The ideal diet, the ideal body weight - weight index reformed and ultra-processed foods
The United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service is funding a program to promote conscious, healthy eating and exercise, run by the Arizona Health Service, AZ Health Zone, with the Department of Nutrition at the University of Arizona.
For example, they recommend eating vegetables and fruits 5 times a day, selecting them well. They find it important to consume each day varied vegetables and fruits. According to their recommendations, in our diet we should include green, white, yellow, orange, red, blue and purple fruits and vegetables.
Not everyone can afford the luxury of living in a place where they walk out into the garden and tear an organic apple from the tree, but it doesn't matter. It can be vegetables, fruits, fresh, frozen, steamed, baked, whatever, five times a day. You can eat frozen broccoli steamed, half a handful of dried figs, sauerkraut, or even 100% natural tomato puree, just make sure you also have seasonal fruits and vegetables to choose from.
The above is also necessary because we consume a lot of so-called ultra-processed foods every day. Everything that contains preservatives, emulsifiers, colorants and various other additives has been processed. In addition, many of these food products are wrapped in a healthy robe. Breakfast made from oatmeal or wheat flakes is healthy, but candied breakfast cereals are not healthy, even if the children seemed very happy in the advertisement.
Labels on food packaging, for example, indicate that something contains added sugar, but are often called by very different names, such as sucrose, fructose, maltose, corn syrup, so that it is not so clear what it is. Most people don't even think that if a deciliter of traditional cola is 45 calories, a small box of 0.33 dl contains about 10 sugar cubes!
Vegetables and fruits are fibrous, which is essential for the healthy functioning of the digestive system. High-fiber foods such as vegetables and whole grains also have an important role to play in reducing the risk of illnesses of the cardiovascular system and reducing the risk of premature death.
Is there an ideal weight? What is the ideal weight?
For decades, the BMI (Body Mass Index) was considered accepted. According to this, the normal body weight index ranges from 18.5 to 24.9. This quotient is easy to calculate by dividing our weight in kg by the square of our height in meters. That is, BMI = body weight (kg) / height2 (m2)
Today, many people are attacking this old formula because it distorts in case of more than one body types. According to Oxford University mathematicians, the old body mass index shows that taller people are systematically fatter, while lower ones are leaner. The suggested new formula: BMI = 1.3 x body weight (kg) / height2.5 (m2.5)
Before you calculate your BMI weight index and go crazy about dieting and exercising, or gaining weight, let's review which foods are listed as ultra-processed foods so we know what to really avoid! These are foods that are often added with salt, sugar, fat to make them taste more attractive, or to prolong the shelf life of the food, or in some cases to alter the structure of the food, such as flour enhancers or stabilizers.
Avoid these foods whenever you can:
- Sugar-sweetened drinks: juices, energy drinks, carbonated soft drinks (cola, fanta, etc.)
- Processed meats: bacon, salami, smoked meats
- Canned vegetables, fruits (in sugar syrup)
- Fast frozen foods / microwave ready meals
- Fast foods: everything you can get in a fast food restaurant or at home by microwaving in 2 minutes’ time
- Salty foods: potato chips, pretzels, biscuits, popcorn, crackers
- Sweets: cakes, biscuits, ice cream, sweets (gum sugar, hard sugar, marshmallow)
- Granola slices, muesli containing candied, puffed cereals
Foods with refined flour: white bread, sweet and savory pastries made from white flour, dry pasta
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Sources: AZ Health Zone, Elemental – Robert Roy Britt, MTI, Wikipédia
Photo: Richard Drury / Getty Images