Combine Nutrition Data With Common Sense To Stay Healthy

Anyone who wants to lose weight or improve their physical condition generally, whether they are a serious athlete or just an average member of the public, can make use of nutrition data. Information regarding the energy and content, vitamin content and other details can help you to make sensible decisions about how to refuel your body. While statistics, percentages and other numbers can be confusing, often the best nutrition data available is simple experience and common sense.

For a start, anyone who wants to make their body healthier and fitter should avoid processed food of any kind. Scanning the label of many pre-processed and pre-packaged foods can be like reading a chemistry textbook on occasion. The more chemical compounds that there are listed on the side of a product, then the greater the need to avoid it becomes.

When changing a diet to make it healthier, sugar, especially processed, refined sugar, should be one of the first things to be cut. Until recent times, fat was generally perceived as being the main enemy of a healthy body, and many products made a great play out of being low fat. In actual fact, many fats, such as those in eggs, olive oil and some diary products, can be very good for the body.

Finding a healthy protein source is essential for a good diet, and white meat, such as chicken, and fish can play an important role in providing protein. Red meat contains more saturated, or unhealthy, fat than meats which are classified as white. It also contains more cholesterol, and has been identified as a cause of digestive illness and heart conditions.

It is also wise to avoid fried food, especially food which has been fried in generic vegetable or corn oil. If you need to fry foods, do so gently in olive oil. Olive oil is also an excellent choice to dress foods such as salads, as it is nutritious and can help the body to burn unhealthy fats.

A good general rule for choosing healthy foods is whether it can be killed, or whether it can be grown. If either of those criteria can be applied, then it is probably very healthy. If a product has a long list of chemical ingredients, it should be avoided.

Nutrition data can be a useful complement to common sense when choosing food. Avoid foods which are processed and pre-packaged. Choose foods which are as close to their natural state as possible before preparation and cooking.