Nutritional Tips For You And Your Family

By Sandra Taylor


A nutritious diet is the foundation of good health, so it's very important to make sure that you know how to eat properly. Many of us assume we are eating a healthy diet, when really, we may be missing vital nutrients. This article will give you some great tips for ensuring that your diet is as healthy as possible.

Vitamin B12 is an important part of a healthy diet. It plays a role in releasing energy from the fat, carbohydrates and protein that you eat. Vitamin B12 also helps in the formation of blood cells, nervous system maintenance and bone metabolism. You can find this vitamin in dairy products, eggs, fish, meat and poultry.

Try being a vegetarian at least one day a week. A vegetarian is in some ways healthier than being a meat eater. Even if you are not ready to make a leap to complete vegetarianism, you can get some of the benefits of a vegetarian diet by taking a break from meat completely one day every week.

Add more whole and cut up fruit to your diet. Fruit, not fruit juice, supplies your body with the fiber it needs to function properly and to ward off diseases like cancer. The fiber makes it filling also. Fruit is a great source of important nutrients such as vitamin C, potassium, and folic acid. Fruit can also satisfy cravings for sweets.

Make sure you eat foods containing vitamin C everyday. Humans are unable to produce or store vitamin C and deficiency can cause soft gums, skin hemorrhages, brittle teeth and nails, slow wound healing, anemia and eventually scurvy. Good sources of vitamin C are citrus fruits like limes, lemons and oranges.

Eating foods high in fatty acids can be great for your skin. Foods high in fatty acid can slow down inflammation. Inflammation can cause blotchiness, sagging, and fine lines. Almonds are good any time of day to increase your intake of fatty acids. You could also try halibut, tuna, and salmon to get the amount of fatty acids that you need.

One aspect of healthy eating is sugar reduction. Sometimes it isn't true that fruit juice is better for you than soda. Strangely, some brands of fruit juice are actually more sugary than soda. So you always want to be aware of the sugar content of the drinks you consume.

Nutritionists agree that when it comes to lowering cholesterol levels with protein, 25 milligrams per day is the magic number. Vegetarians (or anyone else, for that matter) can easily meet this requirement by consuming soy foods like edamame (green soybeans that have been steamed and lightly salted), tofu, and roasted soy nuts.

Eat dark chocolate instead of white or milk chocolate. Dark chocolate has flavonoids inside which have been proven to lower a person's blood pressure. Antioxidants are also good for lowering your cholesterol. Just make sure that you pick chocolate made from a minimum of 70 percent of cocoa in order to get the most benefit. Don't go overboard; chocolate is still a high calorie food so enjoy it in moderation.

To add some flavor to your meals, fresh herbs are a wonderful option. You can grow them yourself in your kitchen, or you can buy them fresh from your local farmers market or grocery store. Adding herbs to your meals will add a ton of flavor to your cooking.

Regularly consuming lean meats to significantly increase your muscle growth. By eating four to eight servings of lean beef, fish, turkey, and chicken, you should experience greater muscle mass than someone who follows a similar workout program but does not regularly eat a diet in which meat is present.

Slap some peaches, apples, pineapple, banana and other fruit on the grill and get ready for a real treat! Fresh fruit makes a wonderful addition to a backyard cookout. You don't have to eat it raw though! Cook it right alongside the lean hamburger and turkey franks!

Encourage your child to try new foods but don't force them to eat something if they don't like it. Try and have them taste a food on more than one occasion to see if they like it and if they don't, don't keep forcing them to eat it. You don't want them to come to dread meal time.

Knowing how to eat a healthy, nutritious diet isn't really very hard. The basic principles of nutrition are easy to learn. If you utilize the information you've learned from this article, you shouldn't have any problem eating a healthy diet. Before you know it, you'll be in better health than ever.




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