Practical advice on maintaining a healthy diet

 

Fruit and vegetables

Eating at least 400 g, or five portions, of fruit and vegetables per day reduces the risk of NCDs (2) and helps to ensure an adequate daily intake of dietary fibre.

Fruit and vegetable intake can be improved by:

• always including vegetables in meals;
• eating fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks;
• eating fresh fruit and vegetables that are in season; and
• eating a variety of fruit and vegetables.

Fats

Reducing the amount of total fat intake to less than 30% of total energy intake helps to prevent unhealthy weight gain in the adult population (1, 2, 3). Also, the risk of developing NCDs is lowered by:

• reducing saturated fats to less than 10% of total energy intake;
• reducing trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake; and
• replacing both saturated fats and trans-fats with unsaturated fats (2, 3) – in particular, with polyunsaturated fats.

Fat intake, especially saturated fat and industrially-produced trans-fat intake, can be reduced by:

• steaming or boiling instead of frying when cooking;
• replacing butter, lard and ghee with oils rich in polyunsaturated fats, such as soybean, canola (rapeseed), corn, safflower and sunflower oils;
• eating reduced-fat dairy foods and lean meats, or trimming visible fat from meat; and
• limiting the consumption of baked and fried foods, and pre-packaged snacks and foods (e.g. doughnuts, cakes, pies, cookies, biscuits and wafers) that contain industrially-produced trans-fats.