Vegetables and fruit - 7 servings per day (One dark green and one orange each day)
Grain products - 6 servings per day (Make at least one-half of them whole-grain)
Milk and alternatives - 3 servings per day (Drink skim, 1% or 2% every day)
Meat and alternatives - 2 (have meat alternatives such as beans, lentils and tofu often. Eat at least two servings of fish each week. Select lean meat and alternatives with little or no added fat or salt.)
Include a Vitamin D supplement of 10ug (400 IU) for people age 50 and over.
Build 30 to minutes of physical activity into your day everyday.
After reading this, I went back over my food diary to try to figure out the extent to which how I eat fits this pattern.
Veg and fruit - OK, virtually every day
Grains - Not enough, but almost 100% wholewheat!
Milk - Not enough! Most days, none.
Meat and Alternatives - I eat max of 2 per day. I eat beans, lentils, nuts, etc. frequently I eat two servings a week of fish. I eat skinless chicken. I eat red meat once a week.
Vitamin D supplement - Yes, I just started using
Oils - I use only canola oil or olive oil (I don't eat butter)
Physical activity - Yes, 60+ virtually every day.
How does your standard eating practice compare?
How does your country's food guide (food pyramid) compare to Canada's?
I think that's a great guide. Someone could get healthy following it!
I try to follow a pretty healthy eating guide; I do limit my carbs to healthier, more complex ones. We eat extremely little red meat (like hardly ever).
One thing I do everyday is take a multi-vitamin. I am a long-term participant in the Harvard Nurses Health Study (which I highly recommend all women reading). One of their conclusions was that supplemental B vitamins and folic acid were strongly preventitive in the development of cancers. Exercise = good, too.
Thank you so much for the link to the Harvard Nurses Study!
I see so many references to this study, but had never found the right website to see all of its findings, the questionaires they used, etc. It is a rich treasure for me, and I will dig into it.
In looking at it briefly this afternoon, I am surprised to see that they only asked questions about meat consumption in 1978; and then again in 1994 (specifically asking about the appearance of cooked meat -- lightly browned or blackened). I wonder if the cattle marketing lobby prevented them from asking this question every two years?
I also noticed that they have been asking about multivitamin use every 2 years since 1980. I wasn't able to quickly find on their website whether they have definitive ("gold standard") evidence that taking a multivitamin has health benefits. Do you know? I just started taking a multivitation (13 weeks ago), and I am skeptical about its value -- other than making supplement producers a huge profit. Would love to know why you take one.
Also, thank you so much for taking part in this extremely important study!!! We are learning so much from it.
Thanks to people like you, we now know that Type II diabetes is 90% preventable through daily physical activity and three fairly easy dietary changes:
(1) avoiding high glycemic foods like white potatoes and white bread (which increase your risk by 50%); (2) eating more whole grain food (which decreases your risk by 30%); and (3) reducing trans fatty acids in your diet. (Eliminating them entirely is a Canadian preoccupation at the moment. We are one of the world's largest consumers of trans fatty acids!)
My grandmother developed Type II diabetes; and my nephews are at increased risk because their paternal grandfather has it. I am encouraging them to take prevention steps now.
(3) reducing trans fatty acids in your diet. (Eliminating them entirely is a Canadian preoccupation at the moment. We are one of the world's largest consumers of trans fatty acids!)
Tim Horton's anyone? My Canadian friends did make more desserts than any other group I could point to. It was always something to look forward to.
In the Health Study, they have asked about meat consumption every year, if I recall correctly. If you open one of the long forms from any year, you can see that your meat consumption (quantity and what kind) is on more than one of the food questions.
I definitely think they have improved the questionnaire as the years have gone by, and refined it.
If you look on page 2 of this NHS newsletter, you will see how the addition of vitamin B6 and folic acid in your diet are cancer preventitive. Additionally, on the same page, Vitamin D is highly recommended to help prevent bone and hip fractures. I cover all the bases with a multi-vitamin - particularly a women's multivit, because it usually has a little more calcium and iron.
I thought this article from MSN might be of interest. It says it is from Harvard Health Services and I don't know if that is something attached to the school or just named that way. There is a chart on the pages that lists many more foods and tells there level of antioxidants. I was suprised to find that tea wasn't on the list and then I reread that the researchers followed the food items most popular with Americans and so I guess tea isnt' that popular. But the berries really surprised me. I can't find quanties anywhere and wonder how much one has to eat of, say, ground cloves to make a difference or to get the benefit. And are dried cranberries as good in antioxidants as fresh ones? Anyway, I am adding more berries to our diet. I know Whole Foods carries fresh berries year round so there would be a supply for those of us living in the desert where not many berries grow.
"Single antioxidants, like vitamin E or beta carotene, have never lived up to the hype that they halt heart disease, cure cancer, eradicate eye disease, or prevent Alzheimer’s. That shouldn’t be surprising. The notion that antioxidants are good for you comes from studies showing that people who eat foods rich in antioxidants have better long-term health. Trials of single supplements, usually taken in pill form, have yielded disappointing results. Antioxidants stabilize harmful by-products of the body’s energy-making machinery. These by-products, known as free radicals, can damage DNA, make LDL (bad) cholesterol even worse, and wreak havoc elsewhere in the body. It’s possible that single antioxidants haven’t panned out because it takes a network of antioxidants — like those that exist in foods — to neutralize free radicals. If that’s the case, then it would be helpful to determine the antioxidant content of various foods. An international team of researchers did just that for more than a thousand foods that Americans commonly eat. Topping the list were blackberries, walnuts, strawberries, artichokes, cranberries, coffee, raspberries, pecans, blueberries, and ground cloves" From Harvard Health Publications
Vegas Ms, If fresh berries aren't available, or are cost prohibitive, check out Costco's triple berry mix in the freezer section. You get a four pound bag or blueberries, raspberries and marionberries for a very reasonable price, something like $11-12, if I recall. I add them frozen to my oatmeal for the last few minutes of cooking time, or thaw them and stir them into plain or vanilla yogurt. They are great for smoothies, as well. A great way to add antioxidants and those extra servings of fruit to your diete.
