Healthy Eating

A healthy, balanced diet is essential for good health and wellbeing. It can be a challenge to change what we eat but even small, simple changes can make a difference to our health.

Healthy eating just means choosing a balance of foods - a balance that's been shown to reduce your risk of many health problems, such as Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), High Blood Pressure, Stroke, diabetes, obesity and some forms of cancer and will allow you to enjoy a longer, healthier life.

A poor diet can contribute to ill health and premature death. More than half of people living in Caerphilly borough are overweight or obese and this can be a contributing factor in developing heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.

 

Tips and Advice

  • Avoid eating too many foods high in fat. Trimming fat from meat, having fewer meat products, such as pies and sausages, and choosing lower fat dairy products will reduce the amount of fat you eat.
  • Also grill, oven-cook, steam, boil or microwave your food instead of frying. When looking at food labels, 3g fat per 100g of the food is low and over 20g is high.
  • Keep to a healthy weight by eating the right amount of food for how active you are. This may mean reducing your portion sizes.
  • Base your diet on starchy foods such as bread, pasta (especially wholegrain varieties) and potatoes. These fill you up and are relatively low in calories, provided that no fat is added during cooking.
  • Eat a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, aiming to have at least 5 portions a day. A portion is about 80g, one medium fruit such as an apple.
  • Try not to have sugary foods and drinks too often as they damage your teeth and are high in calories, without providing any other nutrients. When looking at food labels, 5g sugar per 100g food is low and over 15g is high
  • Get out of the habit of adding salt to your food, use pepper, herbs, spices, lemon juice or vinegar instead. www.salt.gov.uk
  • Drinking plenty of water and other fluids (but not alcohol) is beneficial. Aim for about 2 litres (3.5 pints or 6-8 glasses)
  • If you drink alcohol, keep to sensible amounts, 21 units a week for men and 14 for women

Remember!

No one food contains everything we need to be healthy
How much food you need to eat will depend on how active you are - disco divas will need to eat more than less active people

Healthy eating doesn’t need to be expensive. Basic foods like meat and vegetables that you cook yourself can be cheaper than ready meals and convenience foods. (Healthy Nosh for Less Dosh, PDF 1.9Mb)

 

Facts

Only 34% of adults living in Wales reported eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables daily. Caerphilly County Borough has one of the lowest rates in Wales!