Eight steps to healthier eating

A healthy diet is not about taking the fun out of eating or endless guilt trips. Just bear in mind these eight key steps to successful healthy eating, and you'll be on your way to a happier, healthier and fitter you!

Being active and eating a healthy diet go hand in hand with getting the most out of life. A good diet will ensure that you are properly fuelled to take on everything life throws at you. It will help you to be more active, better equipped to fight disease and in a position to enjoy your life far more. What's more, looking good and feeling healthy go hand-in-hand.

Here are eight simple steps to a better you:

1. Base your meals on starchy foods

If you have the view carbohydrates are bad, it is time to change your thinking! Starchy foods such as bread, cereals, rice, pasta and potatoes are key ingredients to a healthy diet. Choose wholegrain starchy foods whenever you can, as they have more fibre and other nutrients than white or refined starchy foods. They will also keep the hunger pangs away for longer.

Wholegrain foods include:

wholemeal and wholegrain bread, pitta and chapatti
wholewheat pasta and brown rice
wholegrain breakfast cereals

Starchy foods should make up about a third of the food we eat. Include at least one starchy food with each main meal. For example, start the day with a wholegrain breakfast cereal, have a sandwich for lunch, and potatoes, pasta or rice with your evening meal. Some people think starchy foods are fattening, but gram for gram they contain less than half the calories of fat.

2. Cutting out fat

To stay healthy, we need some fat in our diets. What's important is the quantity of and type of fat we are eating. There are two main types of fat:

Saturated fat: having too much can increase the amount of cholesterol in the blood, which increases the chance of developing heart disease.

Unsaturated fat: having unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat lowers blood cholesterol.

Try to cut down on food that is high in saturated fat and have foods that are rich in unsaturated fat instead, such as vegetable oils (including sunflower, rapeseed and olive oil), oily fish, avocados, nuts and seeds. Foods high in saturated fats should be eaten less regularly or in small amounts.

Foods high in saturated fat

Try to eat these sorts of food less often or in small amounts:

meat pies, sausages, meat with visible white fat
hard cheese
butter and lard
pastry
cakes and biscuits
cream, soured cream and crème fraîche
coconut oil, coconut cream or palm oil

For a healthy choice, use just a small amount of vegetable oil or a reduced-fat spread instead of butter, lard or ghee. When you are having meat, try to choose lean cuts and cut off any visible fat.

How do I know if a food is high in fat?

Look at the label to see how much fat a food contains. Generally the label will say how many grams (g) of fat there are in 100g of the food.

Some foods also give a figure for saturated fat, or 'saturates'. Use the following as a guide to what is a lot and what is a little fat per 100g of food.

This is A LOT of fat

20g fat or more per 100g
5g saturates or more per 100g

This is A LITTLE fat:

3g fat or less per 100g
1g saturates or less per 100g

If the amount of total fat is between 3g and 20g per 100g, this is a moderate amount of total fat. Between 1g and 5g of saturates is a moderate amount of saturated fat.

3. Cut down on sugar

Most people in the UK eat too much sugar. We should try to eat fewer foods containing added sugar, such as sweets, cakes and biscuits, and drink fewer sugary soft and fizzy drinks. These drinks can contain large amounts of sugar and are often low in nutrients.

Many foods with added sugar are also high in calories, so cutting down could also help you control your weight. You can cut back on any sugar you add to hot drinks, and also reduce your sugar intake by cutting out sugary drinks such as cola or lemonade. If you look at the ingredients listed on food packaging, the biggest ingredient comes first, so if sugar comes near the front of the list, you know the food is high in sugar. Watch out for other words that are used to describe added sugar, such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, hydrolysed starch and invert sugar. If you see one of these near the top of the list, you know the food is likely to be high in added sugars.

4. Eat more fruit and veg

Most people know we should be eating more fruit and veg, but most of us still aren't eating enough. Having at least five portions of a variety of fruit and veg each day, will help us reduce our chances of developing heart disease and some types of cancer.

In the UK, we eat an average of just three portions of fruit and veg a day. So we should try to increase the amount of fruit and veg we eat to help boost our health.

