Balanced diet

 What is a Diet? What is a Balanced diet? What does a balanced diet contain? Is maintaining balanced diet important? Is balanced diet same for everyone or does it differ from person to person?

Diet:

A diet can be defined as to the food and the drinks that a person consumes daily or habitual nourishment.

Balanced diet:

A balanced diet is a diet which provides all the nutrients in required amounts and proper proportions. It must also provide necessary non-nutrients of health benefits such as antioxidants, phytochemicals etc.

Balanced diet contains four food groups.

• Cereals, millets and pulses

• Vegetables and fruits

• Oils, fats and nuts

• Milk and animal products

A balanced diet should be able provide around 50-60% of total calories from carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates are mostly preferred, about 10-15% from proteins and 20-30% from both visible and invisible fat. Balanced diet is important as it helps in maintaining good physical and mental health, promotes proper growth, increases capacity or efficiency to do work and helps in fighting or resisting diseases.Balanced diet differs from person to person based on his/her individual characteristics such as age, gender, lifestyle ,physical activity, cultural context, availability of food products ,place where he/she lives etc