Upgrade your plate

Good nutrition is an essential part of leading a healthy lifestyle however it’s an area that most of us struggle with. When we hear the word ‘nutrition’ it immediately conjures up feelings of confusion and stress. What exactly should we be eating? Well, it seems to change on a constant basis. Every single day there’s a new fad diet, one that extolls the virtue of cutting out an entire food group or existing on nothing but green salad. So what’s a health conscious person to do?

The good news is that proper nutrition isn’t nearly as daunting (or as boring) as we may think.

“One mantra I always say to people is that there is no such thing as a good or bad food, only a good or bad diet,” says Aveen Bannon from the Dublin Nutrition Centre.

“The way our bodies are – we’re a machine for want of a better expression and we need a balance of key nutrients in the diet to help it work as healthy as possible and also [to] protect our future health.”

Aveen says that unfortunately there’s a lot of misinformation out there about food at the moment and that instead of worrying about this, we should aim for balance in our diets.

“Currently in the media I feel there’s an awful lot of pitching one food group that’s really good for you over a food group that’s really bad for you. There are very strong opinions about sugar at the moment. People are getting all worried about sugar and what gets lost in all those messages is that we need a little bit of everything and that balance is important,” says Aveen.

“I now find that people are avoiding fruit because they think that fruit is too high in sugar. You have to go, “Oh my goodness!” Fruit has vitamins, minerals and fibre – there’s so much goodness in there. I’m trying to educate that our brain uses six grams of glucose on average per hour and it only uses glucose as a fuel. We need sugar in our diet, we just need to be careful of the quality of the sugar in our diet, but we do need it.”

I ask Aveen what’s the best way to begin to improve our nutrition and she offers a simple, tried-and-tested method.

“I love the idea of the plate. When I’m working in the clinic with a patient I will draw a plate and I divide it into thirds. I say a third should be your protein, a third should be colour and a third should be your carbohydrates,” says Aveen.

“I always say to people try and think is there protein and fibre in what you’re eating? If a food contains protein and/or fibre it’s probably quite good for you.”

Our everyday diets should be made up of a variety of different food groups and Aveen offers a breakdown of our three main meals.

“You want your breakfast to have a fibre rich food coming from something like porridge oats, high fibre cereal or high fibre bread. During the night your blood sugars will have dropped, so you’re replenishing those stores to give your body to give your body and brain the energy they need. You want to go for a fibre option because it will help your digestive system and it keeps you fuller for longer.

“Always eat breakfast and you’ll want some protein with it. The protein could be in the form of having milk in your cereal, having a boiled egg or having nuts in your porridge. I always say to people there should be colour at every meal. At breakfast it might be a couple of berries on top of your cereal or some tomato if you’re having it with your egg – that kind of idea.”

As for lunch and dinner, they should have a similar construction and be made up of a third carbohydrate, a third protein and a third colour. However if you’re trying to lose some weight, there is an exception to this rule:

“If somebody is trying to lose weight, we make [the plate] half colour and a quarter carbohydrate and a quarter protein. If you’re maintaining weight then it’s a third carbohydrate, a third protein and a third colour,” says Aveen.

So how should we build our perfect, nutritionally balanced lunch or dinner?

“Nutrition, as much as we love to make it complicated, it isn’t really,” laughs Aveen.

“One thing I always say in terms of lunch and dinnertime is try and have something green every day – be it lettuce, rocket, peas, courgette, green beans or broccoli. It’s just so important for heart health.”

While your three main meals of the day are very important, snacks are also just as essential for a healthy, balanced diet.

“The rule of thumb is you shouldn’t really have much longer than a three or four hour gap between meals. For example, if you have your breakfast at seven in the morning, you need to have something small at 10 or 11 in the morning. If you’re not having your dinner until half seven in the evening, you need something in the afternoon. It depends on your own routine,” says Aveen.

“Snacks [should be] protein and fibre. A piece of fruit will contain fibre. Nuts contain protein and fibre. A yoghurt will contain protein, whereas if you pick up a packet of crisps, they don’t contain protein or fibre. So look at food that way instead of going into the calories and getting too bogged down.”

Aveen says that the goal of good nutrition is to help people get more comfortable with their food instead of getting stuck in the feelings of stress that we usually associate with trying to make healthier choices.

“There’s so many people that are caught in this cycle of thinking about their next meal, what they have to eat – obsessing about food. The minute you start thinking about something too much, you end up probably eating the things that you’re not meant to eat,” says Aveen.

“It’s about being much more comfortable with food… it’s simple, if you have a packet of crisps and a packet of popcorn you’ll go, “Popcorn contains fibre, that’ll be better for me.” You’re not going “Oh, which one is lower in calories?” It’s not getting into that kind of relationship with food. It’s just looking at the quality of it.”

And when it comes to picking food, colour is everything.

“A very simple way of looking at food, if you look at natural foods, is the more strongly coloured they are, generally the more nutritious they are. Brown bread is better for you than white bread, all the different coloured fruits and vegetables. Colour is a really good indicator of nutritious food as long as it doesn’t have added colours into it.

“A really good way with fluid is the clearer the fluid, the better it is for you and [obviously] water is the best.”

Aveen Bannon is a qualified nutritionist and a member of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute. She is the founder of the Dublin Nutrition Centre. For more information call 01 639 8852 or log on to www.dnc.ie