Advances in
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Opinion Volume 6 Issue 3
Importance of balance diet to gain the quality of benefits for human life
Zainab Hussain
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Diet Consultant in Foodservice setting at Tabba Heart Institute(THI), Pakistan
Correspondence: Zainab Hussain, Diet Consultant in Food service setting at Tabba Heart Institute(THI), Karachi, Pakistan
Received: February 23, 2017 | Published: March 6, 2017
Citation: Hussain Z. Importance of balance diet to gain the quality of benefits for human life. Adv Obes Weight Manag Control. 2017;6(3):100. DOI: 10.15406/aowmc.2017.06.00158
Opinion
A balanced diet should contain all the below mentioned components to sustain healthy human life. The diet should be full of nutrients so that human beings can perform daily tasks energetically. Our balanced diets should contain 15-20% of calories from protein, 25-35% of calories from fat and 50-55% of calories from carbohydrates. One should prefer complex carbohydrates in the form of fruits, vegetables and grains over simple carbohydrates (white flour and sugar). Our body needs different nutrients to function properly as such our diets should contain all nutrients to provide the body with every nutrient needed by it.
In a balanced diet, intake of the five food groups including vegetables & fruits, grains, milk, meat, oils and sugars should be adequately consumed. According to the international guidelines, our daily intake from vegetable group should be 2-3 servings including vegetables of different colors because each has different pigments and different advantages. One serving of vegetable equals to 1 cup raw vegetable or ½ cup cooked vegetable or 1 cup salad. Besides this, fruit intake should be 2-3 servings including mainly fresh fruits. One serving of fruit includes 1 banana or 1 apple or 1 orange or ½ glass fruit juice. Average milk intake for children and adults is recommended to 1-2 cup. Avoid full-fat milk and regular use of low fat milk and its products is highly beneficial. One serving size of milk equals 1 glass of milk or 1 cup yogurt. Average meat intake is 2 servings which include lean meat, chicken or fish. One serving of meat group equals 2-3 small chicken/fish pieces or 1 egg. Average grain intake is 6-11 servings, including 100% whole grain products rather than refined ones. One serving of grain equals ½ chapatti or ½ cup cooked rice or 1 bread slice or 1 potato or ½ bowl of cornflakes. All these products contain fiber. One should take 25-35 grams of fiber/day. Fiber rich diet helps to prevent atherosclerosis and constipation. We should prefer whole fiber instead of refined fiber. Our diet should contain small amount of oil, sugar and sugary drinks altogether avoided. Deep fried items intake should be limited to once or twice a week. Use grilled, baked, steamed or shallow fried instead. Prefer polyunsaturated (corn oil, canola oil, sunflower oil) instead of saturated or trans fat (ghee, butter, margarine).Average intake of oil and sugar is 5-6 servings. One serving equals 1tsp sugar; honey; oil; butter or 1 tsp dry fruits.
If diet doesn’t contain each of the food group in equal amounts, the diet is considered to be incomplete and imbalanced. Such diet will not fulfil the body needs and consequently our body gets weakened.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully thank my boss Idris Mohammed Dawood who took out his precious time to edit this manuscript and bring in more clarity.
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
©2017 Hussain. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.