To ask wtf is a healthy diet?

[JazzAnnNonMouse]

I think we eat well, lots of fruit and veg not as much meat as we used to as we prefer to get organic.
We make our own bread, make meals from scratch etc
Eat/drink whole fat things ie milk

I am worried though that somewhere we're doing it wrong as everything I read has conflicting views:
Lower sugar
Lower fat
Lower calories
Lower carbs
Lower fruit

You can't do all of them because you wouldn't end up being able to eat a fat lot.

Aibu to ask what is the definitive good diet and for some examples of a weeks food?

To ask wtf is a healthy diet?

Something of everything.
Not too much of any one thing.

See, simple

The Eatwell Plate

Or 'eat like your grandparents did': little processed food, most things cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients.

I agree, there is loads of conflicting advice out there, often with the aim of short-term 'results' like rapid weight loss or making loadsamoney .

IMO we have access to cheap calories far too easily and cheaply and none of move enough. If we were able to fix those two things, a lot of problems would disappear.

Now, if I could go and take my own advice….

I think you can't go far wrong if you make most meals from scratch using ingredients that haven't been highly processed. Have the odd night off so you don't go mad from cooking as a chore. Eat more veg than anything else and don't stress. Oh and probably eat lots of different colours of things keeps you interested in food. I like cooking though and don't mind shopping for ingredients to make it more interesting.

And nothing wrong with full fat milk and butter. Tastes nice and isn't bad for you. Low fat spreads yuck.

Have a browse here

In my very humble opinion, the best diet for health and wellbeing is a diet that correlates with what real human beings ate before food became a mass production industry. That means, essentially your meal structure goes like this:

Eat animals and animal products like eggs, including all the bits, like fat, connective tissue, organ meats etc
Eat vegetables of all sorts, less of the starchy ones if you'd like to lose weight
Add in more fat to satiety, particularly if you eat primarily muscle meats
Eat some fruit, but again, don't eat a lot of it if weight loss is your goal
Get enough salt, and enough water

Things which are not food for humans:

Grains generally
Sugar unless naturally occurring in fruit and vegetables
Vegetable seed oils
Any combination of the the above including cakes, sweets, biscuits, chips, etc etc etc

Also:

Red meat is healthy!
Saturated fat is healthy!
Do not starve yourself!
Eat a wonderful variety of lovely food and enjoy your life!

Ignore any diet related study. Studies suggest that if something f says studies suggest in front of it it's a load of codswallop that will most definitely change in a few months or years time. They can't make their minds up on whether fish is beneficial or harmful, how much coffee we should be having because one week it'll kill you and the next it preserves your life, whether sugar or fat is more dangerous and so the story goes...

IMO a healthy diet is eating mainly anything with one ingredient and a little bit of what you fancy on occasion BUT if you are going to indulge in cakes, pizzas and pastries try to make them from scratch at home, at least then you get the yummys without the preservatives.

Portion control is where it's at. If you eat too much of anything you'll be unhealthy, it's all about balance and not doing anything too extreme. Extreme IMO is cutting a food group out entirely I.e carbs. Complex carbs= fuel and are extremely important.

Nothing processed if you can avoid it, things from cans, ready meals, packet sauces, jar sauces.

Plenty of vegetables and some fruit

Some dairy- full fat plain yogurt, flavour it with jams, fruit, honey. Butter, cheeses.

Plenty of chicken and fish. Avoid processed meat especially pork products. Consider switching beef mince for quorn. Red meat occasionally.

Nuts, legumes, whole grains.

Breads, oatcakes,

Cakes and sweets- occasionally

That's what we do in our house. Everything is made from scratch pretty much, apart from some bread products.

Breakfast was granola, Greek yoghurt and fruit.

Lunch is a roast with veges from the allotment.

Supper will be oatcakes and cheese for us and some salad and kids will have dippy eggs with muffins probably.

I will get flamed but I don't think grains or cows milk is good for us.

If it helps (it's helping me) I'm doing the online course on Nutrition- just started but it's given me some ideas.

class.coursera.org/lifenutr-003

I still think a healthy diet can be different to different people. I think cheese is very unhealthy (in excess), same with most things really. I believe in everything in moderation.

