Healthy Eating
Healthy living is easy if you follow a few simple guidelines for healthy eating and active lifestyle.
Diet can help you keep healthy & feel great
Your diet and lifestyle can play an important role promoting health and well-being. Plus, healthy eating helps you to cope with the pressures of everyday life & perform at your best.
Remember: Nutrition experts have developed national nutrition guidelines for healthy eating*. While these guidelines cannot guarantee health, eating habits based on them will help you improve and maintain health.
*Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults.
National Health & Medical Research Council, 2003.
Enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods
- Eat plenty of vegetables, legumes and fruits
- Eat plenty of cereals (including breads, rice, pasta and noodles), preferably wholegrain
- Include lean meat, fish, poultry and/or alternatives
- Include milk, yoghurts, cheese and/or alternatives. Reduced-fat varieties should be chosen, where possible
- Drink plenty of water
Take care to
- Limit saturated fat and moderate total fat intake
- Choose food low in salt
- Limit your alcohol intake, if you choose to drink
- Consume only moderate amount of sugars and foods containing added sugar
- Prevent weight gain: be physically active and eat according to your energy needs
- Care for your food: prepare and store it safely
- Encourage and support breastfeeding
What can you do?
Foods to include in your diet:
To improve general health, eat more fruits, vegetables, cereals and legumes. Whenever possible, choose your meals from these food types.
Food for Health Dietary Guidelines for Australians: A Guide to Healthy Eating. NHMRC, 2003. Values are for 19-60 yr old women & men.
Wholegrain Bread & Cereal
- Women: 4~9 serves
- Men: 6~12 serves
1 serve: 2 slices of bread, 1 cup cooked rice, pasta or noodles, 1 cup cooked porridge, 1 cup of cereal flakes or 1/2 cup of muesli
Vegetables & Legumes
- Women: 5 serves
- Men: 5 serves
1 serve: 1 medium potato, 1/2 cup cooked vegetables, 1 cup salad or 1/2 cup of cooked legumes
Fruits
- Women: 2 serves
- Men: 2 serves
1 serve: 1 medium piece of fruit (apple, oranges), 2 pieces of smaller fruit (plums, apricots), 1 cup tinned fruit or 1 1/2 tablespoons of dried fruit
Milk & Alternatives
- Women: 2 serves
- Men: 2 serves
1 serve: 250ml milk or fortified soy milk, 400g cheese or 200g yoghurt or 1 cut custard
Meat & Alternatives
- Women: 1 serves
- Men: 1 serves
1 serve: ½ cup of cooked beans, lentils, or chickpeas or, 65-100g lean cooked meat or chicken or, 80-120g fish or, 100g firm tofu or, 2 eggs or, ⅓ cut of nuts or, ¼ cut of seeds
Avoid too much fat:
To improve your diet, eat less fat, particularly saturated fat.
To reduce fat from food:
- Trim fat from meat, remove skin from chicken
- Use less butter/magarine
- Use low far diary or fortified soy products
- Avoid fried foods - try steaming/grilling
Be active:
A healthy diet plus increased activity is the best way to improve wellbeing and prevent disease. Try to be physically active on most days of the week for at least 30 minutes. If you can, also enjoy some regular, vigorous activity on 3-4 days a week e.g. squash, netball, aerobics, speed walking.
Activity tips:
- Choose an exercise that you will enjoy
- Ride a bike or swim with a friend
- Exercise with friends, it's more fun
- Walk to the shops & use the stairs
Remember
Nutrition experts have developed national nutrition guidelines for healthy eating*. While these guidelines cannot guarantee health, eating habits based on them will help you improve and maintain health.
*Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults.
National Health & Medical Research Council, 2003.