Upon deciding to make changes towards a more health-supporting diet many people wonder what food to put on their plate. If this is you then a good graphical representation can be worth a thousand words. There are many valuable visual representations on the Internet, all with slight variations. One of my favorite nutritional experts has created a simple placemat illustration to help guide your food purchasing choices. Armed with this simple guidance system good choices can become much easier while navigating tumultuous grocery store aisles.
Jeff Novick, MS, RD, LD, LN. summarizes the five most essential components of healthy eating as well as the principles of calorie density in his Questions and Answers document "The Healthy Eating Placemat: A Visual Guide To Healthy Eating". The five principles that you will learn in more depth are that our food should be plant-centered, minimally processed, calorie dilute, low in added salts/sugars/fats and be varied.
Jeff also shares his six principle of Calorie Density as follows: Hunger & Satiety, Sequence Your Meals, Don't Drink Your Calories, Dilution is the Solution, Be Aware of the Impact of Vegetables vs Fat/Oil and Limit High Calorie Dense Foods. In Jeff's system foods have been classified under the following headings: Eat Freely, Eat Relatively Large Portions Without Concern, Limit These Foods, and Extremely Limit These Foods. The beauty of Jeff's system is it's extreme simplicity.
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of making his acquantance yet, I would like to introduce you to Jeff Novick.
For more information, click on the links below:
(1) Calorie Density = Key to Weight Loss
(2) The Calorie Density Approach to Nutrition and Lifelong Weight Management