Dear Readers

Marian writes Lifeline from St Mary. She is 23 years old and is concerned about healthy eating. She would like to know what actually eating healthy means. Her weight keeps fluctuating, up mostly then down when she fasts. She asks lifeline for some guidelines to establish healthy eating habits. Her mother is hypertensive and a diabetic and she would like to avoid developing these ailments.

The choice of food eaten is very important to the human body. The ingestion of certain food types can prevent illnesses and aid in the healing process or can result in many chronic diseases.

Too much fat and sugars

A balanced diet therefore plays a part in how we look, how well we feel and even, how long we live. Most people ingest too much fat and simple sugars and too little fibre and complex carbohydrates. Forty per cent calories consumed should come from complex carbohydrates and naturally occurring sugars.

Thirty per cent of daily calories should come from fat.

These fractions are totally ignored by the vast amount of the population who eat fast food preparations daily and drink soda like water. The basic steps to improve a persons diet would include:

Decreasing ingestion of refined sugars.

Decreasing consumption of cooked fats.

Limiting salt intake.

Increasing intake of fresh vegetables.

Eating adequate quality protein.

Do not depend on processed on pre-packaged foods regularly for your meals. It is much healthier to prepare freshly cooked meals daily. If possible food additives and chemicals should be avoided. It would be great if we could all grow our own vegetables and fruits in our backyards (some of us do)!

Read labels

But as this is not the case in general, people should remember to read the labels on the packages they wish to purchase and know what they are ingesting. Science at this time cannot tell us what will be the effect over many years of ingesting food additives and the various chemicals used as pesticides. The Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) study in 1989 identified 66 different pesticides that actually turn up in the diet of the average person. This means that one diet can put us under serious risk of developing cancer.

Genetic engineering

Genetic engineering of food is now also fairly commonly used to increase the yield of food crops and to keep the product fresh looking for longer time.

Genetic engineering is already used in the growing of corn, potatoes, and tomatoes in the USA and at least 15 per cent of soybeans are produced by genetic engineering. The truth is we don't know too much about genetic engineering food as there has not been a lot of long term testing done on them. Changing the genetic composition or introducing food allergies to susceptible individuals. We really don't know how the genetically engineered foods will affect the human body in the long term. It is also very difficult to recognise food grown with genetic engineering as they are not labelled as such.

When possible buy organically grown produce and grains and buy meat and poultry grains without hormones or antibiotics.

The best diet is where the food content is 15-30% protein; 40-65% complex carbohydrates, (45-50% of complex carbohydrates should be in the form of vegetables and 50-25% should be whole fruit.)

Complex proteins are available in eggs, cheese, milk, meat, fish, poultry, nuts and legumes. It is very important to reduce the ingestion of refined sugar as refined sugar has many adverse effects on the body. It is thought to accelerate bone loss in the elderly resulting in osteoporosis. Many people react to high blood sugar level with cranky behaviours irritability and an inability to concentrate at work.

Decent alternatives

Honey, molasses and maple syrup are decent alternatives to using refined sugars but should still be used sparingly. Sugar is best taken early in the day. Sugar at bed time tends to keep the persons awake and also is later stored as fat.

In addition drink plenty of water, at least eight glasses of water per day are usually recommended. Marian could also consult with a dietician privately or at one of the hospitals.

Write Lifeline

PO Box 1731

Kingston 8