An adequate or healthy diet should contain carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water in the right quantities to ensure growth, immunity, and also energy for daily activities

Eating healthily to prevent diseases in the future takes deliberate efforts.

The diagram above describes what a healthy diet should look like and what it shouldn’t.

There are five colors in the circle (plate) representing different food groups

Yellow  represents cereals and grains, roots and tubers like rice, yam, potato, bread, spaghetti, cornflakes, and Golden Morn

Green represents fruits and vegetables like apple, carrot, watermelon, pineapple, garden egg, cucumber, cabbage, strawberry, banana,

Pink is for animal protein foods like fish, meat, eggs, chicken, turkey.

Blue represents milk and milk products like cheese, yoghurt

Purple/ Lilac represents oils.

1. At the top left-hand corner of the picture, you will see a note that says you should always read the information on the processed foods you buy. Check for how much fat, vitamins, sugar, minerals, and other nutrients the food contains so that you can know if you should take a lot or just a little. The best way is to check what percentage of the daily recommendation of a nutrient the food gives. If it gives more than 10% of the daily recommendation of fats, sugar, salt per serving, it is better to avoid such food.
2. The top right-hand corner of the picture says you should take 6-8 glasses of water per day. Water has a lot of functions in the body like being the medium in which many reactions of the body take place, helping to regulate body temperature (that’s one of the reasons why we sweat). It helps to remove waste products from the body (through urine) and makes it easier for our food to be digested (that is why we find it easy to defecate when we take enough water), etc. An adult is expected to take about 3.7 liters of water per day. Inadequate consumption of water can lead to fatigue, exhaustion, and dizziness.
3. At the bottom left corner of the picture, you will see that cutting down on foods is important. So you can take just a little quantity of sweets, cake, chocolate or just one bottle of soft drink (Coke, Fanta, Pepsi, etc) when there is a birthday celebration at the office or any other special occasion.

Now, let’s go to the colours.

1. The green and yellow sections take up a lot of space on the plate. This shows that when you are eating you should carefully combine cereal/ grain/ roots and tuber foods like rice, bread,  amala ( made from yam which is a tuber),  eba (made from cassava which is a root crop), or any other energy-giving food with vegetables (like efo riro, cabbage, lettuce, garden egg). You can also add fruits like orange, banana, apple, pineapple. Simply put, each meal should contain a vegetable and a fruit. For instance, you can take rice and cucumber slices with an apple. But the green and yellow portions are not the only foods on the plate, so let’s check out other colours.
2. If you observe the pink and blue parts, you will see that they are not as big as the green and yellow parts but, it is important that you include them in your diet. The pink part represents animal protein like eggs, fish, and meat. A perfect meal combo can be; A delicious plate of rice with either one meat, an egg, or fish, and a few slices of cucumber and apple on the side. Truth is, there are some nutrients in animal foods that might not be easily absorbed from plant foods or that are not present in plant foods (especially some vitamins and minerals), but you have to be careful to ensure that you don’t take fatty fish or meat. Be careful not to take more than one meat or fish or egg per meal-whichever one you choose.
3. The blue color is for milk and milk products. They contain proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals- a lot of them. A very good advantage of milk is that it is a good source of calcium in the diet. Calcium is needed for bone formation with other nutrients like Vitamin D, Phosphorous which are all found in milk. The ideal recommendation is about 3 glasses of milk per day but if you take up to 3 glasses of full cream milk per day with other foods, you might be exceeding your fat requirement for the day. So, you can go for low-fat or skimmed milk like Marvel milk, Dano Slim, 3 Crowns milk. If you can’t take up to 3 glasses, you can take a glass per day. You should also try to stay outdoors for up to 5-15 minutes per day so your skin can synthesize Vitamin D. Vitamin D helps in the absorption of Calcium into the bloodstream, if Vitamin D is low, calcium will not be well absorbed. Vitamin D can also be gotten from egg yolk, milk, oils, etc.
4. The purple/ Lilac portion is very narrow, which means that you should take very little quantity of it. This purple/lilac section is for oils. Oils are good for the body, they are needed for the functioning of fat-soluble vitamins (Vitamins A, D, E, K), they are needed for building cells in the body, producing hormones, as a source of energy, etc. Add just a little oil when cooking, choose plant oils like olive oil, sunflower oil Canola oil for cooking, reduce fried foods like buns, puff puff, fried fish, fried eggs, fried plantain, fried meat. It is better to mostly boil your animal protein.
5. Other tips:

• Try to stay healthy by exercising often but don’t stress yourself. Exercise helps to build strong, healthy bones.
• Limit your salt intake. Use just a little quantity of salt in your food that will be just enough for you to taste.
• If you feel the salt in your cooked food is not sufficient, you don’t have to add salt from the dining table. Just eat it like that. You might even add more than necessary when you sprinkle salt on the dining table.
• Eat a variety of fruits to get all the nutrients. Pawpaw has a lot of Vitamin A that is good for the eyes and can boost immunity and growth. Oranges have Vitamin C that helps to maintain the integrity of healthy skin, and Bananas have potassium that is good for the heart.
• Don’t take too much butter, mayonnaise, peanut butter because of their fat content.
• Make sure you preserve and cook your foods properly to prevent food-borne diseases.
• Lastly, always wear a smile and be happy. It’s good for the health.