Healthy diet

Key facts

• A healthy diet helps to protect against malnutrition in all its forms, as well as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.
• Unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity are leading global risks to health.
• Healthy dietary practices start early in life – breastfeeding fosters healthy growth and improves cognitive development, and may have longer term health benefits such as reducing the risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing NCDs later in life.
• Energy intake (calories) should be in balance with energy expenditure. To avoid unhealthy weight gain, total fat should not exceed 30% of total energy intake (1, 2, 3). Intake of saturated fats should be less than 10% of total energy intake, and intake of trans-fats less than 1% of total energy intake, with a shift in fat consumption away from saturated fats and trans-fats to unsaturated fats (3), and towards the goal of eliminating industrially-produced trans-fats (4, 5, 6).
• Limiting intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake (2, 7) is part of a healthy diet. A further reduction to less than 5% of total energy intake is suggested for additional health benefits (7).
• Keeping salt intake to less than 5 g per day (equivalent to sodium intake of less than 2 g per day) helps to prevent hypertension, and reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke in the adult population (8).
• WHO Member States have agreed to reduce the global population’s intake of salt by 30% by 2025; they have also agreed to halt the rise in diabetes and obesity in adults and adolescents as well as in childhood overweight by 2025 (9, 10).

Overview

Consuming a healthy diet throughout the life-course helps to prevent malnutrition in all its forms as well as a range of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and conditions. However, increased production of processed foods, rapid urbanization and changing lifestyles have led to a shift in dietary patterns. People are now consuming more foods high in energy, fats, free sugars and salt/sodium, and many people do not eat enough fruit, vegetables and other dietary fibre such as whole grains.

The exact make-up of a diversified, balanced and healthy diet will vary depending on individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender, lifestyle and degree of physical activity), cultural context, locally available foods and dietary customs. However, the basic principles of what constitutes a healthy diet remain the same.

For adults

A healthy diet includes the following:

• Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g. lentils and beans), nuts and whole grains (e.g. unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat and brown rice).
• At least 400 g (i.e. five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day (2), excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots.
• Less than 10% of total energy intake from free sugars (2, 7), which is equivalent to 50 g (or about 12 level teaspoons) for a person of healthy body weight consuming about 2000 calories per day, but ideally is less than 5% of total energy intake for additional health benefits (7). Free sugars are all sugars added to foods or drinks by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates.
• Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats (1, 2, 3). Unsaturated fats (found in fish, avocado and nuts, and in sunflower, soybean, canola and olive oils) are preferable to saturated fats (found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese, ghee and lard) and trans-fats of all kinds, including both industrially-produced trans-fats (found in baked and fried foods, and pre-packaged snacks and foods, such as frozen pizza, pies, cookies, biscuits, wafers, and cooking oils and spreads) and ruminant trans-fats (found in meat and dairy foods from ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and camels). It is suggested that the intake of saturated fats be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake and trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake (5). In particular, industrially-produced trans-fats are not part of a healthy diet and should be avoided (4, 6).
• Less than 5  g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day (8).  Salt should be iodized.

Source:-https://www.who.int/

The Need to Diversify Food Systems

“How to feed the planet” is an increasingly urgent concern for people the world over, brought into relief against a backdrop of mounting social and environmental challenges. Current population and consumption trends are increasing the pressure on Earth’s finite natural resources.

At the same time, climate change, and declining access to oil, water, land, and nutrients, will interact in unpredictable ways, potentially undermining agriculture as we know it.

Ironically, existing agriculture – large-scale, industrial, and monoculture – is already undermining itself, and much else besides, by eroding soils, polluting waterways, creating oceanic dead zones, destroying biodiverse habitats, and contributing to global warming.

It is often stated that the global demand for food will double by 2050, fueling concerns about how we will “feed the world”. This calculation assumes that current trends in population, consumption (i.e the demand for meat and luxury products), and food waste will continue unabated into the future.

However, it is also now better understood that hunger and malnutrition are problems of access, distribution, power, and poverty. These problems cannot be solved by focusing solely on expanding food production, but must instead focus on the root causes of poverty and hunger. Thus, these challenges require greater insight into the large-scale patterns and processes of food production, distribution, and consumption (“food systems”), and the political and economic contexts in which these activities occur. In turn, these challenges require the search for viable alternatives.

–how can food systems that are ecologically and socially diverse contribute to overcome hunger and poverty?

Source:https://food.berkeley.edu/-