Why and how to eat healthy
let the food be medicine and medicine be
food set by hypocrites 400 years before
christ actually reveals that that we all
know the importance of healthy eating
since long
but
today even the science of nutrition is
with lots of prejudice misconceptions
and debates so fail to throw some light
on how and why we should eat healthy i
am dr john de souza i am from
academician and researcher turned into
the learner of nutritional sciences we
ate to provide nutritional and
physiological requirements of the body
but unfortunately what we ate is also
guided by many of the factors
including hunger
the appetite the cost of the food the
test of the food and most importantly
the knowledge of the food the history of
modern nutrition actually reveals that
we initially started understanding the
relationship between the single nutrient
deficiency and the disease caused later
we use this knowledge for fortifying the
foods and later we understood the
importance of protein-rich food as well
as the limits of
saturated fat salts and sugars
later
we understood the relationship between
unhealthy eating and the risk of
non-communicable diseases which are
called as ncd’s two third of the deaths
occurring globally annually are because
of ncds where the major cause is
unhealthy lifestyle which mainly
includes unhealthy eating
non-certificating
which actually leads to the condition
called as chronically elevated
low grade kind of inflammation
with the major causes are
the industrially produced trans fatty
acid high intake of fat
the consumption of glucose containing
high glycemic index the low status of
vitamin k vitamin d
potassium and magnesium
the low fiber intake as well as
the low intake of fruits and vegetables
with this
actually
the developed condition we together call
it as cardio metabolic disorders which
typically includes type 2 type of
diabetes atherosclerosis hypertension as
well as the heart failure and
non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases which
also includes the cancer
as well as
various neuroinflammatory and
neurodegenerative diseases including
cognitive decline and depression
the phenomenon is called as meta
formation
and this meta formation is also
responsible
for the hampered barrier
nature of the gastrointestinal tract
which leads to the increased intake of
bacteria and their degradative products
along with some macromolecules which are
responsible
for the condition of continuing
immunoresponse
which also leads to to the inflammation
this also includes the conditions like
cataxia and anorexia cataxia is the
muscles bursting well anorexia is loss
of epithet due to disease
the functional muscle mass which is also
we call it a sarcopenia and substantial
loss of functional muscle mass is
responsible for the mobilities and
mortalities
the good news is we can prevent all
these consequences by healthy eating
practices in the anger age itself
another thing that we should understand
is the medicines and foods share similar
molecular receptors and passages which
is responsible for food drug
interactions
and leading to the decline action of
certain foods
so to prevent this we should be
carefully selecting our food while we we
are under medication one more thing that
we all should understand is microbiota
and microbiome we all harbor more than
100 trillions of microorganisms inside
our gut and these microbes all together
which are constituting of the bacteria
viruses fungi and even protozoa we call
them as microbiota and their genome
together we call it as microbiome it is
surprising to know that this microbiome
is constituted of more than three
millions of genes and it helps replacing
many functions of the host and now best
considered as the virtual organ of the
body microbiota is important because
it ferments the non-digestible dietary
fibers
and endogenous intestinal fluid into the
substrate which is used by the useful
microorganisms producing single chain
fatty acids and these single chain fatty
acids are mainly the butyrate the
propionate and the acidity
the butyrates are
main energy sources for
the human colonoscide cells
they are responsible for apoptosis they
are also useful for
gluconeogenesis and that involved in
glucose and energy homeostasis along
with this they are useful
for the epithelial cells which are
involved in the consumption of oxygen
this consumption of oxygen by fetal cell
is important this leads to the condition
called as hypoxia which is very useful
because it maintains the oxygen level of
our gut
which
prevents the these biases further the
propionates are released into the liver
where they are also involved in
gluconeogenesis along with this the
propionates are useful for satiety
signaling by reaction with the fatty
acid receptors of the gut acetates are
released in the peripheral tissues
wherein they are also involved in
the cholesterol metabolism as well as
