Balanced Diet, Balanced Life
by Professor Xue Zhao
The term "balanced diet" simply means that a diet meets your nutritional needs while not providing too much of any nutrients. A balanced diet for a man means getting the right types and amounts of foods and drinks to supply nutrition and energy for maintaining body cells, tissues, and organs. A well-balanced diet provides enough energy and nutrition for optimal balance of metabolism. An unbalanced diet can cause problems with maintenance of body tissues and organs.
The most important step to eating a balanced diet is to educate yourself about what your body needs, and to read the nutrition label and ingredients of all the food you eat. To achieve a balanced diet, three rules need to be followed:
- 1. The more variety of foods you eat from each meal, the more balance of your body nutrition.
- 2. The further off the food origin from human, the better supplement to the needs of our body, for example, beef is better than pork because pig eats grains and cattle eats grass; fish is better than red meat because fish lives in the sea and domestic animal lives on the land. Fish contains more different nutrients. Vegetable is better than meat because vegetable belongs to plant.
- 3. The fresher of the food you eat, the healthier and the less toxic you get.
Follow a balanced diet that is low in saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, salt, and alcohol. Balance your calorie intake with exercise. Slowly decrease the amount of calories you take in while increasing exercise to prevent gradual weight gain over time. Exercise regularly and reduce activities in which you sit.
Choose "good" fats such as fish, nuts, and vegetable oils containing polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Lean, low-fat, or fat-free meats, poultry, dry beans, and milk or milk products are preferable. Total fat intake can approach 35% if most of the fats are "good" fats.
Consume less than 3g (approximately one teaspoon of salt) of sodium daily, and limit added salt when you prepare food. Do not consume more than 16g alcohol per day for men.
Long life,
Xue
We have been fortunate to spend some quality time with our very good friend, Professor Zhao. Above is Stanley and Xue sharing a traditional healthy Cantonese meal in downtown Shanghai (note the beverage accompaniment of freshly squeezed orange juice!) . After dinner, Xue gave us a guided tour of the Shanghai Hospital. The above right photo shows Professor Zhao demonstating the use of a cathether in non invasive heart surgery. The last photo is Xue and Stanley strolling along the cold but beautiful streets of Shanghai.