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Articles
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Dietary Patterns
An indispensable condition of good health is providing your body with a diet that incorporates:
- Balance
- Moderation
- Variety
Balance and moderation are simply a matter of not having too much or too little of anything. While we know that too much fat can cause health problems, without some fat in your diet, you would be prone to other health problems. Your body requires certain levels of minerals for normal functioning, whereas excess amounts of one or more minerals can impair the normal actions of other minerals. A diet that is balanced with a variety of foods and moderate in the amounts of those foods offers the best chance of getting the nutrients your body needs in the quantities it can best use them.
Variety is absolutely essential to good health. A varied diet provides your body the full array of vitamins and minerals, as well as the macronutrients (carbohydrate, fat, and protein) it needs to keep you thriving and healthy. Various components of your diet interact with and on one another - if all the components are not there or not there in appropriate amounts, these interactions cannot occur normally. Eating a mixture of different types of foods, in a meal or in a day, allows your body to make the best use of the fuel you provide it.
Eating a regular diet that incorporates balance, moderation and variety offers the greatest health benefits. A diet rich in vegetables, fruits, low-fat dairy products, and whole grains can provide appropriate quantities of the nutrients you need without adding a lot of those you don't. Even if your goal is to get more or less of a specific nutrient - for example, increasing calcium or reducing fat - this is most effectively and safely accomplished by a balanced diet with lots of variety.
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