We often hear the phrase 'balanced diet' and do our best to provide our loved ones with such a diet but what does 'balanced diet' really mean? Balanced diets include a variety of foods, perhaps prepared a variety of ways, that help us to grow and thrive. Balancing your diet requires that you purchase a variety of foods when you shop and that you plan balanced meals. Here are four concepts of 'balanced diets' that may inspire you to change the way you look at food and diet: the Canada Food Guide's dietary recommendations, food expert Anne-Marie Colbin's ideas, Macrobiotic principles of balance, and the dietary advice of Ayerveda.
The Canada Food Guide, based on the traditional Western food groups, is hardly considered to be alternative but it is the guide by which most of us plan our meals. Even die-hard whole foods vegetarians tend to count how many servings of each group of food, especially vegetables and fruit, are had during the day. The Canada Food Guide bases its goal of optimum nutrition on the premise of variety. If one eats a specified number of servings of food from each group then complete nutrition is easy to achieve. The Canada Food Guide clearly states that its food groups are grains, vegetables and fruit, dairy products, and proteins, either meat or vegetarian.
Unfortunately, variety can be difficult to achieve if one follows the Canada Food Guide. For example, the greatest number of daily servings is supposed to come from grains. The Canada Food Guide suggests variety in the grains group can be achieved by having a couple of slices of bread, maybe a bagel, and some pasta. The problem arises because most of the suggested choices are wheat based. Is this variety? If one is vigilant, the bread can be rye, the bagel multigrain, and the pasta rice or quinoa.
Anne-Marie Colbin, author of the classic "Food and Healing" and a Certified Health Education Specialist also advocates variety in diet as a path to complete nutrition but her approach is a little different. In her system one must consider three types of variety. Food is grouped by colour, flavour, as well as texture and shape. For example, you should consider the colour of your food by making sure to include some green, some orange, some red, some white, and some brown in your daily diet. Also consider that the daily diet should include some sour, some bitter, some spicy, some sweet, and some salty flavours. Texture and shape refers to including some hearty food like potatoes or grains in each meal as well protein, and a variety of vegetables - ones that grow up like lettuce or celery, ones that grow down like carrots or sweet potato, ones that grow sideways like squashes, and vegetables that hang like green beans or peppers.
Macrobiotics is a highly structured and finely balanced way of living and eating that is part of a total body and mind approach to health. It is based on the concept of two forces being present in all living things. These forces are known as yin and yang. Yin foods may be referred to as expansive or cooling (think lettuce) and yang foods are often referred to as contractive or warming (think root vegetables). The goal in macrobiotics is to eat food that is neither too yin or too yang because extremes bring imbalance into the system and thus disease. The traditional Western food groups of grains, vegetables and fruit, dairy products, and proteins are left behind in favour of the Macrobiotic food groups of grains, vegetables, sea vegetables, and soups. A well-balanced Macrobiotic meal consists of foods from each group. Meals that include all of these components prepared from the allowable Macrobiotic foods provide the body with all of the nutrition it needs.
You can try balancing your diet according to Macrobiotic principles. For example, if you have something sweet, balance it with something salty. Best of all, have a vegetable like a carrot or squash that is a little sweet, eliminating the need for excessively sweet or salty things. Balance a leafy, expansive vegetable like lettuce with a contractive root vegetable. Balance the amount of grains you eat in a day with an equal amount of vegetables. This is not true Macrobiotic eating but an application of its principle of balance. For more information on true Macrobiotic eating, read any Macrobiotic text or cookbook.
Ayerveda is also a total body, mind, and spirit system based on balance like Macrobiotics but it differs in a few ways. First of all, Ayerveda is based on the internal balance of three forces, called vata, pitta, and kapha, not the balance of only two forces. Secondly, Ayerveda meals should be slightly different for each individual. With some exceptions, Macrobiotics tends to prescribe the same eating system for all its practioners. Also, most whole foods are allowed in Ayervedic diets unlike the Macrobiotic diet which restricts its food choices to those which are not excessively yin or yang.
An Ayervedic meal is balanced according to the taste of the food. It is believed that including six flavours in the diet will bring about balance within the mind, body, and spirit by completely stimulating the metabolism. Any tastebuds that are not properly stimulated can lead to a metabolic blockage and thus illness or disease. This system replaces the traditional Western food groups with sweet foods, sour or acidic foods, salty foods, bitter foods, pungent or spicy foods, and astringent foods. A balanced Ayervedic meal may include grains (sweet), yogurt (sour), dark green leafy vegetables (bitter), a spice like garam masala (pungent), and some legumes (astringent). Salt is a component of most foods and doesn't need to be added to the meal.
Eating a wide variety of foods may seem challenging, especially in our world
of wheat and sugar based fast and convenience foods but with a little thought
and effort it can be done. You can balance your meal according to the four major
food groups of grain, vegetables and fruit, dairy, and protein or try Anne-Marie
Colbin's suggestions of variety by including foods of varying colour, flavour,
texture and shape. You can also balance your diet according to balancing principles
of yin and yang foods or the six tastes of Ayerveda.
Copyright 2001 - 2003, Kelly Reith BA RHN