Do you know that you can improve your health by following a few simple nutritional tips? Eating correctly is essential to feeling well, both inside and out. However, sometimes it becomes an impossible mission due to lack of time and the current pace of life. The reality is that it is not as difficult as it seems. All you have to do is incorporate certain eating habits into your daily routine. Do you want to know which ones? This post gives you ten nutritional tips that will help you be healthier. Before, we will review some important concepts related to a good diet.
Do you eat, or do you feed?
When sitting down to eat, we can have two objectives: eat the first thing we have at hand, or try to put foods on our plate that help us meet our nutritional needs and stay as healthy as possible. Which one do you identify with? The second option indeed takes a little more effort, especially initially. However, it is very worth choosing this option, since once we implement a diet and some habits, we will be betting on our health.
You have probably heard or read that certain diseases depend on genetic and environmental factors. Well, within the latter, food is the most relevant. If you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world: the food we eat, with its good or bad properties, becomes part of our body. Therefore, before putting anything in your mouth, remember the nutritional advice that we will give you.
The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)
Our body needs certain nutrients, which must proportionately be part of the diet: carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, etc.
Although the recommended daily amounts of each nutrient are under continuous debate by experts, there is currently a consensus that can guide us about the amount of each nutrient that we should incorporate into our daily diet to be healthy, depending on our age and sex.
The recommended daily amounts (RDA) present a practical problem: they are based on nutrient recommendations, so we must know how to transfer this information to our diet. Luckily, to help us interpret these recommendations, we have two tools: nutritional tables and mathematics.
How to use the nutritional tables
The nutritional tables usually indicate the number of nutrients per 100 g of product. For example, to determine how much protein a specific food has, we must look for its per 100 g. A chicken fillet of this weight contains 22 g of protein.
It is necessary to clarify an idea: it is common to think that some foods only contain one type of nutrient; however, this is a wrong notion since it is normal for them to include several. The 100g chicken fillet that we talked about earlier, in addition to protein, also contains carbohydrates (2.30g) and fat (5.2g), so we must also add these values.
Although it is not necessary to start counting the exact grams that we eat of each type of nutrient, it is advisable that, in each meal, we include the different nutritional groups to ensure a correct intake: carbohydrates, proteins, and vegetables should always be present on our plates.
If we want to know the nutritional composition of fresh foods, we have no other option than to go to the nutritional tables. In the case of packaged foods, we have an element that makes things much easier for us: the label. Therefore, you must review them when you have doubts about a product or compare two similar ones.
10 nutritional tips to improve your health
We know that continually going to nutritional tables and calculations can be somewhat cumbersome. That's why we want to make things easier for you with these 10 nutritional tips.
Following these ten nutritional tips will help you eat better every day and be healthier. The more you put into practice, the better. But don't get overwhelmed. You don't have to start with all of them at once. You can incorporate them little by little, starting with easier ones for you. Your health will thank you!
1. Turn vegetables and fruits into protagonists of all your dishes
If a boring menu in which the colour green predominates comes to mind, banish this image! Each fruit or vegetable has different qualities and includes different nutrients and antioxidants. The colours of fruits and vegetables which come from chlorophylls, carotenes and carotenoids, flavones and anthocyanins are indicators of their different properties and antioxidants. So now you know, turn your dishes into a colour festival! Below we explain the properties of each shade of fruit and vegetables:
White: These vegetables contain potassium and antioxidants, which give them antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and protective properties for the circulatory system. You will find them in vegetables such as turnips, leeks, garlic and onions.
Yellow and orange: the colour is due to carotenes and carotenoids, which are characterized by having a powerful antioxidant effect. They are related to improving memory and strengthening the body's defences, contributing to healthy eyesight, skin, and mucous membranes. You will benefit from them by eating carrots, pumpkin or mango, among others.
Red and purple: the colour of these foods is the result of anthocyanins or resveratrol, substances with antioxidant power and associated with an anticancer effect, cardiovascular protection and memory improvement. We can find them in strawberries, pomegranates, raspberries, blackberries, black grapes or blueberries.
Green: vegetables of this colour are rich in vitamin B9 C, minerals and chlorophyll. They have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory functions. Take advantage of these qualities by eating spinach, Swiss chard, peas, avocado, arugula or lamb's lettuce.
2. Limit red meat in your diet
If vegetables have to be the undisputed protagonist of your dishes, red meat should only make very occasional appearances. As you know, its fame is not very good since it has been linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer. Recommendations on your maximum intake are reviewed periodically, based on available scientific information. However, it is not about eliminating this type of meat. You can eat hamburgers or ribeye occasionally, but replacing it in your daily diet with chicken, turkey, or fish is convenient.
3. Fruit, better whole or in smoothies
When we eat the whole fruit, we provide our body with vitamins and fibre. Instead, the latter is lost if we drink only the juice, such as squeezing oranges or using a blender. If you feel lazy or eat whole fruit when you get up, a great option is fruit and vegetable smoothies or shakes. For many people, they are more appealing in the morning. The truth is that they are delicious! The best of all is that you will be ingesting a large number of nutrients, something essential to start the day in the best way with them.
