Human Nutrition - Healthy Diets

Healthy Diets

The United Healthcare / Pacificare nutrition guideline recommends the following foods per day to enhance your health (based on a 2,000 calorie diet)

• Grains: 6 oz per day 'Make half your grains whole'
• Vegetables: 2.5 cups per day 'Vary your veggies'
• Fruits: 2 cups per day 'Focus on fruits '
• Milk: 3 cups per day 'Get your calcium-rich foods'
• Meat and beans: 5.5 oz per day 'Go lean with protein'.

Heart disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes are commonly called "Western" diseases because these maladies were once rarely seen in developing countries. One study in China found some regions had essentially no cancer or heart disease, while in other areas they reflected "up to a 100-fold increase" coincident with diets that were found to be entirely plant-based to heavily animal-based, respectively. In contrast, diseases of affluence like cancer and heart disease are common throughout the United States. Adjusted for age and exercise, large regional clusters of people in China rarely suffered from these "Western" diseases possibly because their diets are rich in vegetables, fruits and whole grains.

A National Geographic cover article from November 2005, entitled The Secrets of Living Longer, looks into why certain populations have long life spans. The article is a lifestyle survey of three populations, Sardinians, Okinawans, and Adventists, who generally display longevity and "suffer a fraction of the diseases that commonly kill people in other parts of the developed world, and enjoy more healthy years of life." In sum, they offer three sets of 'best practices' to emulate. The rest is up to you. In common with all three groups is to follow a low-calorie diet that consists mainly of "fruits, vegetables, and whole grains."

The National Geographic article noted that an NIH-funded study of 34,000 Seventh-day Adventists between 1976 and 1988 "...found that the Adventists' habit of consuming beans, soy milk, tomatoes, and other fruits lowered their risk of developing certain cancers. It also suggested that eating whole grain bread, drinking five glasses of water a day, and, most surprisingly, consuming four servings of nuts a week reduced their risk of heart disease."