YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Good food is needed for a person to grow well, work hard and stay healthy. Good food helps to prevent disease, therefore eating right help the body resist sickness and helps the sick get well. To be healthy and strong, our bodies need a balance of different nutritious foods everyday. At every meal, we should eat something from each of these four food group.

1. Body building foods or proteins: These are necessary for growth, for making health muscles. Examples of such foods are meat, milk, chicken, eggs, fish, cheese, soya beans.

2. Energy foods or carbohydrates: Starches or sugars are energy foods. They are like wood for our fires. The harder an individual works, the more energy foods he needs. Examples of starches are maize or corn, wheat, rice, oats, yam, Millet, sorghum, potatoes, cassava, noodles, guinea corn. Examples of sugars are sugar, honey, sweet ripe banana, ice cream etc.

3. Energy storage foods or fats and oils: Fat is a concentrated form of stored energy. To eat a lot of fat can be harmful, but eating some fat or oil with each meal is healthy. Foods high in fat; cooking oil, salad oil, bacon, meat, fat, butter and Margarine. Vegetable oil is better than pig fat. Foods with Seine are groundnuts, soya beans, coconut, nuts, avocado, milk.

4. Protective foods or Vitamins and minerals: They help our bodies work  properly keeping all the body processes in good working condition and safe guiding against infection. We become sick if we don't eat foods with all the necessary vitamins. Minerals are needed for making healthy blood, bones and teeth. Foods rich in vitamins and minerals are meat, liver , eggs, fish, cheese, chicken, milk, vegetables, especially dark green and yellow ones, fruits, whole grain cereals.

To say you are what you eat means that your nutritional status depends on your diet or meal. Good feeding involves good choice of food in terms of quality, quantity and variety. Expensive foods are not necessarily most nutritious and by wise selection from less expensive and easily available foodstuffs, a person can be well feed.