Whether you eat the whole fruit or in smoothies -either of the two is a good option- we recommend that you peel it before or, if not, that you buy it from organic farming because today, there are pesticides in both fruits and vegetables is common in vegetables.
We also encourage you to add beneficial foods such as ginger or turmeric to your smoothies. Incorporating them into the Mediterranean diet is complicated. However, they are the ideal complement to your shakes. Write down this recipe: red fruits, pineapple, cucumber, spinach, mint, ginger and turmeric. If you try it, you will love it! As you can see, this nutritional advice can be delicious.
4. Gradually reduce the sugar in your diet
Many foods today contain large amounts of added sugar. For this reason, our palate has become accustomed to the sweet taste and increasingly demands it more. However, if we gradually reduce it, we will ensure that it is not missed. And in this way, we will be doing our health a favour since the consumption of sugar is related to different pathologies:
- Blood sugar spikes put extra stress on the pancreas and increase the risk of diabetes in the long term.
- Alteration of the microbiota or intestinal flora, today we know that a healthy microbiota is a key to our defences and our health in general.
- Some studies indicate there may be a link between sugar intake and risk of Alzheimer's
So now you know, cut that little sugar you put in your coffee in half or, even better, eliminate it from everything. In general, when it comes to sugar, the less, the better. If you're having a hard time giving up the sweet taste, you can use stevia, a zero-calorie, naturally-derived sweetener that can help you enjoy food without the harmful effects of sugar.
5. Choose wholegrain
Today we have a wide variety of foods made with wholemeal flour, from pasta to pizza dough or bread. In addition to containing fibre, it is more beneficial than refined flour for several reasons:
Wholemeal flour reduces the absorption of carbohydrates and fats, thus reducing the sudden increase in blood sugar caused by foods with refined flour.
It serves as food for the good bacteria we have in our intestinal microbiota, favouring their growth and improving our defences, our intestinal transit and reducing the risk of colorectal cancer.
Important! We warn you that not all foods whose packaging states the condition of "whole" are. Therefore, it is best to consult your allies, the labels. They will inform you if it is completely whole or food with refined flour to which cereals have been added.
For example, until recently, "wholemeal" bread could be made with refined flour, as long as cereals were added later as bran. However, now the legislation has changed and is stricter in this regard. Since last July 1, for a bread to be considered wholemeal, it has to be made 100% with this type of flour.
In general, we recommend that you consult its label whenever you are before a whole food. In addition to checking that it is, you will be able to detect if it contains preservatives and thus avoids them.
Finally, favouring a varied diet is positive, so we recommend incorporating different flours. There is life beyond wheat! Have you tried buckwheat flour, spelt flour or legume flour?
6. Feed your microbiota
Our sixth nutritional advice has to do with the intestinal microbiota. Do you know that some foods also serve to nourish it and promote the growth of beneficial bacteria? You have probably heard that potatoes, sweet potatoes or rice are best eaten cold. This is based on the fact that these foods, after cooling down after being cooked, generate a substance called type III starch, key to the much healthy microbiota, which produces a substance that protects our colon. We can reheat these foods before eating them, but gently.
There are two other great friends of the microbiota:
Kombucha: Fermented tea beverage high in probiotics and available in many flavours
Kefir: a product similar to yoghurt.
It is very important to take care of our microbiota since there is increasing evidence of its relationship with defences, response to medications, allergies, and even mood.
7. Eat nuts
It is very important to consume them, although in the right measure. Nuts provide antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins crucial for a healthy diet. Walnuts are especially important for cardiovascular health, but we must limit ourselves to the necessary daily amounts to not exceed the caloric intake. A handful a day is enough!
8. Overuse fruit!
In this case, there is no restriction. The fruit is very beneficial because it provides vitamins, minerals, fibre, antioxidants and other multiple benefits for the body. Each one has different properties. For example, red fruits have great antioxidant power and a high content of flavonoids. They are so beneficial that they should be eaten daily.
One trick to eating more fruit is to get in the habit of choosing it over any processed food when you feel like snacking. We advise you to consume seasonal fruit preferably.
9. Avoid processed foods and additives
This is one of the most important nutritional tips. The ultra-processing of some foods makes them an unhealthy option, full of preservatives, dyes and all kinds of additives. Therefore, avoid them at all costs.
Today, there are applications such as Yuka, which are used to scan the code of food and see if it is highly processed and indicate the content of additives that can be potentially harmful.
10. Eat legumes every week
They are very healthy and can be consumed in a thousand ways. Do you want some ideas? Try them in salads, in the form of hummus, or as the traditional spoon dish. Legumes contain B vitamins (thiamin, niacin, B6 and folic acid) and minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, phosphorus and iron. In addition, they are a food that contains both carbohydrates and proteins. Yes, protein! Which, in addition, are of vegetable origin and almost fat-free.
To complete these ten nutritional tips, it is also important that you stay hydrated and do physical activity. Therefore, drink an average of 2 litres of water a day to cleanse your body and exercise regularly. You will see the benefits!