Optimal Diet

Diet is fundamental to good health. Having a good diet will provide all of the nutritional tools needed to support the body's great ability to heal itself and keep us healthy. A healthy diet helps to prevent, or reduce the severity of, diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes. A healthy diet helps to reduce the risk of developing some cancers. Main way of combating obesity and overweight is to eat a healthy diet.

Principles of the healthy diet

Eat a variety of fruit or vegetables: A diet rich in fruit and vegetables is your best bet to prevent virtually every chronic disease. This fact has been established by scientific studies on large number of people. Number of substances found in fruits and vegetables are known to protect against cancer.
Regulate blood sugar level: Simply sugars are quickly absorbed in bloodstream causing a rapid rise in blood sugar and in response, the body boosts secretion of insulin by the pancreas. High-sugar, junk-foods diet definitely lead to poor sugar regulation, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Secreting too much insulin can promote growth of cancer and increase the risk of hearth disease.
Do not over consume animal food: Higher your intake of meat and other animal products, the higher your risk of heart disease and cancer (colon, breast, prostate and lung cancer). Particularly harmful to human health are cured or smoked meats, such as ham, hot dogs and bacon.
Eat the right types of fats: To stay healthy we need some fat in our diets, but diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol has been linked to numerous cancers. Try to cut down on food that is high in saturated fat and have foods that are rich in unsaturated fat instead, such as vegetable oils (including sunflower, rapeseed and olive oil), oily fish, avocados, nuts and seeds.
Keep salt intake low: Too much salt increases the risk of developing high blood pressure. Government guidelines recommend that we should have no more than 5-6 grams of salt per day. If you are used to a lot of salt, try to gradually reduce the amount that you have. Your taste for salt will eventually change.
Drink a sufficient amount of water: Water is essential for life. The average amount of water in human body is about 36 litres. We need to drink at least 1,5 litre per day to replace water that is lost through urination, sweat and breathing. Even mild dehydration results in impaired physiological and performance responses.

Healthier food choices