Importance of a balanced diet

The core value of a balanced diet has never been the “fat-loss code” or “health-preserving metaphysics” circulated in the public. It is to maintain the body’s metabolic homeostasis at the lowest cost, reduce the risk of common chronic diseases by more than 80%, and at the same time, it can stably support the energy needs of daily work, study, and exercise for a long time. This is the largest consensus reached by the global medical and nutritional circles after nearly a hundred years of research. To put it bluntly, your body is like a small processing factory that keeps spinning. A balanced diet is to provide it with a full range of qualified raw materials. It does not have to be imported high-end products, but if anything is missing, the production line will easily break down.

I have been doing family nutrition guidance for three years and have met no less than 200 ordinary users. The most common misunderstanding is that "a balanced diet is only for rich people" and "you have to eat avocado and salmon every day." Really not. Last year, I helped a girl who worked as an e-commerce customer service adjust her diet. She used to work two shifts and relied on instant noodles and convenience store fried skewers every day. When she worked the night shift, she had to drink two glasses of iced Americano to survive. She also suffered from oral ulcers two or three times a month. I didn’t ask her to buy any expensive supplements. I just asked her to add an extra portion of scalded green vegetables every time she bought food, a boiled egg for instant noodles, and two boxes of room-temperature milk a week. With such simple adjustments, the cost hardly increased. Within three weeks, she came to find her on her own and said that a cup of coffee can now carry her through the night shift. She hasn’t had an ulcer in almost a month, and it’s much more effective than the multivitamins worth several hundred yuan before.

Some people must see this and want to refute it. There are so many diet schools on the Internet now. The ketogenic party says that carbohydrates are the root of all evil, and the vegans say that eating meat will increase the burden on the body. Are these wrong? I have also met many people who adhere to these diets. It is true that some people lost 20 pounds in 3 months on keto, and some people felt lighter after going vegan. Anyone can come up with short-term positive feedback, but you have to look at the long-term data. The long-term special diet tracking report released by the Chinese Nutrition Society in 2023 mentioned that people who adhere to a ketogenic diet for more than 6 months have a 37% higher risk of dyslipidemia than people who eat a normal balanced diet, while people who are long-term vegans and do not actively supplement B12 and iron have an incidence of iron deficiency anemia of more than 60%. Last year, I met a girl who had been vegan for 3 years. During the physical examination, her hemoglobin was only 90g/L. She usually got out of breath even when climbing the third floor. Later, she adjusted to eating eggs and salmon twice a week, and then slowly made up for it. No single dietary pattern is suitable for everyone. Only a balanced diet is a universal solution that covers all ages and most physical conditions.

Some people always say that they are so busy at work that they don’t even have time to calculate the nutrition ratio? You don't need to count, just remember the "palm rule": for one meal, one palm-sized portion of protein (eggs, chicken, fish, shrimp, and tofu are all counted), two palms of vegetables, and a fist of staple food, half the thickness and half the thickness. Even if you eat takeout, choose a set meal with vegetables, meat and rice, replace the fried chicken legs wrapped in thick flour with skinless braised chicken legs, and replace the sweet fruit drink with sugar-free tea. This is already considered balanced. You really don’t need to eat boiled chicken breast, broccoli, and so on. You’ll get tired of it after a week and won’t be able to stick to it. What’s the use?

Oh, by the way, there are also those talented players. I met a sophomore boy a while ago. He said that he drinks Coke and eats fried chicken every day, and his body fat rate is less than 15%. There is nothing wrong with him in the physical examination. It is alarmist to say that he eats a balanced diet. To be honest, I really envy people like this who are born with good metabolisms, but if you check the 2024 Chronic Disease Report released by the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 62% of 35-45-year-old patients with high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes have a habit of high oil, high sugar, and unbalanced diet for more than 10 years. When you are young, your metabolism is fast and you can create energy. After the age of 30, your metabolism drops, and the debt you owe your body will always be recovered.

I myself can't help but eat spicy snail noodles and cream cakes. After all, eating is all about having fun. There is no need to force myself into an ascetic for the sake of balance. But I will drink two more glasses of milk and eat more green leafy vegetables the next day to make up for the nutritional gap. A balanced diet never requires you to be 100% precise, nor does it allow you to draw a line from all delicious foods. It essentially leaves enough room for the body to buffer - after all, we eat well not just to stay healthy and eat more delicious foods.