Moderation, Variety, Balance & Adequacy

So the title of my blog is Nutrition by Eve: Moderation, Balance & Variety. Do you know what these words mean?  You’re probably saying “of course!” I mean we hear them ALL the time.  But have you ever thought about what they actually are and how they translate into a healthy diet.

Turns out a healthy and nutritious diet is comprised of 4 Parts:

1. Moderation
2. Balance
3. Variety
4. Adequacy

Moderation:

• You probably hear it all the time, it’s ok to have a cookie, but in moderation.  Or fast food is ok, in moderation.
• Moderation is really eating the right amounts of foods while meeting your nutritional needs and maintaining a proper weight.
• It’s not overdoing anything and setting limits of fat, sugar and sodium for proper health.
• An example: a diet should be less than 30% fat…so there’s room for an ice cream sundae if you wish but maybe you shouldn’t have this on the day you had a burger and fries for dinner.

Variety:

• Eating different foods from day to day.
• It’s easy to rely on the same foods, and get into food ruts, but even if you’re eating the same “healthy” foods you may be missing out on important vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals that are in others.
• Some foods are higher in chemicals, mercury, pesticides, etc and by varying your diet you will be exposed to these toxins less.

Balance:

• Providing a diet that has many types of foods so that the foods rich in certain nutrients don’t take over the needs of others and proper nutrient intake is obtained.
• Foods contain a wide range of micronutrients, it’s important to make sure you are meeting your needs of all of them and not just concentrating on one or two since then you may miss out on others.

Adequacy:

• A diet that provides all the proper essential nutrients to maintain a healthy body weight.
• It’s possible to have a diet that’s adequate in protein and fat but inadequate in fiber.