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It's easy to make smart choices. Unfortunately, it's a little tougher to follow through. The trick to feeding your body begins with personal commitment and the ability to work hard at keeping your diet in check. Choosing healthy foods seems like a simple enough concept, but after a hard day at work it's just so much easier to stop for drive-thru burgers or, worse yet, sit down with a comforting tub of cookie dough ice cream. You need to educate your mind before feeding your body. Understand what you'll get from good nutrition, and you'll find it much easier to make healthier choices. Vegetables The earth provides us with a huge assortment of delicious vegetables that should be the basis of every healthy diet. Choose a variety of vegetables, and eat no less than 2 1/2 cups per day. Select an assortment of dark, leafy vegetables including spinach and broccoli. Carrots and sweet potatoes are excellent choices as well. Dry beans including kidney, lima, pinto beans and chickpeas are loaded with nutrients. Pass up the French fries for a leafy spinach salad, skip the chips and grab a bag of baby carrots, and you will easily meet your daily recommended vegetable intake. Good Grains Nutritionists recommend that we consume six ounces of grains everyday. To give you an estimate of just how much six ounces can be, consider that an average slice of bread contains one ounce. A cup of cereal also contains an ounce of grain. Of course, choosing whole grain products will boost your intake. Rice, crackers and pasta are also good grain choices. Pass the Fruit! There's no excuse for choosing fat and sugary snacks when you keep fresh fruits on hand. Just two cups of fruit per day, or the equivalent of one banana and one apple, can meet your daily requirement. Snacking aside, fruits are perfect accompaniments to virtually every meal. Slice a banana onto your peanut butter sandwich. Try sliced berries on your French toast, or grapes and mandarin wedges in your salad. Frozen, canned and dried fruits can work in a pinch, but fresh varieties are the best dietary choices. Fruit juice (not fruit punch) can also boost your daily intake, but these are loaded with sugars and should be limited. Do Some Dairy People of all ages need calcium for healthy teeth and bones. Kids from two to eight years of age require the calcium equivalent of about two cups of milk per day, while older kids, teenagers and adults need about three cups per day. At snack time, reach for calcium-rich yogurt and cheese. Watching your weight? Choose low-fat milk and dairy products. Even if you're lactose intolerant, you can still reach your calcium requirements with lactose-free and calcium fortified food choices. Meat, Tofu, Nuts, and Beans Protein is essential to every good diet, and meat is a natural choice. There are many other natural sources, however, and vegetarians lead protein-rich lives by choosing these alternatives. There is a wide variety of beans and peas that pack a protein punch in all sorts of recipes. Getting your five ounces of protein per day can also be achieved by eating fish and nuts. When you do choose meat, try to trim away any excess fat, and grill or bake your meat to avoid fatty greases. Fat Fat is an important part of your daily diet, but you can certainly have too much of this good thing. You can use butter and other high-fat foods, but do so in moderation. Too much of this type of fat can send your weight and cholesterol levels soaring. Rather than frying your foods in butter, margarine, shortening or lard, try sauting them in vegetable or chicken broth. Pass the butter, and reach for seasonings and fruit juice to add flavour to vegetables. Processed foods are packed with salt, fats and additives, so try to limit your shopping to the fresh meat and produces aisles. If you must choose some pre-packaged foods, make sure to read the nutrition facts and ingredient labels before you buy. This is an important step to limiting your intake of sodium as well as saturated and trans fats. Put good things in to your body and you'll get good things from it. You'll feel more energetic, and may soon find that you're exercising more and thinking a little more clearly. Putting effort into your diet today will pay off with a healthy body that will serve you well for years to come.
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Columnist Ambrose Hutson contributes to several online magazines, on womans health and health questions issues. Get a unique version of this article from our eating for good health article directory
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