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What is a balanced diet?
A balanced diet means adopting good nutritional habits to ensure an adequate distribution of nutrients in the diet.
This approach aims to meet the body’s energy requirements in terms of macronutrients such as proteins, lipids and carbohydrates, while ensuring an adequate intake of essential micronutrients ( vitamins and minerals).
A balanced diet also means eating a variety of foods and adjusting portion sizes to our daily calorie requirements. We can’t stress this enough, but eating a balanced diet means eating everything and not abusing anything.
In other words, it’s a quality diet designed to satisfy individual needs and help maintain good health!
Eating a balanced diet means understanding the calorie balance
Use the tool below to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (calorie requirements at rest) and your daily calorie requirement, depending on your PAL ( Physical Activity Level).
Find out more on this subject: Basal Metabolic Rate, also known as Resting Energy Expenditure
Other REGIVIA calculation tools
What are the principles of a healthy and balanced diet?
Referring to the recommendations of ANSES (Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail), we can establish the ANC (Apport Nutritionnels Conseillés) for each nutrient group as follows:
- Proteins (12 to 16% of TEA*)
- Lipids (35 to 40% of TEA*)
- Carbohydrates (50-55% of TEA*)
*TEA = Total Energy Intake – Caution! This proportion is a benchmark for defined calorie proportions. So it’s important to understand that it’s not a question of the weight of the food, but of the calories.
The importance of variety in your diet
A diet is considered varied when nutrient sources are diversified on a regular basis. Feeding the same foods on a daily basis not only runs the risk of deficiencies, but also of creating a monotonous diet, which can reduce the pleasure of eating.
Dietary diversity also helps to minimize the potentially harmful effects of certain foods that may arise from excessive consumption. It’s important to remember that there are no good or bad foods, only different intakes and different effects depending on quantity and context.
In fact, adopting a varied and balanced diet is already a large part of the road to better health.
A balanced diet means making healthy food choices
The key to a healthy diet lies in eating unprocessed foods.
Ready-made meals and highly processed products are incompatible with a healthy diet. Such foods arouse the desire to eat them again and again. To this end, they are very rich in sugars, fats and salt, which increase their palatability and the desire for more. Conversely, they are low in fiber, protein, micronutrients and satiating antioxidants. Their low nutritional density compared to their high caloric intake makes them empty-calorie foods.
Finally, it’s essential to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, which have indisputably positive effects on health and are unfortunately under-consumed.
So, how do you create a healthy, balanced and varied meal?
What is a healthy, balanced meal?
A meal is considered balanced when it provides all the essential nutrients (macronutrients and micronutrients) in the right proportions.
However, a single meal is not necessarily responsible for meeting all nutritional needs, as balanced eating is built up over a longer period, such as on a daily or weekly basis.
It’s best, however, to maintain regularity and consistency in your nutritional intake, but it’s also possible to easily compensate for a few deviations. The key is not to let these deviations become the norm, but rather to treat them as exceptions.
What does a healthy and varied meal look like?
To eat a varied, balanced diet, you need to include fruit and vegetables, proteins and starchy foods at every meal. But this often seems easier in theory than in practice. For those who find the concept of the food pyramid too abstract, the ideal is to refer to the Harvard healthy plate, which illustrates in a simple way the composition of a well-balanced plate.
Here’s what a healthy, varied and balanced plate looks like:
- 1/2 plate for vegetables and fruit
The greater the variety and quantity of vegetables you eat, the better. Potatoes and French fries are not considered vegetables. Eat fruit of all colors to benefit from a wide range of vitamins and minerals, each with its own health benefits. - 1/4 of the plate for wholegrain cereals
Eat wholegrain cereals (brown rice, wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta, etc.). Limit refined cereals (white rice and white bread). - 1/4 of the plate for proteins
Choose fish, poultry, legumes and nuts. Limit red meat.
Avoid bacon and other deli meats. - Use healthy oils (such as olive oil or rapeseed oil) for cooking, salads and to accompany your dishes at the table. Limit butter. Avoid trans fats.
- Drink water, tea or coffee (with little or no sugar)
Limit milk and dairy products (1-2 portions/day) and fruit juices (1 small glass/day). Avoid sugary drinks.
In addition to a healthy diet, don’t forget to take an active walk for at least 30 minutes a day, because balance is as much about what you eat as about how much energy you expend!
