Diet and Health
'There are no good or bad foods, only good or bad diets'
There is increasingly persuasive evidence that our diets have a significant
affect on our long term health. Not only does being over or underweight lead to
health problems but so can not eating enough of the right foods in the right
balance.
As a guide experts have produced the food platter to demonstrate the proportion
of what foods should make up our diet. About a third to a half should come from
complex carbohydrates such as bread. In the UK we don't eat enough complex
carbohydrates.
Our diets should also contain plenty of fruit and vegetables. Again in the UK
we need to eat more of these – at least 5 portions a day.
What we should cut back on (but not exclude) are fatty and sugary food and
drinks. It is also these foods that contain the highest number of calories gram for
gram and therefore cutting back can help if you want to lose weight.
This food plate picture makes healthy eating easier to understand by showing
the types and proportions of foods needed to make a well-balanced and healthy
diet.
Bread provides an excellent source of many nutrients not least fibre
(particularly in wholemeal bread), something studies have shown we all need to eat more
of. But white bread contains calcium, and all bread has iron, the B vitamins
niacin and thiamin, as well as a host of other micronutrients.
The Federation is working hard along with the millers to support the
nutritional advice given out by doctors, nutritionists, dieticians and government about
diet and health. It has led the way in developing a Vitality Eating System,
which encourages people to eat a healthy balanced diet and take exercise. For the
vast majority of people this is the only way to lose weight and maintain that
loss - not faddy diets. Celebrity, Cat Deeley, has endorsed the VES and we
continue to update the recipes it contains.
The System was based on pioneering work undertaken by the grain chain with the
Medical Research Council. Leading obesity expert Susan Jebb studied the studies
into weight loss interventions and found that the best way to lose weight and
keep it off was essentially a reduced calorie, low fat diet including plenty of
complex carbohydrates like bread coupled with exercise.
Both Tackling the Weight of the Nation, as the resulting report is called, and the Vitatlity Eating System, can be dowloaded from the publications section of the website.