Pyramid Power

The main components of healthy eating habits include food from the six basic food groups. And, if you cover your bases, you probably don't need to take supplemental vitamins. You can get all the nutrients your body requires just by eating right. In fact, it is best for your body to absorb vitamins and minerals directly from food rather than from a little pill. Each vitamin, mineral or nutrient you absorb has a very particular job to perform. See the vitamin & mineral chart to find out what job each of these vitamins and minerals does to ensure a healthy body.

There is nothing mysterious about the Food Pyramid. You have probably seen it in school and on food packages. It actually is simple but important information; it doesn't require any memorization or complicated math. All you have to remember is eat lots from the bottom, less from the middle, and a little from the top. That is it. It is not necessary to eat the exact number of servings from each group every day. Instead, your intake should average out to the portions indicated over a period of one to two weeks. See, isn't that easier than you thought.

Calories

The energy in food is called calories. Everyone talks about them as if they are the last things you would want to put into your body. But the truth is, you need them. You need them because your body is always using energy, whether you're running, walking, standing still, or sleeping. Cut back on calories too much, and your system will slow down. Lay off them altogether, and you will die. More people in the world die from too few calories than from too many.

Calories...

If Calories Are So Great, Why Is Everyone So Paranoid About Them?
Because it is so easy to get too many of them, and extra calories turn into fat. You can put on fat if you take in more calories than your body can use. To avoid adding extra fat, you have to eat as many calories as you need, and no more. Some people manage this by figuring out how many calories they use in the day, memorizing the amount in various foods, then adding up as they chew and swallow. This is a bit extreme! We don't recommend you do this. Counting calories can make mealtime more tedious than any math class. Unless your health care provider has put you on a special weight loss diet, you don't have to bring your calculator to the dinner table. Just having a general idea about how much calories are in the foods you eat should be enough to help you keep excess calories from becoming excess fat.

A Calorie Is A Calorie Is A Calorie
An important point to remember is that all calories are the same. The calories in a piece of chocolate cake are no more fattening than the calories in a strawberry. The cake is more fattening than the strawberry because it contains more calories, not a different kind of calories. In other words, foods vary greatly in the number of calories they give you, so it's not only the amount you eat that matters, but the number of calories in the food you choose to eat. You could, for example, eat one piece of chocolate cake and end up consuming many more calories than you would get from eating several baskets of plain, fresh strawberries. That chocolate cake is looking pretty good to me right now actually. Yum!

There are a lot of overweight people who complain that they get fat even though they don't eat very much. This is often true. Very often they're not eating big meals, but the foods they DO eat at those meals are very high in calories.

Remember...

How can you tell how many calories are in the foods you eat? The easiest way to tell how many calories are in a particular food is to read the nutrition information label on the package it comes in. This tells you how many calories are in one serving. You can use the nutrition information labels to compare the number of calories in different brands and types of foods.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates have gotten a really bad rap from people who think they are fattening. The truth is that most carbohydrates contain no fat at all. Plain potatoes, rice, pasta, and many types of bread are fat-free. The fat comes along with the butter, cream, and cheese that you add to them.

Carbohydrates...

Not all carbohydrates provide these benefits. Plain sugar, honey, corn syrup, and molasses don't add anything to your diet but yummy flavor and calories. In fact, they actually make you hungrier and weaker than before you ate them. Here's what happens:

If you are going to have lasting energy, you have to eat foods that are released slowly. Carbohydrates have less obvious sugar (carbohydrates don't taste sweet really) and give you the kind of energy that lasts. So bread, crackers, and unsweetened cereals make better snacks than candy, cookies, or ice cream. The best carbohydrates are fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads, cereals, crackers, and pasta. They carry lots of vitamins and fiber and they release sugar slowly, providing energy that lasts a long time.

From Your Plate, Not a Pill