Posts: 113 | Location: San Diego area | Registered: 16 March 2006
Judith- Yes, a Tim Horton's "double-double" AND a donut constitute breakfast for far too many Canadians! I grew up in a household where homemade dessert was served twice daily!
Terry - Thanks for the link to the long questionnaire: it is very thorough and meat consumption was asked yearly. I think you're right: a multivitamin; a B complex (with additional folic acid); and now for Canadians over 50, also Vitamin D. Probably all good insurance.
Antioxidants (particularly all those berries) are a part of my diet. I love those little dried canberries too, but I suspect they may have added sugar to them. To the extent possible, I eat everything fresh.
I recently added walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, etc. to my diet to get more of the good fats (Omega 3 fatty acids; monounsaturated) into me.
Beyond the Canada Food Guide, my best source of info on the most nutrient dense food is this site:
There's only one thing I take as a pill that is nutritional. Blueberry or mirtillo nero. Some years ago I started having sharp burning pangs which turned out to be breaking capillaries. The medico said to drink blueberry juice or the pills. It works. So I started to forget them, and it came back in spades, some much deeper and hurting for days. It struck me that if my veins were breaking in my legs, they might also break in my brain! So I am back on those pills! The rest is fresh veg every day in quantity, although 7 servings would be about 3.5 cups! Can I really jam that much in?
Judith, Yes you can jam in 7 servings of vegetables and fruits a day!
I eat roughly 2-3 vegetables at lunchtime; and 3-4 at dinner -- most days. And I eat 1 fruit as a mid-morning snack; and 1 as my evening desert (or late afternoon snack if I'm hungry).
I eat the "world's most nutrient vegetables" according to WH Foods (a not-for-profit website). I select vegetables considered to be "excellent" sources of these vitamins:
Orange Vegetables: -Red peppers (Vit A; C; and B6) -Carrots (Vit A) -Cauliflower (Vit C; K; Fiber; Folate) -Tomatoes (Vit A; C; K) -Squash (Vit A) -Sweet Potatoes (Vit A) -Crimini mushrooms (Vit B2, B3, B5; Potassium)
Many of these vegetables are also "very good" sources of other nutrients that I want, such as all those B vitamins (Thiamen, Riboflavin, Niacin, B5, B6, etc.)
These are not the only vegetables that I eat, but they are the ones that I try to eat way more often than others.
Most of these vegetables are very low in calories (1 cup = 25-40), and also low-gylcemic (the exceptions being carrots, sweet potatoes and squash -- which have 50-95 calories per cup). I try to also eat low-glycemic fruits: mainly cantaloupe or melon; all the berries - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries; and apples.
I steam covered vegetables in the microwave with a minimum of water -- and eat them fairly crunchy. Or I cook them in a pot with other vegetables and a tiny amount of protein.
Last night's "one pot" meal was fillet of sole. My vegetables were: Italian tomatoes (I cooked the sole in them); asparagus; swiss chard - half of the bunch; 1 whole red pepper; broccoli; and one clove of garlic. I intentionally made two large servings and will have the other half for lunch.
I never know what a serving is so I am glad to see that the guide defines it.
The advice to drink water is good. I have heard it said that we confuse our thirst with our hunger and we should first drink water and wait a little while to see if we really are hungry. US restaurants (I have never been to Canada) seem to be the best providers of water. I never drink wine or beer until I have quenched my thirst with water, otherwise I may end up with a headache.
John "There are two types of problems: those that solve themselves, and those which you can do nothing about" Isabel Allende's grandmother
Posts: 1582 | Location: Mullumbimby, NSW, Australia | Registered: 26 March 2003
John, you are amongst the vast majority who don't know what a "serving" is! One of my greatest beefs with registered dieticians is just that. Why can't they harness computer technology and images to make us serving size literate? The Canadian food guide is pretty good on this, but they could greatly improve.
Why don't we see ads on prime time TV that show us what 3-4 servings of vegetables looks like on a plate -- with maybe a graphic that points out the percentage of major vitamins and nutrients that this represents? And a tag line like "Eat well. Avoid illness and premature aging. Reduce your share of Canada's health care costs! A message from the Government of Canada." Surely we can do something that competes with ads from McDoo!
I got out my measuring cups to figure out what 1/2 cup of something looks like on a plate. The answer: Not Much!
I now also weigh all of my chicken, fish and meat. Very helpful to get my portion sizes under control.
Yes, the water recommendations are good and it is pretty rare these days to see any woman in Toronto without a water bottle in her handbag. Most business meetings I attend now, offer people water. Not coffee or tea.
We are experiencing a bit of a backlash to the water bottle use because of its environmental implications. I simply wash and re-fill the same bottle for an entire week. Dry air in the wintertime makes me thirsty.
One of my fond memories of when I lived in Australia in 1979 is that Aussie's ate a lot of fruit. And the fruit quality was excellent all year around. Certainly adds to the total water content for the day!
John, I found an American website with pictures and text to help figure out what is considered to be 1 cup and 1/2 cup serving sizes of vegetables and fruits:
Canadians healthy eating guidelines call for more fruit and vegetables daily than Americans, based on more recent research in the UK and Norway, I think.
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