lipogenesis and they are useful as per a
central aperture regulation is concerned
good news is we can repair this
disrupt microbial flora by
administrating useful microorganisms
with the adequate quantity which confers
the health
and these microorganisms which are
particularly bifidobacterium and
lactobacilli are called as probiotics
and these probiotic microorganisms do
require specific food for their survival
and growth we call it as prebiotics it
is also important to understand what is
healthy eating and healthy eating is all
about having healthy dietary pattern
since from the birth life long inclusion
of
nutrient dense food in our diet which
should be sources of vitamins proteins
and other dietary components
meeting
fruit groups the typical food groups are
starchy food the fruits and vegetables
the protein sources and dairy staying
with the calorie limits
with 2500 kilo calorie and 20 hundred
kilo calorie per adult male and female
respectively per day along with this we
should be limiting the saturated fats
sugars and salt saturated fats are
limited to 30 and 20 gram
respectively for male and female per day
while
sugars are limited to 30 gram per day
and salts are limited to 6 gram per day
the dietary pattern lifelong actually
begins from the birth with exclusively
feeding
the baby with human milk
and when it is not available with iron
fortified
nutrient formula we can continue feeding
uh baby on the human milk for first six
months which can be further
extended to the year of five years or
even more
along with this babies should be
provided with supplemental vitamin d
since birth and one should be
introducing the diverse nutrients since
from the six months of the age including
the food
containing zinc and iron as far as
nutritional and calorific requirements
of the women during before and after the
phase of pregnancy and lactation is
concerned the more because it is
required for the health of mother as
well as for the growth and development
of baby particularly mothers are
supplemented with folic acid before
conception as well as to be continued in
early trimester which prevents neural
tube defect
increase intake of iron iodine and
choline
should be given but this should be with
the consultation of offstation no
alcohol and one should be limiting
the intake of caffeine containing fruits
and beverages
as far as the healthy dietary pattern
lifelong is concerned
it is all about having the good balance
of various food groups
which starts with 6 to 11 servings of
starchy food
and one should be constituting the
starchy food as a base meal one should
be eating more of a whole grains because
whole grains are more nutritionally rich
as well as they do contain the dietary
fiber we take more time in digesting
dietary fiber and with which we can feel
full for longer along with that two to
four servings of fruits and three to
five servings of vegetables one should
vary fruits and vegetables one should be
eating whole fruit fruits and vegetables
are important because they are more than
nutrients and they are the good sources
of other bio-active compounds including
carotenoids phenolic standards alkaloids
and organo sulfur compounds along with
the fruits and vegetables another
important group is
the protein source
two to three servings of protein source
which is mainly composed of meat
the poultry the fish
the eggs the dry beans as well as the
nuts
one should be wearing protein routine
one should eat more of a fish one should
eat oily fish once in a week because
oily fish contains long chain omega-3
fatty acids whenever we eat any of the
protein source we should be eating it
grilled or boiled instead of fried along
with this one should be very careful as
per as the selection of oil spreads are
concerned one should be replacing butter
with vegetable oils
mainly corn canolas sunflower safflower
and soybean and not all because these
are the good oils and they contain
lesser number of fats which helps us
maintaining cholesterol one should be
also careful about drinking at least six
to
eight glass of fluids which is mainly
water
and also can contain fat free milk along
with sugar free dairy
like tea or coffee more than this one
should be avoiding alcohol or should be
limiting it to 14 units a week because
alcohol contains more number of calorie
and
it is deleterious for the health also
so to conclude to see that we can
achieve and
maintain the health one should be
needing to prioritize the nutritional
policy which is based on various
indicators like dri that is dietary
reference intake and hei that is healthy
eating intake
along with
the exploring of the
science of food by means of various
interactions with the molecular targets
by means of random clinical trials
and this trusted science should be
communicated to the public and most
importantly we all should be following
the healthy eating practices lifelong
along with the sound sleep and the
exercise thank you