BALANCED DIET according to the MEDITERRANEAN DIET

We could use "healthy" diet as a synonym of "balanced" diet. It allows you to keep your health in ideal conditions and develop your life activities. The definition includes adults diet, children, elder people, pregnant women, lactation.

It has three precepts:

1. The energy that becomes from the food in a balanced diet, has to allow your organism good function and the continuity of life.

2. It has to provides you with all the nutrients you need.

3. It has to provides you with appropriate number of these nutrients.

It is a varied, enough and pleasant diet.

In pathological states, the definition is not useful because there are some diseases that they don't allow you to eat certain nutrients.

This is part of the dietician job: develop a personalized balanced diet, keeping in mind person's age, weight, height, physical activity, illness (if there are an illness); to calculate the appropriate number of nutrients this person needs (point 3). Besides, I like to keep other elements in mind: person's temperament, person's mood, year season, where the vegetables have been cultivated, where you buy the food... these could influence the way you feed yourself. 

Every meal should be formed by some food of each following groups: 

- Carbohydrate. Glucose and fructose are inside this group (there are others compounds). Pasta, rice, potatoes, cereals, bread, legumes... fruit has also carbohydrates, honey and sugar have them too. Some day, I will write a post for each group.

- Lipid / fat. Fatty acid trans, saturated and unsaturated are some of them. Olive oil, vegetable oils (sunflower, sesame...), nuts. 

- Protein. Fish, meat and eggs. Proteins are formed by amino acids (these are the nutrient our organism uses). There are vegetable protein and animal protein. 

- Vitamins and minerals. Fruits and vegetables, mainly.

Fiber: vegetables and wholemeal products. And water, if you want the fiber works, you should drink enough water (1,5 litres is perfect).

Almost every food has different amounts of each nutrient (vitamins, proteins, carbohydrate...) but there are some of these food that contain more quantity of protein, or fat... that's why these different group exist.

Here you have a couple examples of balanced diet:

Breakfast:

1. Natural orange juice + turkey sandwich. 

2. Coffee latte or soy milk and tea + wholemeal cereals. Apple.

There are people who eat some snack in the middle of the day (yogurt, fruit, biscuits). Perfect!

Lunch:

1. Pesto sauce pasta as a starter and grilled fish with vegetables (salad or zucchini purée) as a main course. Dessert: kéfir.

2. Legumes salad as a starter and boiled chicken with vegetables as a main course. Dessert: orange.

Afternoon snack:

1. Banana and nuts.

2. Oat biscuits.

Dinner:

1. Potatoes and broccoli as a starter. Omelette and tomato salad as a main course. Dessert: curd with honey.

2. Mushrooms purée as a starter. Wheat gluten with grilled onion. Dessert: kiwi.

You can eat a piece of bread during the lunch and dinner, it's ok.

Some people eat some snack before to go to sleep (glass of milk, infusion, biscuits...). Enjoy then!

Remember these are examples. I want to offer you a general vision of balanced diet. Each person has different taste, needs, timetables, metabolism... this another part of dietician job. My job consist in offer you information and guide you to personalized your diet (qualitative and quantative diet).

I hope I get the aim to show you a general idea... now, you should try it!

Here you have an example: vegetable broth in the glass, salad as a starter (with olives and quince cheese), and homemade wheat gluten with grilled mushrooms and garlic and some boiled vegetables, as a main course (you can see the end of the vegetables ;). Dessert was a banana. Yummy!!

Bibliography:
- "Alimentación y Dietoterapia", P.Cervera, J. Clapers, R. Rigolfas. Ed. McGraw-Hill. 4ª Ed.
- Notes that I wrote when I studied Nutrition.