Re-Organize Your Diet. Paolo Diacono – Paulus Diaconus

      Challenge n°8

      9) The Food Pyramid

      The Food pyramid

      Challenge n°9

      10) Food Guide

      Every day

      In small quantity

      2-3 times a week

      1-2 times a week

      Occasionally

      Rarely

      11) Organic and organic produce

      Organic?

      What to watch out for

      12) Use and Instructions

      Breakfast

      Snacks

      Lunch

      Dinner

      13) Basic rules

      14) Part 2, Vegetarian Recipes

      What to have in the house?

      Easy and simple recipes

      Breakfast

      Lunch

      Salads and sauces

      Dinner

      Sweets and puddings

       Bibliograph y

Chapter 1

      What diet to choose?

      Nutritional value

      Our body, our car

      Challenge n°1

      â€œThe majority of the food we eat is not the result of a choice but of influence”

      Allen Carr

      (It is easy to control weight if you know how to do it)

      What diet to choose?

      The Greek word 'diaitea', from which the word diet comes from, means lifestyle, therefore a dietary way of life that we human beings follow.

      Nowadays, when we talk of diet we think of two to three months, maybe before the summer, in which period of time we follow a short regime with rules on what to eat or not to eat.

      Very often the person that decides to lose weight decides on the basis of stories one hears or personal interpretations ending with no results or even worse causing a health risk. Moreover, the advent of the internet has contributed to the publication of many revolutionary diets mainly not scientifically based but only theoretical.

      Nutritional value

      When we buy a product we find on the packaging a list of the nutritional values of the food in question.

      What are they and what is this for?

      They are purely theoretical indications but a useful way to understand what we are eating and the positive or negative aspects of our diet. To start with we don't have a food composed just of carbohydrates or protein but we have a bit of both in every food. Therefore, the nourishment is considered carbohydrate if it is present in its majority and vice versa, if protein is in prevalence.

      In the list below and in the food list under carbohydrates you always see written “of which sugars” and under fats “saturated fatty acids”.This is because sugars and saturated fats are part of carbohydrates and fats that we have to watch for and limit their consumption.

      When we say “others” we are talking about vitamins and minerals, other very fundamental elements for our health, which are present in small quantities in nearly all food and of fibre, especially present in vegetables to aid the functioning of the bowl.

      It is now easy to understand that every food that we consume has positive and negative aspects to it.

      It is not good enough to eat carbohydrates for lunch or proteins in the evening just because we hear it is the way to do it, we must be careful about the type of carbohydrates or proteins we eat.

      The quantity of each nutrient varies according to the food, if it is from animal source there will be more proteins but also saturated fats, while vegetables will have more carbohydrates, water and more unsaturated fats (good “fats”)

      Our body, our car

      Our fuel is carbohydrate.

      Anybody who has read any health or dietary book has found this assonance.

      All very true and from here we already understand how fundamental carbohydrates are in giving us the energy we need to face the day ahead.

      To simplify even further, let us pretend for a moment that our body is really like a car; carbohydrates are, like we said, our fuel, while proteins (the bricks which hold our body) are the luxurious interiors and the smart bodywork, while fats are the seat belts and the tyres and they are there to protect us.

      All these elements are fundamental for the car to function and work properly.

      No one is part more important than the other, but each must be seen in the right context.

      One can have a new and beautiful car, with all the unimaginable security systems, but without fuel the car will not move. If we put in only a little fuel we would need to stop often for fuel. With too much fuel we would feel too heavy and if we introduce the wrong fuel we would need to go to the mechanic.

      For this reason carbohydrates are the basis of a healthy diet, which should be 50-60% of what we usually eat. With these proportions the chances of the car breaking down are reduced.

      Therefore if we don't take care of our car soon it will start getting ruined, with scratches and bumps, it will get rusty a little at the time and it would be too late to restore it to its original splendour.

      To stop that from happening we need very little, a small bit of maintenance each day to keep it beautiful and sparkling and even if years go by the charm remains the same.

      This short metaphor is to say that proteins are fundamental but are needed in much smaller quantities than we are made to believe. Each day they should make up 15% of what we eat.

      Fats, on the other hand, are our safety systems; driving without safety belts or with worn tyres are a great risk to our health.

      Good fats help to protect our body, while bad fats act against the good ones and put us at risk by making us more vulnerable.

      They should constitute 30% of our food intake.

      After this short lesson in mechanics let us now move on to getting to know these three fundamental nutrients, of which there are positive and negative aspects.

      Challenge °1

      At the end of each chapter we will find this section which presents the challenge to eat well and to carry it through to the end.

      They can be taken as a weekly challenge and we can try to follow them throughout the week or as a daily challenge where we try to incorporate one of those meals that we are advised to take.

      This first week we read this manual to get some idea of how it works, then