Healthy Eating Tips

Variety, Balance, and Moderation

• Be sure to eat a variety of foods, including plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grain products.
• Also include low-fat or non-fat dairy products, lean meats, poultry, fish, and legumes.
• Drink lots of water and go easy on the salt, sugar, alcohol, and saturated fat.
• If you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation.

Increase Fruits and Vegetables

• Start the day with 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice.
• Slice bananas or strawberries on top of your cereal.
• Have a salad with lunch, and carrot sticks for an afternoon snack.

Include a vegetable with dinner and you already have about 5 Cups of fruits and vegetables.

• There are so many choices when selecting fruits and vegetables. Have you ever tried kiwifruit? How about asparagus? Try something new that helps you reach your goal.
• Keep things fresh and interesting by combining fruits and vegetables of different flavors and colors, like red grapes with pineapple chunks, or cucumbers and red peppers.
• You can get some of your fruits and vegetables at restaurants too. Try some of these healthy choices.
• veggie pizza
• pasta with vegetables (but watch out for those high fat cream sauces)
• fresh vegetable “wrap”
• vegetable soup
• small salad (instead of fries)
• plenty of fresh vegetables from the salad bar.

Include at least 1-2 varied fresh / tinned fish meals per week.

• Around 2 serves a week is great and will help protect you from heart disease and possibly cancer. Having more doesn’t seem to be better for your health and 2 serves a week leaves room in your diet for other meats and meat alternatives and helps protect our fish stocks.

Try to make most of your cereal serves whole grain and reduced in salt.

Have plentiful fluids using water and tea.

• About 6-8 cups of water daily is great; more is fine, especially if you are physically active or if you sweat a lot. Some of this water can be consumed as tea, coffee or cocoa beverages – all of which are high in antioxidants. About 4-6 cups of tea/coffee a day is OK if you are not sensitive to caffeine (can raise blood pressure). Softdrinks/cordials/ energy drinks should be kept to a minimum if consumed.

Tags: Diet, Healthy Eating