Combine Nutrition Data With Common Sense To Stay Healthy And Get Fit

By Marion Peters


For anyone who enjoys an active lifestyle, whether as an athlete or simply to stay fit, nutrition data can be a very useful tool. When coupled with experience and common sense, information of this kind can be used to inform the choices made about diet. While pages of statistics, or numbers on labels, can be confusing, using some sense with regard to food choices is not hard.

The most sensible first step which anyone who wants to improve their diet can take is to begin to avoid processed food. Pre-packaged and pre-processed meals often have labels of ingredients which read like a recipe for a chemistry experiment, rather than something you would actually want to eat. If there are so many chemical names on a label that it is hard to tell what kind of food is actually in the product, it is probably a good idea to avoid it.

When changing a diet to make it healthier, sugar, especially processed, refined sugar, should be one of the first things to be cut. Until recent times, fat was generally perceived as being the main enemy of a healthy body, and many products made a great play out of being low fat. In actual fact, many fats, such as those in eggs, olive oil and some diary products, can be very good for the body.

When eating meat it is best to eat lean, white meat, such as chicken, as this contains less of the harmful fats which are often present in red meat, and is also easier to digest. Fish is another good protein source, especially oily fish such as mackerel.

Avoiding foods fried in corn or vegetable oil is also a good idea. Using olive oil as a replacement fat can make certain frying processes healthier, though. Using olive oil as a dressing for salads and other foods can help the body to burn fat, and this type of oil also offers good all-round nutrition.

A good general rule for choosing healthy foods is whether it can be killed, or whether it can be grown. If either of those criteria can be applied, then it is probably very healthy. If a product has a long list of chemical ingredients, it should be avoided.

Nutrition data can be a useful complement to common sense when choosing food. Avoid foods which are processed and pre-packaged. Choose foods which are as close to their natural state as possible before preparation and cooking.




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