Healthy Balanced diets What might they look like?

Ally

My initial problem was not with what I was eating it was with the quantities. My initial approach was therefore to have fairly strict portion control which had the added benefit of reducing the household budget. We also moved to buying the main meal food on a daily basis, as we would do when in France. This too meant that there was less waste as we ate what was appropriate for the day/weather/seasonal availability etc.

Plates would be difficult to do anything with but it would be possible to have a pyramid with seven vertical sides to provide an example of a diet for each day of the week. If you then constructed the same object as a blank it would be possible to use scaling and handwritten text or adhesive symbols to show what would be expected for individuals with particular dietary needs.

One of the problems with diet that arose at the group meeting for newly diagnosed diabetics that I attended was that the level of understanding what is a necessary in a) a sensible diet and b) what constituted a reasonable portion for the individuals concerned. Some of the group were clearly more interested in the diagrams. Some might be affronted by such an 'simplistic' approach but if a schematic could be produced it might well have some appeal.

Obviously I spent too much time with Rupert books and folding cardboard objects.

The American College of Physicians suggest this:

One half of the plate low starch veg, salad veg, fruit.
One quarter of the plate good quality lean protein eg fish, beef, poultry.
One quarter of the plate starch eg potato, rice, tortilla.

Fat is added when required eg for salad dressing but doesn't have a specific "slot".

The non low carb diabetes diet forum looks like a good idea.

The ACP also have a consensus suggestion for what constitutes a healthy balanced diet for diabetics.

It seems to me that having specific forum areas where non low carbers and low carbers can swap ideas and information without harrassment is a good thing.

Its interesting how people interpret things. One person seems to think I was 'touting' the plate model whilst what I was really interested in was the variety of models and the differences beween them ! I had 2 thoughts when looking at them. Firstly I wondered if any or none of them described well what people (who don't low carb) actually did (they vary considerably)and secondly if they were a 'good way of visually describing a healthy diet.

Hello
I find the pyramid concept much more intuitive - thanks Phoenix
Gill

What's 'balanced' at the end of the day? It's all relative.

If you live in the Mediterranean you eat a 'balanced' diet. If you live in Alaska you eat a 'balanced' diet. If you live in the Outer Hebrides you eat a 'balanced' diet. If you live in any one of the hundreds of different areas in the World, you eat what you consider to be a 'balanced' diet. Yet all of these diets are quite - and in some cases, vastly different.

It's all down to interpretation - and what is one person's - or one culture's interpretation is different to another's. One culture may eat a predominantly high meat and fat diet, another may eat a predominantly high dairy diet, another still a fairly high 'natural' carbohydrate (natural as in fruit and vegetables) diet. They will all have some protein in some form, whether through meat, fish or dairy. Some will have plenty of natural carbohydrates - some will have virtually none at all.

As long as YOUR balanced diet keeps you fit and healthy, then there is no such thing as a fixed balanced diet. But that raises the point - not what is a balanced diet - but what is a healthy diet? Some diets keep people fit and healthy - others don't. Why do some cultures not get our diseases? Why do WE get our diseases? What is the difference?

By far the best way of understanding what is good for us is looking at ancestral diets and how they kept the human race going over thousands of years. What they ate to a man (or woman) was all-natural and unprocessed and undenatured food - whatever their diet actually was - and the more nutrition they were able to get from their food, the healthier and stronger they were. If they got the diseases that we get - and to the level that we are getting them - the Human Race would have died out long ago. What is the difference?

As soon as they started to eat Western food they started to deteriorate. As soon as they moved into towns and cities and their nutritional levels went down they got sick. As soon as they entered poverty they got sick.

With all our food resources, are we really nutritionally well provided for now, or are we actually replacing real and very valuable nourishment in our diet with denatured and nutrient-devoid food that is impacting on our health?

If you live in the Mediterranean you eat a 'balanced' diet

Click to expand...

:roll: :roll: :roll:
Diabetes_world_map


Ref
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diabetes_world_map_-_2000.svg

I was given a pyramid chart which consisted of

6 portions carbs per day (pasta, bread, rice, spud, etc)
5 portions of fruit and veg per day
3 portions of dairy (low fat (not skim) milk, low fat yoghurt, etc)
2 portions of protein (meat, fish, eggs, nuts)
1 portion of fat (spray of olive oil, etc).

The carbs have to be good carbs and each portion is 30 grams.
2 eggs make up one portion of protein
I MUST take the dairy - essential for calcium.
and i MUST eat carbs at every meal.

two portions of oily fish per week, and two portions of red meat per week (essential for women). then for the three days left I can have chicken, or regular fish, etc.

If it's working and it suits you then carry on with it. Nobody here knows what you can and cannot eat, they only know what they can eat.

re map.
That is using some pretty crude non comparative data. (actually it's pretty difficult to compare, do you use figures from those who report they have diabetes ?, those from national authorities from insurance companies? What about countries with limited medical care. On the whole data from countries with good national health care schemes are likely to be more accurate .
This map is one from the IDF. There is a more recent one but it's not online at present .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7151813.stm
But more to the point just because you live in Italy or Spain or Greece you don't necessarily eat what has become called a Med diet. The original 7 countries study for Italy for example looked at 4 different areas. There was a large difference in outcomes between the more meat eating industrial North and the Southern 'Med' area. Unfortunately these traditional dietary patterns are also dying out .

Interesting map Bowell.

At a quick glance it seems that countries where food accessibilty is not good the rate of diabetes is much lower.

clearviews said:

Interesting map Bowell.

At a quick glance it seems that countries where food accessibilty is not good the rate of diabetes is much lower.

Click to expand...

Agree, great map.

Surprised to see Australia that hue.

2010 map+ several others including projection for 2030
The UK has very high figures for new T1 diagnoses in children.
http://www.diabetesatlas.com/map

Goodness there are 2,139,600 of us. Seeing it like that seems rather a lot.