Foods that promote health are nutritious, which means that they provide the body with nutrients to function. These nutrients include carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, minerals, fiber and protein. Health problems arise due to a dietary imbalance, resulting in an excess or deficiency of nutrients. The best way to prevent imbalances is to tailor your diet to provide all of the daily essential nutrients without eating in excess.
Single Nutritious Foods
Foods that are healthiest are those that provide the most nutrition independently. Fruits and vegetables fall under this category. This is because many contain all the essential nutrients, although the sort of protein that appears in produce is incomplete, as it does not comprise all of the nine essential amino acids. Moreover, fruits and vegetables often contain antioxidants, which protect the body from free radical damage resulting from oxidation associated with metabolism. Benefits from including an abundance and diversity of fruits in vegetables in your diet include a lower risk for stroke, cardiovascular disease, cancer, eye degeneration, metabolic complications, hypertension and stroke.
Combined Nutritious Foods
Meats, poultry, fish, grains, legumes, nuts and dairy contain nutrients, though not as comprehensively as fruits and vegetables. Instead, they complement one another to provide complete nutrition through complex meals. For example, while meat, poultry or fish will provide complete proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals, grains contain carbohydrates, fiber and other vitamins and minerals. Therefore, eating a single serving of meat, poultry or fish with a serving of grains will yield a nutritious meal. As another example, combining a grain, such as rice, with a legume like beans will provide complete proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.
Balance of Nutrition
Although some foods are more nutritious than others, there are no foods that contain every variety of each type of nutrient. In other words, whereas fruits and vegetables contain the highest proportion of nutrients, there are no fruits or vegetables that contain all 13 essential vitamins, six essential minerals, nine amino acids, soluble fiber, insoluble fiber, simple sugars, starch, triglycerides and cholesterol at the same time. Accordingly, it is impossible to live from any single type of food. It requires an integration of all foods in appropriate proportions to garner all of the necessary nutrients to maintain health.
Given that the body needs all types of foods, an overabundance or shortage of one or more types of food or nutrient will result in health complications. For example, a diet high in meats and grains, but low in fruits and vegetables, is likely to result in deficiencies in several vitamins and minerals, with the potential for high blood levels of triglycerides and cholesterol. Even diets that facilitate imbalances for health reasons, such as veganism, often require dietary supplementation to ensure sustained health.
Optimizing Nutrition
Food comes in several manifestations. For example, grains appear as cereals, breads and desserts, both processed and unprocessed. However, unprocessed grains like whole wheat that appear in cereals and breads are the most nutritious, because they contain the least simple sugars and lipids, but the most starches and fiber. Lean meats, skinless poultry and fish are better than alternatives, because they contain the most vitamins, minerals and protein, but the least fats and cholesterol. Preparation also plays a role; breading foods, for example, can add excess carbohydrates in the absence of fiber, while frying foods often destroys beneficial nutrients while increasing fat and cholesterol content. Eating nutritiously means remaining mindful of the sort of foods you eat, how you prepare them and maintaining a broad diversity.
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