I do think sugar is a big problem and natural sugar is better then Aspartame. I have to admit, I don't think full fat milk is healthy- I much prefer skimmed for taste and fat content - contradictory- I prefer real butter to the marges.

Meals from scratch are really good. Oven cooking or grilling as oppose to frying. We have vegetarian meals for half the week and meat for the other half- that's not healthiness in general though, too much meat upsets stomach.

I am just trying to stick to food that's as unprocessed as possible. Mostly fresh fruit and veg, meat and fish.

Trying to get the 'real' versions of food so butter instead of margarine type stuff, natural yoghurt instead of flavoured etc.

Am saving a fortune on my shopping too.

I need to cut out the snacking though, that's my downfall!

Personally I think the GI diet is good basic template.

Lean meat/fish
Lots of veg & pulses
Fruit & dairy in moderation
Wholegrain carbs - ie brown rice & pasta in moderation
Minimal good fats ie decent olive oil when necessary.

Imo the key thing is not disrupting natural appetite control, that's probably to do with never getting too fat and avoiding highly palatable food.
Also large quantities of vegetables and generally a good variety of whole unprocessed food to maintain a healthy gut microbiome ?

Looking at the govt advice it doesn't seem to be that healthy?
Or am I completely wrong?
I mean the yellow people food swap ideas etc.

ignore anything proposed by someone with a book to sell and you won't do too badly.Never buy anything labelled 'diet'.

it is all taught at school....isn't it? (Hopes...)

A healthy diet is one mainly made up of things which are either very expensive or taste horrible.

Oh, and if I ate like my grandparents, I'd be having crispy pancakes and oven chips most days. With the odd bit of tinned veg (with SALT, no less).

The idea that people 'in history' lived healthier lives flies in the face of empirical evidence. The posh have always eaten better, because they can afford variety and had servants to cook for them. The (cash and time) poor have always eaten carry-out pies and chips, since the import of the potato at least. Just eat what you like and face the fact that one day you will die, of something more or less unpleasant.

I like Michael Pollan's advice:

Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.

A healthy diet?
Food.
That way you stay alive. At least one more day.

claraschu, I like that - v concise

Healthy eating comprises a few elements - eat fresh and seasonal with a variety of foods, get some colour on your plate, eat reasonable portions, avoid processed food products, cook, sit and enjoy meals with company, follow mindful eating principles and enjoy a healthy attitude to social and celebration foods.

I watched something last night that I taped ages ago and forgot about - it was fat vs sugar in our diets.

The upshot was that neither is bad, it is combining fat and sugar (in a 50/50 mix) that is the problem. That is what makes things so tasty and addictive that you overeat, and that is what is found in most processed foods.

The healthiest approach as far as I understand it is to eat as fresh and natural as possible - cook from scratch, limit processed foods as much as you possibly can.

Oh Christ, do yourself a favour and do not ask anything about food/diet on MN.
You've already been told that grains are not good for humans, followed by 2 people telling you to eat lots of whole grains.
You've been told that red meat is not good and then that it's healthy. Lots of paleo people will start going on about coconut oil.
The 'carbs are evil' brigade will pile in to tell you that you will develop instant liver failure and your arms will fall off if you eat a kitkat or a bowl of Frosties.
And whatever you do, do NOT ever consume Loyd Grossman pasta sauce as it contains 12kg of added sugar per jar.
Also, raisins are no different to Haribos.
Anyone who ever gives their child anything other than water or milk to drink is a feckless parent who doesn't give a shit about their child.
You have been warned.

andywarhol Milk? Are you crazy?! All those hormones?! OP: Just water. Not tap water either. Pure Buxton water you siphoned off at the source yourself. By moonlight. Obviously.

Sod the advice, Michael Pollen is right - well the bit quoted is OK.

Basically just eat food. A wide range of food. Sugar - yep, fat - yep, meat - yep, grain - yep... and on and on.

And don't avoid processed food, just avoid highly processed food. After all raw meat is processed (killed and cut up), more so when cooked.... unless you want one of those truly weird raw, just plucked from the ground diets - blech.

A healthy diet is one that contains a wide variety of food and not too many/few calories. There is nothing more complicated than that.

The variety bit is the only reason to know what a food group is. So you can check you are eating a good range of foods from all food groups.