Foods you must include in a healthy diet

Your passport to health and long life

So, having lectured you on the things you must not eat (because they will all make you fat and bring untold misery and humiliation), what are the healthier alternatives? 'Of what', I hear you ask, 'does this easily obtainable passport to paradise consist?' Well, you'd be surprised at how much choice there is, and how readily available and affordable these are.

This is the secret the food industry is so keen to keep from us. Their whole sordid little empire is sustained by convincing us that there is no alternative to the manufactured hyper-addictive 'convenience' dross they serve up for us. Perhaps if human beings weren't so gullible and easily corrupted the obesity epidemic would never have come about in the first place. This is what happens when we place our trust in scum.

The reality is that there is a cornucopia of healthy alternatives to the excessively carbohydrate-leveraged diet that most people in the West are now routinely consuming and have come to regard as the only option. All of these alternatives have one thing in common: they consist of whole natural foods, not the multi-processed Frankenstein muck that the food industry keeps trying to convince us is the best thing since sliced bread (and I hope I've convinced you how bad bread is for you).

What makes a healthy diet?

There's been plenty of debate over the past decade or two as to what constitutes a healthy diet but most nutritionists would agree that a healthy diet should include all of the following:

• Plenty of fresh fruit and green vegetables (ideally organic)
• Unprocessed meat (preferably organic; fish and white meat are better than red meat)
• Foods naturally rich in proteins (eggs, nuts, mushrooms)
• Non-sugary, non-fatty drinks - ideally water, tea and coffee
• Healthy unsaturated fats (olive oil, coconut oil)
• Healthy grain products (whole oats, quinoa, brown rice)
• The occasional glass of red wine

This is essentially the Mediterranean diet, which has long been accepted as one of the healthiest diets in the world (evidenced by the fitness and longevity of people living in the Mediterranean region).

The important thing is to achieve the right balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats - the macro-nutrients that are essential for bodily function - as well as providing your body with essential vitamins and minerals.

Why is the typical Western diet so unhealthy?

The primary failing with the kind of diet that most people in the West stick to today is that it is over-heavy in carbohydrates - particularly those 'bad carbohydrates' which result in a sudden, dramatic sugar spike at meal times. This spike triggers a massive release of the fat-producing hormone insulin, which converts most of the sugar formed by the digestion of carbohydrates into body fat. The high-carbohydrate diet that most people in the West have today is one that is bound to make you obese, no matter how physically active you are.

The most harmful carbohydrates tend to be those that have a high Glycemic Index (GI), which is a measure of how much of a sugar spike they produce once they enter the bloodstream.

Carbohydrates that are rich in starch and sugar have a high Glycemic Index and will be converted into body fat straight away. Low GI carbohydrates stay in the bloodstream longer and are more likely to be burnt up rather than made into fat.

Vegetables with a low GI (in the range 10-15) include asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, green beans. By contrast, root vegetables - potatoes, carrots, parsnips, swede - have a high GI (50-90).

Glycemic Index is the key to a healthy diet

Knowing a food's Glycemic Index will help you to make better informed decisions over which foods to eat to achieve weight loss. A generous portion of cabbage or cauliflower is not only nourishing, it will leave you satiated. The same size portion of potato chips merely triggers an insulin rush that will create more body fat and still leave you hungry.

If you can't live without root vegetables, stick to the healthier ones - carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes - but in moderate quantities, and always with plenty of lower GI vegetables that will fill you up.

Bread, pasta, cakes, biscuits and starchy vegetables (such as potatoes) all have a very high Glycemic Index and should be cut out of your diet completely if you are serious about losing weight and having a healthier lifestyle. 'Energy bars' that are often (wrongly) perceived as health products can have a massive GI index (near to the maximum of 100) - these should be avoided like the plague. If you need a quick energy boost, grab a banana instead.

Nearly all fruits have an intermediate GI (25-60), but most offer other health benefits (fibre, vitamins, antitoxins) that make them an essential part of any healthy diet. Foods that are rich in fibre help to improve your metabolic rate, ensuring that more matter is burnt up instead of merely being converted into fat.

Fruit juices and sports drinks have an extremely high Glycemic Index (typically 80 to 100) and should be avoided altogether. They are little more than sugared water and get converted into fat with frightening speed as soon as they enter your bloodstream. Plain water and coconut water are much better for you and they actually improve metabolic function, increasing the rate at which you burn up the calories and remove the waste products from your body, leaving less food to end up as body fat.

Eating fruit sensibly does not make you fat

Recently, there's been a lot of hyped-up hysteria in the media (mostly from self-promoting celebrities and fraudsters trying to sell you their misleading healthy eating books) that fruit can make you fat. Whilst fruit certainly is not calorie-free, eating it as a substitute for more unhealthy carbohydrates like cakes, pastries and biscuits can only do you good - it certainly won't expand your waistline.

The problem arises only if you add fruit to an already excessive eating schedule in the misguided belief (encouraged by misjudged initiatives like the 'five a day' campaign) that this will help you shed pounds. Forcing yourself to eat an apple or a banana after you have already wolfed down a Big Mac, plate of chips and a big bowl of ice cream is only going to increase your calorie intake and make you more overweight.

Calorie-for-calorie, a fresh fruit substitute for a high carbohydrate product will result in less weight gain and has additional health benefits (fibre to improve digestion, vitamins and minerals to boost your metabolism and immune system). If you binge on any food you are likely to put on weight, but eating fruit sensibly can only help you to lose weight and feel much healthier. Dried fruit is another matter altogether - because this has less bulk than fresh fruit it is much easier to overindulge. It's probably best to avoid dried fruit altogether.

Low carb diets

Any diet that reduces your carbohydrate intake will be better for you. Some so-called low carb diets take this so far that carbohydrates make up only a small proportion (around 5 per cent) of your calorific intake, the rest coming from healthy fats and proteins. Such ketogenic diets have fats as the primary energy source and manage to almost completely eliminate the sugar spike (and consequent insulin rush) associated with a carbohydrate-heavy diet. As a result, you feel hungry less often and can eat pretty well when you want to - fixed meal times become a thing of the past.

Even though the experts are divided over the long term benefits of the ketogenic diet, it has been proven highly beneficial for those suffering from epilepsy and diabetes.

Numerous studies have been undertaken to assess the effectiveness of low carb diets in general but there is as yet no clear consensus. Whilst these diets tend to be more effective in removing excess weight in the first few months, there is as yet no firm evidence that they are any more effective than other healthy options, such as the far less controversial Mediterranean diet, which is the one I would personally favour.

© James Travers 2016