necessary nutrients.
• Keep healthy snacks handy. This will stop you from eating unhealthy food when you are too hungry.
• You should avoid having stimulants like alcohol, caffeine, and refined sugar. If you want to have it, limit the amount you are having.
• Eat the food that you find tasty. Do not limit yourself by having food that is good for you.
• You should reduce eating outside food. It is also better to avoid packed and processed food items.
• In case you are a non-vegetarian increase the intake of fish. You should include a part of oily fish in your diet.
• Eat baked or roasted food. Try to avoid fried foods.
• You should take good quality sleep at night.

Healthy Cooking Tips

Today people have a fast-moving lifestyle. They do not follow the traditional method of cooking. People prefer eating less healthy fast, processed and packed foods. If we want to eat healthy food, the best way is to cook at home, instead of eating food from outside. We should explore healthy ways to cook food at home. The food should be good to taste and try eating variety of foods. Let’s see some healthy cooking tips to get the best food you crave for:

• Increase the amount of vegetables to your diet
• Reduce the intake of meat
• Use whole grain flour in cooking food instead of refined flour
• Replace mayonnaise with low-fat yogurt
• Blot the foods you fry to remove extra oil
• You can add fruits to your yogurt instead of having flavored yogurt
• Avoid frying of foods
• Drink low-fat milk
• Steaming your veggies is a better option than boiling them. This prevents loss of nutrients from the veggies
• Use canola or olive oil in cooking. They are power-packed with nutrients
• Limit the use of fats in your meals
• Add citrus, garlic, herbs, onion and spices while cooking your food. This will enhance the taste of your food. It will also help in reducing the intake of salt and sugar.
• You should have nut spreads, avocado. Low-fat cheese spreads is healthy option of butter and cream cheese
• Scrub the vegetables instead of peeling them. There are nutrients in the skin of vegetables
• Keep the water in which you boil vegetables. It is rich in vitamins and you can use it as a stock in other preparations.
• Avoid cooking on high temperatures

Hope by now you may be clear about what are the balanced diet with its importance and benefits. Now let’s see what is included in a balanced diet.

A Balanced diet include:

A balanced diet should include all the necessary components. They are carbohydrate, fibre, minerals, proteins, unsaturated fats, vitamins and water. You will get excellent health results when you add these components to your food. Let us understand in detail:

1. Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates may be simple or complex. They play a vital role in providing energy in human diets. Carbs help to deal with obesity. They help to sharpen your memory. Food rich in carbohydrates are good for heart. You should limit the quantity of eating carbs. If you consume them in excess, it may create health issues.

Sources of Carbohydrates are:

• Millets like bajra, barley, ragi
• Vegetables
• Whole wheat. Dahlia
• Legumes
• Whole grains like oats, quinoa

2. Fibre

Fibre makes you feel full throughout the day. It also helps in the digestion process. It reduces constipation. The food rich in fibre helps to lower the risk of diabetes. Fibre cleans the bacteria present in your intestines. It brings down the danger of growth of colon cancer.

Sources of Fibre are:

• Beans
• Nuts and seeds
• Oats, Quinoa, Brown rice
• Whole grains
• Strawberries, Raspberries, pears, apples and banana
• Broccoli, Avocado, beets and carrots

3. Minerals

Minerals are inorganic components present in body fluids and tissues. They help in delivering energy from the food you eat. This helps the proper functioning of organ health. Some of the most important minerals are calcium, iron, potassium, sodium, etc.

Sources of Minerals are:

• Eggs, Organ meats, Shellfish
• Cheese and yogurt
• Starchy Vegetables
• Tropical fruits
• Cruciferous vegetables
• Leafy Greens

4. Proteins

Proteins are important components of every living cell. We can find them in bones and muscles of the body. It plays a vital role in skin and hair health. There is a protein compound in red blood cells. It transports oxygen throughout the body. Protein requirements may vary from person to person. It depends on their age and other conditions.

Sources of Protein are:

• Eggs
• Beans and legumes
• Fish and sea foods
• Lean meats and poultry
• Milk
• Greek yogurt
• Peanuts and peanut butter

5. Unsaturated fats

Unsaturated are good fats required to keep the body healthy. They help to improve the blood cholesterol levels and also reduce inflammation. Omega3 fats have positive results on heart and brain health. Unsaturated fats help to lower the cholesterol levels.

Sources of Unsaturated Fats are:

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Nuts and seeds
• Fatty fish
• Avocados

6. Vitamins

Vitamins are important for keeping the body organs healthy. They may be either fat-soluble or water-soluble. Fat-soluble vitamins remain in the body. Water-soluble ones flushes out in form of urine. Some form of vitamins gets destroyed in cooking and processing of foods.

Sources of Vitamins are:

• Dark leafy greens
• Fish, pork, beef and lamb
• Broccoli and Avocado
• Nuts, seeds and dried fruits
• Mushroom
• Sweet bell peppers
• Green peas

7. Water

Water is very important for our body. It keeps us hydrated. It is a condition that causes unclear thinking, affects our mood. Drinking water helps to regulate the body temperature. It’s also useful to remove waste from our body.

We should drink at least 8-10 glasses of water every day. The body needs more water in hot climates. We consume more water when we are suffering from fever, diarrhea, or vomiting. When we are more active, our body requires more of water.

Conclusion:

Maintaining a healthy body is like taking a perfect cake. We need the right quantity of ingredients to see that the cake is delicious and tasty. So, there are seven major components that we need for a balanced diet. Our body needs all the nutrients in adequate amount and in correct proportions. It is important to work and make healthy body cells. The food should be such that it gives energy to the body.

There is no single food that contains the right amount of essential nutrients. You can achieve a balanced diet by eating a variety of food. Eating a nutritious diet helps to stay away from diseases and health complications.

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