General Healthy Eating Advice

Here are the basic do’s and don’t’s reminders:

• Make up the bulk of most of your meals with  starch-based foods (such as cereals, bread, potatoes, rice, pasta).  Wholegrain starch-based foods should be eaten when possible.
• Eat plenty of fibre in your diet. Foods rich  in fibre include wholegrain bread, brown rice and pasta, oats, peas,  lentils, grain, beans, fruit, vegetables and seeds.
• Limit fatty food such as fatty meats,  cheeses, full-cream milk, fried foods, butter, etc. Use low-fat options  where possible. For example use skimmed or semi-skimmed instead of full-cream milk, or low-fat, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated spreads instead of butter.
• Avoid sugary drinks and foods such as chocolate, sweets, biscuits, cakes, etc. Limit other foods likely to be high in fat or sugar such as some take-away or fast foods.
• If you like to eat meat, choose lean meat, or poultry such as chicken.
• Try to grill, bake or steam rather than fry food. If we do fry food, choose a vegetable oil such as sunflower,  rapeseed or olive oil.
• Include 2-3 portions of fish per week. At least two of these should be ‘oily’ (such as herring, mackerel, sardines,  kippers, pilchards, salmon, or fresh tuna).
• Try not to add salt to food, and avoid foods that are salty.