A person eats about 1800 grams of food every day, what and how to eat is very important.

As early as more than 2,400 years ago, the Chinese traditional Chinese medicine classic "Huangdi Neijing Su Wen" stated that "five grains are used for nourishment, five fruits are helpful, five animals are beneficial, and five vegetables are supplemented, and the smells are combined to supplement the essence and qi". 's records.

The essence of the theory of penetration is also the theory of balanced diet, and different types of food produce different nutritional values.

　　From the first edition of the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" released in 1989 to the subsequent revisions of the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents", the first item is roughly the same: adhere to "food diversity".

Until this year's latest revision of the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)", the first of the eight principles of balanced diet stipulated by it is still "food diversity and reasonable matching".

Emphasizes that "the average daily intake of more than 12 kinds of food, more than 25 kinds of food per week, reasonable collocation."

How to make food diverse?

It seems easy to say, hard to practice.

　　1. Substitution method

　　May wish to change the food types daily or weekly, which is more conducive to nutritional balance.

　　For example, we can divide all kinds of vegetables into several categories:

　　Roots, such as lotus root, potato;

　　Leafy vegetables such as spinach, rape, amaranth;

　　Sprouts, such as toon sprouts, bean sprouts;

　　Bulbs, such as green onions, onions, etc.;

　　Melon and nightshade, such as zucchini, pumpkin, wax gourd, etc.;

　　And fresh beans, etc.

　　Whether cooking at home or eating out, choose as many types of vegetables as possible to make up for the nutritional deficiencies of different varieties of vegetables, break the "barrel effect", and achieve complementary advantages. For example, red amaranth and spinach have higher calcium content, while toon sprouts Zinc content is high.

　　2. Matching method

　　Common food collocation methods, including animal and plant food collocation, thickness collocation, color collocation, etc.

　　Animal and plant-based food pairing: also known as "meat and vegetable pairing", animal food and plant-based food are mixed and matched, both vegetables and meat.

While improving the color, aroma and taste of food, it provides more types of nutrients, such as shabu-shabu, Kung Pao chicken, etc.

　　Thick and thin matching: The refined white rice noodles we often eat may lead to a lack of B vitamins, and also lack of dietary fiber, which is not conducive to intestinal peristalsis.

Therefore, when making staple food, rice is combined with brown rice, miscellaneous grains (such as oats, millet, buckwheat, corn ballast) and miscellaneous beans (such as adzuki beans, mung beans, kidney beans, etc.).

When stewing rice, sweet potatoes or potatoes can be cut into cubes or granules and mixed and stewed.

　　Color matching: Rich food colors not only bring a beautiful visual experience, stimulate taste buds and enhance appetite, but also meet the needs of food diversity.

The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" emphasizes: "There are vegetables in the meal, and it is ensured that the daily intake of fresh vegetables is not less than 300g, and dark vegetables should account for half."

The rich variety of vegetable colors, behind which are a variety of phytochemicals, play an irreplaceable role in the prevention of chronic non-communicable diseases.

　　3. Small amount method

　　Have you ever had a similar experience: when you see delicious food, you want to eat everything, but you are full before you eat too much.

In your daily diet, in order to ensure food variety as much as possible, remind yourself to consciously eat small amounts of each food in moderation.

In fact, everyone knows a little bit about the truth of healthy eating. The point is to remind ourselves more in our daily life, and consciously self-discipline to regulate our eating habits will make our health one step closer to us.

　　Text/Gao Chunhai (Physician and Registered Dietitian of Tianjin Center for Disease Control and Prevention)