1. The Importance of a Balanced Diet — A balanced diet is essential to good health. In an increasingly busy world, paying attention to what we eat often gets ignored. The proliferation of fast food restaurants does not help this situation. The Subway fast food chain specializes in offering healthy meals to people living a busy lifestyle, but the vast majority of it competitors offer greasy high-fat foods that should not be consumed by anyone on a regular basis.

2. What a Balanced Diet Consists Of — Eating a variety of foods ensures that the human body has the vitamins and minerals it needs to keep going on a daily basis. Deciding what to put in the body can be tricky sometimes and in the past foods were divided into four basic food groups. A development within the past two decades has changed the four food groups to the food pyramid which has more divisions.

3. Understanding the Food Pyramid — The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends that an adult consume 2000 calories worth of food a day to maintain good health and energy. The 2000 calorie guideline does not tell us which foods to eat or the quantities of each type of the pyramid.

4. The Six Food Pyrmid Parts — The pyramid is broken up into six parts. The closer a food group is to the bottom, the more of items in that group a person should eat each day. The groups are from the bottom up: grain, fruits, vegetables, protein, dairy, and fats and sugars. Text by each food group will tell you how many servings each day will help you maintain good health.

5. The Wheat and Grain Group – Carbohydrates — The names do not always represent which group a food belongs in. Potatoes are often classified as a vegetable but are count as a serving of food in the wheat and grain group. Carbohydrates should make up the largest portion of your diet The Food pyramid recommends eating between six to eleven servings from this group a day.

6. The Vegetables Group — The FDA recommends half the number of servings from this group than it does from the group below it on the pyramid. Vegetables are a great source of vitamins and minerals. Conditions like scurvy, a disease many of us associate with pirates and sailing ships, can be prevented by consuming enough items from this and the fruit group.

7. The Fruit Group –The benefits of the fruit group are largely the same as the vegetables group and many people often group the two together although the Food pyramid clearly shows them as two distinct groups on the same pyramid step. If you manage 5 to eat servings combined from the two groups, you meet the minimum daily requirements from both groups.

8. The Milk and Dairy Group –Milk and Dairy products provide an excellent source of calcium. These are not needed in large quantities, but consuming a glass of milk or two a day can help prevent condition like osteoporosis and in younger people is important for their growth.

9. The Protein Group — Meats, beans, and nuts make up this group. Only one or two servings of foods from the protein group are needed each day, but proteins are essential for building muscles and new tissue.

10. Fats & Sugars –This group is at the top of the pyramid. Refined sugar is not necessary for the operation of the body and leads to cavities and tooth decay when consumed in large quantities. The body requires a small amount of fat for insulation and padding, but not a large enough amount for the FDA to even recommend a single daily serving of any food in this group. A balanced diet should include some oils and fats, but the body can get away without consuming any sweets.

11. Putting it Together — Eating a well balanced diet is a matter of putting all the food groups in the pyramid together in the proper amounts. Maintaining a balanced diet is not impossible, but it requires a little planing. Setting up a schedule of meals in advance lets us decide how to meet these needs. Circumstances may causes us to deviate from a planned meal schedule every once in a while, but going to McDonald’s or Burger King to pick up an extra value meal is okay every once in a while.

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