Each of these provides one portion of fruit and veg:

one apple, orange, banana or pear
two halves of tinned peach
two small pieces of fruit such as plums or satsumas
three heaped tablespoons of veg
three heaped tablespoons of pineapple chunks or fruit salad
one heaped tablespoon of dried fruit such as raisins
a dessert bowl of salad
a handful of berries

Try to change your daily diet, so that eating lots of fruit and veg becomes a habit. Here are some tips on how to increase your fruit and veg intake:

Drink a glass of fruit juice at breakfast time.
Add some sliced banana or raisins to your breakfast cereal.
Keep some fruit handy for a mid-morning snack.
Add tomato or lettuce to sandwiches.
Eat fruit salad for dessert.
Add vegetables to curries, casseroles and pasta sauces.
Serve an extra vegetable or side salad with a meal.

Remember that fresh, frozen, tinned, dried and juiced fruit and veg can all count towards your daily portions, but juice can count as only one portion a day, however much you drink. This is because you don't get the same nutritional benefits from juice that you get from whole fruit and veg.

(And even though potatoes are vegetables, they are classified as a starchy food, so they don't count towards our five daily portions of fruit and veg.)

5. Eat more fish

We should aim to eat at least two servings of fish a week, including one serving of oily fish. Both white fish (such as haddock, plaice, halibut and sole) and oily fish (such as sardines, salmon, trout, pilchards and mackerel) are valuable sources of protein, vitamins and minerals. Most people in the UK don't eat as much fish as this, so it's definitely a good idea to try to make it a regular part of your diet. Although most people should be eating more fish, there are maximum levels recommended for oily fish. Children and pregnant women, or women who are trying to get pregnant, should avoid swordfish, shark and marlin. Other adults should have no more than one portion of swordfish, shark or marlin a week.

Oily fish contain a type of fatty acid called omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. These fatty acids can help prevent coronary heart disease and also have other health benefits.

Canned salmon, sardines, mackerel, trout and pilchards count as oily fish, as they do when fresh. This is because the canning process doesn't significantly reduce the fat content of the fish.

Canned tuna is different. Although fresh tuna is a good source of omega 3 fatty acids, when tuna is canned the levels of these fats are reduced to a much lower level. So, although canned tuna can be a healthy choice, it doesn't count as oily fish.

6. Cut down on salt

You may think you don't eat much salt, as you don't add much to your food. But don't be so sure! Every day in the UK, 85% of men and 69% of women eat too much salt. Adults, and children over 11, should have no more than 6g salt a day. Younger children should have even less. 75% of the salt we eat comes from processed food, such as breakfast cereals, soups, sauces, bread, biscuits and ready meals. So you could easily be eating too much salt without realising it.

Eating too much salt can raise your blood pressure. And people with high blood pressure are three times more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke than people with normal blood pressure.

How do I know if a food is high in salt?

Salt is often listed as sodium on food labels
Salt = sodium x 2.5

Use the following as a guide to what is a lot and what is a little salt (or sodium) per 100g food.

This is A LOT of salt

1.25g salt or more per 100g
0.5g sodium or more per 100g

This is A LITTLE salt

0.25g salt or less per 100g
0.1g sodium or less per 100g

Try to choose foods that are low in salt (0.25g salt or less per 100g).

7. Eat breakfast

It is best to start the day with breakfast. Begin each day with healthy eating habits and it will be easier to stick to it as the day goes on. Breakfast can help give us the energy we need to face the day, as well as vitamins and minerals we need for good health. Some people skip breakfast because they think it will help them lose weight. But missing meals doesn't help us lose weight and it isn't good for us, because we can miss out on essential nutrients.

Research shows eating breakfast can help people control their weight. This is probably because when we don't have breakfast (or any other meal), we're more likely to get hungry between meals and snack on unhealthy and fattening foods.

But not all breakfast cereals are healthy choices. Some contain as much fat and sugar as biscuits, plus lots of salt. So be sure to check the label. Why not go for a bowl of wholegrain cereal with some sliced banana and a glass of fruit juice for a healthy start to the day?

8. Drink plenty of water

We should be drinking a minimum six to eight glasses (or 1.2 litres) of water, or other fluids, every day to stop us getting dehydrated. When the weather is warm or when we get active, our bodies need more than this. Avoid drinking soft and fizzy drinks that are high in added sugar. Have a water bottle to hand at home or work to help you keep your fluid intake up and enable you to monitor it. There is nothing wrong with the occasional alcoholic drink. But drinking too much can cause problems. Alcohol is also high in calories, so cutting down could help you control your weight.