Five Principles of Healthy Eating

There is no need to read various internet celebrity recipes or memorize complex nutrient ratios. The five core principles of healthy eating, which have been agreed upon by domestic and foreign nutrition circles for many years and combined with the practical feasibility of ordinary people, are "prioritizing food variety, matching energy needs, less processing and low burden, individual adaptation, and long-term sustainability." There are no fancy requirements, and they are all rules that ordinary people can implement.

When I helped Aunt Zhang downstairs with chronic gastritis to adjust her diet, the most common question she asked was, "I heard people say that eating whole grains every day is healthy. Why do I get stomachache after eating it for three days?" 」This is actually a misunderstanding that many people easily fall into: treating principles as rigid rules. Regarding the intake of whole grains, there are indeed differences in recommendations from different fields. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that coarse grains are hard and cold. Elderly people with weak spleen and stomach, and patients with chronic gastritis should reduce the proportion appropriately, or even replace them with fermented multigrain steamed buns and multigrain porridge for better digestion. ； The recommendations of the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" are also very flexible. Whole grains only need to account for 1/3 of the daily grains, and there is no need to pursue eating every meal. In fact, the core of food variety is not the KPI of how many kinds of ingredients you can get. In the morning, you can cook noodles with an egg and sprinkle with green vegetables, order takeout for lunch and order a small portion of cold fungus, and go home and stir-fry lean meat and blanch half a head of broccoli at night. You can easily get more than 10 kinds in a day, and there is no pressure to make up 25 kinds in a week. There is no need to go to several imported supermarkets to buy rare chia seeds and quinoa.

Speaking of this, some people must ask, why am I still fat when I eat so healthily? To be honest, there are ready-made examples around me: My best friend is a fitness instructor. She teaches and trains for four hours a day. She eats two bowls of brown rice and half a pound of braised beef for each meal. Her body fat rate remains below 20% all year round. Her husband is a programmer. He sits for 10 hours a day and gained 8 pounds after eating with her for half a month. This is where "matching energy needs" is missed. If you can't walk 5,000 steps a day, don't imitate the fitness bloggers who stuff three chicken drumsticks and two European buns into one meal. No matter how healthy the ingredients are, the excess energy will turn into fat and pile up on your body. On the other hand, if you are running business outside every day, or preparing for student party exams and using your brain for 12 hours a day, don't imitate others who eat fat-reducing meals until you feel dizzy and hungry. Add staple foods when necessary. Only when you have enough energy will your body feel comfortable.

Many people also have a deep misunderstanding of "less processing and lower burden". They think that as long as it is processed food, they should not touch it. Last time I read a blogger who said that he had not eaten any packaged food in a year and even dried the salt himself. It made people laugh and cry. You must know that different groups have different attitudes towards processed food. The extreme health party advocates the complete rejection of industrial processing, but the International Food and Agriculture Organization has long made it clear: Proper processing can improve food safety and nutritional retention. Sterilized pure milk from regular manufacturers is much safer than raw milk sold in bulk. Frozen broccoli has a higher vitamin retention rate than fresh broccoli that has been left in the refrigerator for three days. The core of the so-called low burden is to reduce the intake of additional added sugar, salt, and trans fat. This does not mean that you should reject all processed foods. It is perfectly fine for you to drink milk tea once a week, but if you drink two cups of full-sugar milk tea a day, the added sugar will definitely exceed the standard. Even if you make your own fruit tea at home, half a pound of rock sugar is not considered healthy.

What is most easily overlooked by everyone is "individual adaptation". After copying a bunch of recipes online, there are many people who feel uncomfortable after eating them. Others drink milk to supplement calcium and grow taller, but if you are lactose intolerant and get diarrhea after drinking it, then just switch to yogurt or Shuhua milk. There is no need to force yourself. ； Others say to eat more seafood to replenish protein. If you have gout and your joints ache after eating, it would be best for you to avoid high-purine foods. My mother used to read popular science and said to eat more broccoli for antioxidants. She has reflux esophagitis, and she gets acid reflux every time she eats it raw. Later, she switched to blanching it quickly and frying it with less seasoning, which made it much more comfortable to eat. There is no one-size-fits-all recipe, the one that suits your body is the best.

Finally, to be honest, all healthy eating requirements must ultimately fall into “long-term sustainability” to make sense. I have seen too many people who only eat boiled vegetables for a week in order to lose weight. If they can't stick to it for three days, they go to eat hot pot and make skewers. They feel very guilty after eating, and they develop eating disorders. This point is controversial in different fields. Extreme fitness schools require strict diet control and zero sugar and oil to achieve results. However, the clinical nutrition community has conducted many years of tracking and found that 90% of people cannot adhere to this strict dietary pattern for only 3 months, and the rebound rate is as high as 80%. On the contrary, it is not as good as the long-term benefits of a loose dietary pattern. If you usually use less salt and less oil when cooking, and allow yourself to eat the hot pot and milk tea you want once or twice a week, you can stick to this pattern for three to five years or even a lifetime. It is more effective than any short-term extreme diet.

In fact, after all, healthy eating is never a shackles for yourself. If you can be happy for several days by eating barbecue, it is much better than suppressing psychological problems by eating boiled vegetables every time. After all, when we eat, we must first feel comfortable, and secondly, we must be healthy, right?