Heart Healthy Diet and Balanced Diet
Heart Healthy Diet and Balanced Diet
Whether we have heart disease or not, we need to achieve whole and balanced
nutrition. That means we have requirements on both certain food quantity and
appropriate nutrient proportion. It's harmful for our body to lack or
over-eat any nutrient.
We have about five food categeories:
1. Cereal provides heat energy, sugar, minerals and vitamin B, especially
B1,etc.
2. Meat and fish provide protein, fat, calcium, Phosphor, Iron,vitamin
B2,B12,etc.
3. Milk, egg, bean and bean products, provide protein, fat, sugar and
vitamin B, etc.
4. Vegetables and fruits provide food fibers, minerals and vitamin C, etc.
5. Vegetable oil, animal oil and sugar are pure heat producing foods.
Each day we should eat variety foods from the above categories and should
arrange them according to proper proportion.
In medical documents, as early as 3000 years ago, ancient chinese diet
experts holded that diet should take cereal as main nourishment, fruits as assistance, fish
and meat as benefit, vegetables as supplement. Cereal absorbs the essence of
nature, so they are the most nourishable foods in the world.
Today american food pyramid holds the same point of view. In My Food Pyramid
Plan it suggestes that the proper portion of each day's food intake should
be:
- About 20-30% cereal,
- 35-40% vegetables and fruits,
- 10-15% lean meat and fish,
- 10-15% egg, milk, bean and bean products,
- 5% vegetable oil.
Many experts suggest that we can eat vegetables and fruits as possible as we
can. That's not correct. Most vegetables and fruits are cool or cold in nature.
Eating too much raw and cold foods will hurt Yang Qi of our body, especially
those who are Yang deficiency. On the other hand, many fruits contain much
sugar,eating too much will add extra heat energy. So no one kind food can we eat as much as we can, we need balanced diet.
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