How to Create a Balanced Meal

    Access to quality food is essential for healthy physical and mental function, especially in the development and growth of children. Eating balanced meals is a great way to incorporate vitamins and minerals into everyday eating and helps promote healthy eating habits in the long run. Forming healthy eating habits and consuming a wide variety of food is very important in early stages of life, especially during the formative years of childhood. Eating a wide variety of food is a good way to ensure that the body is getting essential vitamins and minerals for growth and maintaining health.

    

    A great way to optimize health and get needed vitamins and minerals is to make sure each meal is well-balanced. A well-rounded meal includes a variety of nutritious foods such as fruits, vegetables, grains, different sources of protein, and healthy oils. Healthy eating patterns also involve limiting saturated fats, trans fats, added sugars, and excess sodium. Nutrient-dense foods are also important when it comes to health. Nutrient-dense foods are foods that contain nutrients that have not been diluted by adding fat, sugar, or sodium (Jeukendrup & Gleeson, 2018).

    An easy way to track how balanced your meals are, is to follow the Healthy Eating Plate method. The Healthy Eating Plate method is a detailed guide that helps people build healthy meals by following recommended proportions of nutritious foods in each meal. The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health proposed the Healthy Eating Plate method as a guide that puts suggested proportions in a simple format. According to the Healthy Eating Plate, each meal should consist of the following:

• ½ Vegetables and Fruits - Half of the meal should be mostly vegetables.
• A helpful tip is to opt for fruits and vegetables that are in a variety of colors. A healthy take on tasting the rainbow. Fruits and vegetables contain important vitamins and minerals, but they are also a great source of fiber. Fiber helps the food move through the gastrointestinal system and helps protect against cardiovascular disease and different forms of cancer (Jeukendrup & Gleeson, 2018).
• ¼ Whole Grains - Whole and intact grains include whole wheat, quinoa, oats, cracked wheat, brown rice, and wheat berries.
• Whole grains are a type of carbohydrate that is also a great source of fiber. Whole grains help protect the body against cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and weight gain (Jeukendrup & Gleeson, 2018). Whole grains are also high in important B vitamins. B vitamins help convert food into energy, create new blood cells, and maintain healthy body tissues (Berry, 2019).
• ¼ Protein - Sources of protein include lean meats, poultry, fish and seafood, dairy products such as milk and Greek yogurt, legumes, and soy.
• Protein is an energy source and helps with muscle recovery and growth, especially when consumed after physical activity. Eating protein is also very important because protein supplies the body with amino acids the body cannot produce on its own. Protein also helps with weight loss, it helps keep the body feeling full and helps carry oxygen throughout the body in your blood (Jeukendrup & Gleeson, 2018).

    The Healthy Eating Plate guide is a great tool because it allows everyone to apply their preferences. The guide allows for flexibility with preferences and dietary restrictions. Healthy eating does not have to be restrictive, and this guide allows people to eat well-balanced meals without feeling like they need to sacrifice certain foods that they like.




Sources:
Altamura, C., Cecchi, G., Bravo, M., Brunelli, N., Laudisio, A., Di Caprio, P., Botti, G., Paolucci, M., Khazrai, Y. M., & Vernieri, F. (2020). The healthy eating plate advice for migraine prevention: An interventional study. Nutrients, 12(6), 1579. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12061579
Berry, J. (2019, May 28). A complete guide to B vitamins. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325292
Healthy Eating Plate. (2021, October 4). The Nutrition Source. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/
Jeukendrup, A., & Gleeson, M. (2018). Sports Nutrition (Third ed.) [E-book]. Human Kinetics.

By: Selita O. Paea