Seven Tips for Eating Right

The Food Pyramid was previewed in the previous article, we explore more here.

	Choose good carbs, not no carbs. Whole grains are your best bet.
	Pay attention to the protein package. Fish, poultry, nuts, and beans are the best choices.
	Choose healthy fats, limit saturated fat, and avoid trans fat. Plant oils, nuts, and fish are the healthiest sources.
	Choose a fiber-filled diet, rich in whole grains, vegetables, and fruits.
	Eat more vegetables and fruits. Go for color and variety—dark green, yellow, orange, and red.
	Calcium is important. But milk isn’t the only, or even best, source.
	A daily multivitamin is a great nutrition insurance policy. Some extra vitamin D may add an extra health boost.

The Healthy Eating Pyramid, created by the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, can be your guide to choosing a healthy diet.

Don’t be misled by fad diets that make blanket pronouncements on the dangers of carbohydrates. They provide the body with fuel it needs for physical activity and for proper organ function, and they are an important part of a healthy diet. But some kinds of carbohydrates are far better than others.

The best sources of carbohydrates—whole grains, vegetables, fruits and beans—promote good health by delivering vitamins, minerals, fiber, and a host of important phytonutrients. Easily digested carbohydrates from white bread, white rice, pastries, sugared sodas, and other highly processed foods may contribute to weight gain, interfere with weight loss, and promote diabetes and heart disease.

Carbohydrates were once grouped into two main categories. Simple carbohydrates included sugars such as fruit sugar (fructose), corn or grape sugar (dextrose or glucose), and table sugar (sucrose). Complex carbohydrates included everything made of three or more linked sugars. Complex carbohydrates were thought to be the healthiest to eat, while simple carbohydrates weren’t so great. It turns out that the picture is more complicated than that.

The digestive system handles all carbohydrates in much the same way—it breaks them down (or tries to break them down) into single sugar molecules, since only these are small enough to cross into the bloodstream. It also converts most digestible carbohydrates into glucose (also known as blood sugar), because cells are designed to use this as a universal energy source.