What Is A Healthy Diet?

What is a healthy diet, anyway? It depends on who you ask. It also depends on how deeply you look into the facts of nutrition.

The average dietitian will give you a middle-of-the-road opinion that eating a balanced variety of the major USDA food groups is the answer to "What is a healthy diet?"

To the vegetarian or vegan, this answer doesn't answer their concerns over whether drinking the milk of another species of animal and eating the flesh of animals and birds is 1) healthy; and 2) necessary for human health.

The more I learn about how our meat and dairy products are raised -- and the absolute sufficiency of getting all the nutrients we need from vegetable sources -- the more I agree with the vegetarian/vegan point of view.

Nevertheless, the following is a general review of the mainstream consensus of medical opinion of the question of what is a healthy diet, for the benefit of those just transitioning away from the standard American diet.

A Healthy Diet is one that promotes your health. It doesn't do all the work of keeping our health but it is an essential component of a healthy life. Put another way: You can't be healthy over the long run without a healthy daily diet.

Besides eating a healthy diet, we need plenty of exercise, a healthy emotional state, and a minimum of environmental pollution to express our natural inclination to be healthy. It is a "package deal": we can't depend on a healthy diet alone to produce health, but we certainly can't be healthy for long without it.

Over the years, there has been a lot of speculation and conflicting opinions about what is a healthy diet. This has led many people to give up on the search for what is a healthy diet for them and they take the easy way out: they eat what they like, what is advertised heavily, and what they grew up eating. In most cases, this has resulted in the large numbers of overweight and obese people we see today in the U.S. and, to a lesser degree, in the other highly industrialized prosperous nations.

Medical research has done thousands of studies to determine what is a healthy diet and there is a general agreement among these studies.

Here are the points they agree on:

* We need to eat more fruits and vegetables every day: 5-8 servings

* We should limit our consumption of red meat and include more ocean fish in our diet

* We should eat whole grains -- whole wheat bread, oatmeal, brown rice, barley, millet -- and avoid refined white flour

* We should reduce the amount of sugars, especially refined sugars and high-fructose-corn-syrup

* We should cut out the trans fats and saturated fats from our diet, and include more olive oil and other unsaturated oils

* We should all take a good quality multivitamin to make sure we get all the micro-nutrients our bodies need

If we did nothing more than follow these recommendations, we would be FAR healthier than we are now -- But we don't!

Where the many research studies differ is on the degree of emphasis they place on how much of each food group should be in a healthy diet. One of the most striking differences of opinion among those who have studied the question of what is a healthy diet is, "How much, if any, meat and dairy products should be included in a healthy diet?"

Some cardiologists advocate the belief that the most heart healthy diet is one without any meat, dairy products, or fish in it. Others take the position that there should be less red meat and more chicken and fish in a healthy diet. On the other extreme of the spectrum of opinion is the Atkins Diet, which advocates eating nothing but meats and cheeses for an introductory period of time.

If we are to judge by the results, some of the healthiest nationalities of people -- the Japanese and Okinawans -- eat a lot of fish, but very little meat.

Nationalities eating the most meat tend to have the most cardiovascular disease. Americans, Australians, and Laplanders are good examples of this.

Another instructive example is that of the many celebrities who have the intelligence, money, and access to the best information on how to maintain their health for a long successful career. A surprising number of these top entertainers and thought leaders have chosen to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet.

We need to be aware that many/most of the models we see in advertisements eating and drinking unhealthy products are only pretending to do so -- in real life they eat a very strict diet(frequently vegetarian) to maintain their looks and health.

One area that there is general agreement among diet experts is that Americans in particular eat far too many total calories, especially of fat, for the amount of exercise they get. Small items such as a tall cappuccino or a can of soda contain large amounts of fats** and sugars, which together with fast food meals and snacks such as deep-fried corn chips and cheese puffs can, when they are part of a daily diet, are a sure path to obesity.

Many of the common food choices available to patrons of fast food and other restaurants are very high in calories and low in healthy nutrients our bodies need. This results in a nation that is overfed, but undernourished -- which opens the door to common chronic degenerative diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer, as well as many others.

We need many nutrients but they have been cooked and processed out of our foods. Eating a healthy diet is about much more than having a full belly. Most of our common food items are lacking in the basic nutrients due to the way we farm and the months of storage and excessive processing our foods go through before we eat them. Eating more fresh, locally grown, organic fruit and vegetables are the best insurance policy against malnutrition.

Most of us don't know WHY we must eat in the first place

My personal observation is that many of the overweight people I have talked to over more than forty years don't seem to understand how important it is medically for their bodies to get nutrients that are critical for their repair. To these people, it is all about what they *like* to eat, not what their body must have to remain healthy. This is an expensive mistake.

Over a long period of time, if our bodies don't receive all the necessary vitamins, minerals, enzymes, together with the right balance of proteins, starches, and fats, they will develop any number of possible diseases.

Disease is nature's way of telling us we have been neglecting the ongoing upkeep of our body. Usually, it is fairly difficult to reverse the disease after it has started -- that is why it is important to learn what is a healthy diet, based on the general consensus of scientific research and our own common sense.

If you're still wondering "What is a healthy diet," check this out.

A Healthy Diet Plan for a Healthier Planet