Healthy eating

 I believe healthy eating prepares a person for a healthy body and it is essential for everyone to maintain a certain body weight to accomplish everyday activities. In my opinion, eating healthy doesn't necessarily mean you have to give up eating the food you enjoy; it means choosing your food wisely and eating a variety of foods.

  You and I can benefit from healthy eating, if we try foods from different groups such as fruit and vegetables, milk, grain, and meat. I believe all four of these food groups contribute essential nutrients for your body. If i limit my self to only one food group or avoid eating the other foods group, it will be hard for me to get all the nutrients i need.



Here are a few tips that i believe can lead to healthy eating:

•  Eating 3 meals on a daily basis

• Balancing my food choices over time ( I don’t eat the same thing over again)

• Eating a variety of nutrient rich foods

•  I use the Food Guide Servings Table to help me decide which foods to eat more

•  reading food labels (I look out for foods high in fat)

•  I Practice eating small portions

•  I Go to restaurants where you can order low fat meals

   A food guide serving is simply a organizer to help you determine how much servings is recommended everyday from each of the 4 food groups for your age. The servings vary depending on the age and sex. To me, the Food Guide Serving is the most significant way of knowing if you are portraying healthy eating or not because it will show if you are consuming enough servings from each food group. I find it as a useful tool because you can use it  everyday to see which food groups you missed and how you can improve by eating different foods.

The food groups

Grain products include: breads, pasta, cereals, rice and other grains

Vegetable and fruits include: fresh, canned, dried, or frozen vegetable and fruits, or 100% pure juices

Milk products include: Milk, cheese, yogurt and other dairy products

Meat and alternatives include: beef, pork, fish, poultry, legumes, eggs, tofu, peanut butter, beans

My daily aim is to have:

• 8 fruits and vegetables servings

• 7 grain products servings

• 3-4 milk and alternatives servings

• 3 meat and alternatives servings

According to Canada statistics, over half of Canadian adults don't eat the daily recommended number of servings for fruits and vegetables 

What does Masood think about this? 
Out of the 4 food groups, i believe the fruits and vegetables group is one that is mostly packed with vitamins and minerals that are essential to the healthy development of our bodies. If people don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, this can lead to vitamin deficiencies. I think that is a serious issue because out all the food group servings, the fruits and vegetable group appears as the highest recommended servings. In my opinion, by eating at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables everyday, you are reducing your risk of heart disease by at least 10%


Foods to limit

These are the foods I believe people should consider limiting because they are high in fat, calories, sugar, and are not on the food guide:

• Cookies, Cakes, doughnuts, muffins, pies, cheesecakes

• Potato chips, nachos, French fries, onion rings

• Fruit flavored drinks, sport drinks, fruit punches, and energy drinks