Making healthy food choices

All these diets have their merits because they, at the very least, stand for better eating choices as opposed to artificial, chemically enhanced and processed foods. But, at the end of the day, I still think that a balanced diet containing all three food groups - protein (animal or vegetable), low GI carbohydrates and essential fats - is the way to go to get the best results. It is also about making it a lifestyle and not just something that worked while you were sticking to the rules.

If you think logically about the new craze of eating almost only protein and fat, how can any diet that cuts out naturally healthy things like tomatoes (lycopene), watermelon, carrots (vit A),and bananas (potassium), to name a few, be correct?

Of course high protein with almost no carbohydrates will make you lose weight, but it will give you no energy, put strain on your kidneys and how do we know what the long-term effects will be? Will it be apologised for when everyone sits with other problems and the next big hype is out there? Yes, we have started to overdose on carbs and neglected our intake of protein, but shouldn't we rather eat enough protein instead of too much again?

So let's look at how we can incorporate all the best parts from these diets into a well balanced, nice-to-live-by eating plan. Here's a great example:

Healthy eating plan

Breakfast:
• Muesli that contains nuts and seeds for higher protein and essential fat. Do not buy the roasted roasted or those with added sugar. Eat it with milk, water or yoghurt for some extra protein and good probiotics.
• Whole rolled or crushed oats porridge to which you add some nuts for extra protein. If you know you are not getting enough protein in during the day, then use a protein supplement to complement your diet. My recommendation is PVM XTR Protein.
• Boiled or poached eggs on rye or spelt bread.
• Egg white omelette, with fillings like mushrooms, asparagus, tomatoes, spring onions, spinach and cottage cheese.
• A smoothie with one to two low GI fruits (apple or strawberries), yoghurt and protein powder.

Mid morning snack:
• Game or lean beef biltong (about 25 g).
• Plain yoghurt with fresh berries (only if you didn’t have a fruit smoothie for breakfast).
• Two rice cakes with cottage cheese and avocado.

Lunch:
• Any grilled or steamed lean protein (such as chicken, beef, game or fish) or sashimi. Have this with steamed vegetables or a healthy salad containing lettuce, cucumber, celery, tomato, avo, cottage cheese, asparagus and mushrooms.

Mid day snack:
• Same as the morning snack.

Dinner:
• Steamed or grilled protein with steamed veggies and a salad. Low GI, non-starchy vegetables are the way to go here, such as green beans, broccoli, spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, kale, celery, lentils, chick peas, cucumber and gem squash. Try to minimise starchy vegetables like carrots, corn and peas, but do not cut it out of your diet completely. Rather leave out any man-made foods, like pasta or bread and go easy on the starches (rice, potatoes, pumpkin, etc).

Late night snack (optional):
• Protein shake or kefir yoghurt.
• Raw nuts