A healthy diet is defined as the food intake that helps maintain or improve general health. A healthy diet lowers many chronic health risks, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and cancer.
A healthy diet involves consuming appropriate amounts of all essential nutrients and an adequate amount of water.
A healthy diet needs to have a balance of macro-nutrients (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates), calories to support energy needs, and micro-nutrients to meet the needs for human nutrition without inducing toxicity or excessive weight gain from consuming excessive amounts.
The World Health Organization (WHO) makes the following recommendations for a healthy diet:
(1) Achieve an energy balance and a healthy weight
(2) Limit energy intake from total fats and shift fat consumption away from saturated fats to unsaturated fats and towards the elimination of trans-fatty acids
(3) Increase consumption of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts
(4) Limit the intake of simple sugar
(5) Limit salt / sodium consumption from all sources and ensure that salt is iodized
(6) Sufficient essential amino acids to provide cellular replenishment and transport proteins. Fruits such as avocado and pumpkin seeds also have almost all of the essential amino acids.
(7) Essential micro-nutrients such as vitamins and certain minerals.