Be Your Own Health Expert

The following was given to Kitchen Greenie by the kind permission of Suzanne Laurie, Director of Studies at the Institute of Complementary & Integrated Medicine - www.icim-ireland.net.

Be Your Own Health Expert Quick diet health check

To find out just how your diet measures up try our quick quiz below.

Score one point for every statement that applies to you:

* I do not add sugar to food/drink most of the time.
* I avoid processed foods most of the time.
* I rarely add salt in my food.
* I do not drink more than one cup of coffee most days.
* I do not drink more than two cups of tea most days.
* I do not drink more than 2 units of alcohol a day.
* I do not eat fried food more than twice a week.
* I do not eat "fast food" more than twice a week.
* I do not eat red meat more than twice a week.
* I do not eat chocolate or sweets more than twice a week.
* On most days more than a third of my diet consists of fruit & vegetables
* I drink more than 1 litre of plain water each day.
* I usually choose whole grain products (bread, rice, pasta) over 'white' alternatives.

Scores:
1-5. Your diet needs some major improvements if you are to avoid poor health. Use the quiz above to establish where your problem areas are, then work at changing one or two at a time over the next few months.

6-10. You are on the right track. However there is still room for improvement if you wish to be in the best shape possible.

11-14. You obviously work hard at looking after your health. Because of this any 'treats' are unlikely to affect your health. Keep up the good work.

You Are What You Eat
It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it.
We are all constantly being told what we should and shouldn't eat so most of us know the components of a healthy diet. However could the way we eat actually be just as important as what we eat in terms of health. Here are some top tips to ensure that you get the most out of what you eat......and that you can have the fun stuff too!!!

How to eat
It is all too easy for eating to become a habit rather than a pleasure in this busy world in which we live. However, forgetting to appreciate food, and mealtimes can lead to overeating, poor digestion and ultimately poor health and weight gain.

Heres how to do it properly:
* Eat slowly. The stomach and digestive organs need time to prepare themselves for digesting the food we eat. Ideally they should receive a signal that food is on its way - perhaps from cooking smells or chewing action in the mouth. At this point small particles of food should start reaching the stomach. However this should be a slow controlled process. If you are eating a sandwich on the go or rushing dinner to get to an appointment the digestive organs will not have time to organise themselves and food may be poorly digested. You are also unlikely to know when you are full, as it can take 20 minutes for this message to reach the brain.

* Chew well. Chewing is the first part of digestion. If food is not broken down in the mouth properly then it may be too big for the digestive system to handle. This can lead to malabsorption of nutrients and weight gain. It can also lead to overeating as mentioned above.

* Allow yourself to be hungry. In this day and age it is ok to be hungry. It does not mean that you will not get fed and should be embraced because it means that you will enjoy your food more once you do get it. It is also important to stop eating once you feel satisfied. Our taste buds become less sensitive the fuller we are so as soon as you stop tasting the food and are just shovelling it in - stop!!

Portion control
One of the major obstacles to a healthy diet is over eating due to poor portion control. We just don't seem to know how much is enough anymore! Watching your portion sizes is a great way of ensuring that you can eat ALL your favourite foods without piling on the pounds or damaging your health. Here are a few easy to follow tips:

* Don't fill your plate. The trend for super size dinner plates means that a plate of food is now about 1/3 bigger than 20 years ago, yet we do not need to eat that much more food. So don't fill it. Stick to the following simple guidelines for how big each part of your meal should be:

- Meat / fish / beans / lentils - the size of a pack of cards
- Cheese - the size of a box of matches
- Potatoes / rice / pasta - the size of a tennis ball
- Vegetables - half your plate of food

* Half and half. Try decreasing the portion size of your favourite foods by half and substituting the rest for fresh salad, vegetables or fruit. For example, if you are used to eating a whole deli or sub sandwich at lunch, just eat half and have it with raw veggies or some fresh fruit. Then wait to see if you're still hungry.

* Know your serving sizes. Just how much of your favourite snack is considered one serving? Do you even know? Check the box and see -- you may be surprised at how many servings you are actually consuming at one time. Measure them out following the recommendations next time you eat them.

* Can you stomach it? The stomach is about the size of two loosely formed fists. Therefore it only really needs a large handful of food at any one time to be satisfied. It is better to eat a small amount regularly (but only when you feel real hunger) than overface your digestive tract with larger less frequent meals.

Healthy weight loss
Many of us feel that we could do with a few less inches around our waists/bottoms/thighs (... delete as appropriate!). However weight loss should only be undertaken for health reasons and just to emulate the latest waif like superstar. As we age it is even more important to have a bit of padding in appropriate places as it helps to cushion our delicate bones and organs as well as helping to smooth out those pesky wrinkles! Periods of starvation only cause nutrient depletion which can lead to problems later in life such as osteoporosis, dementia and even cancer. So if you do want to lose weight - do it sensibly. Weight loss of about 1-1.5lbs per week is both achievable and sensible. To lose that weight you need to get rid of about 350 calories per day from your diet. This can be achieved by simply removing a portion of ice cream, a bagel, a large bag of crisps or by reducing food intake slightly and exercising the rest away (an hours walk will burn off 150-300 calories.

A note from Kitchen Greenie....While I stay away from animal products myself, I feel this article highlights that most people are overdoing it when it comes to animal protein, particularly when you look at the healthy portion size recommended by Suzanne. For further information on why it is more health enhancing to reduce the amount of animal products you eat, please read The China Study by Colin T. Campbell on http://amzn.to/jvR6zn. I will be posting some other great meat free recipes over the coming weeks so do log back in.

Thanks so much for reading!

Ruth.